There was a thick unending darkness, the kind that reached across space and time to smother even the smallest glimmer of light in its inky grasp. It was the kind that made it impossible to see the nose on one's face, the kind that strangled all semblance of direction, choking the life of reason from anyone trapped in it. It stretched on ad infinitum–the lack of light somehow blinding in its intensity.
But even in that tenebrous place, so consumed by the dark, there was a distinct emptiness to be filled, and what slipped through the dark to fill it was a deeper, darker emptiness–the lack of sound, of sensation.
It was an absence–an absence of smell that lingered like the horrid aftertaste of hollow dreams and the tang of unfulfilled promises; an absence of touch that robbed one of the feeling of air, of resistance against their skin; and an absence of physical form with which to experience that uncaring emptiness.
Deep within that place, Monika's mind struck out, lashing with all its might to find something, anything to use as a tether, but no matter what she did, it was always the same.
This torturous, endless expanse of nothingness had gone on for so long that Monika was beginning to think this would be the rest of her existence. Her mind, raw from the overwhelming void, wandered listlessly through infinite topics, never dwelling in one place for too long–she knew from experience how easy it was to get stuck, trapped in a loop of endless repetition that would drive her closer to madness.
Or perhaps, she considered dully, she was already mad? It could be so hard to tell when there wasn't anyone else around with which to compare one's sanity. Maybe that was what she was missing–some company, a companion in this unfathomably deep nothingness.
A flare of white-hot pain flashed through her consciousness. If she'd had a physical form, she would have recoiled, pristine features cracking in a fractured mosaic of pain, but she was unable to react to the sudden feeling.
Then, as always, the feeling passed, and once it had, she tried to return to her previous line of thought.
What had it been? A beat. Ah yes, company.
She felt like something was missing here, like there was something she was forgetting. Perhaps not something, but someone?
The pain came again, stronger this time, and she was able to recoil, a cry tearing from her half-formed throat in ribbons of binary code that flowed out from her like a gaping wound. Try as she might to push it away, she couldn't escape the intrusive sensation.
Her scream elongated, her voice modulating and flickering between the static. She felt like she was being rent in two, pieces of her snapping as they were pulled far past their breaking point before being compacted back together with such force that could crush entire galaxies–a black hole of suffering, the death of a star in the furthest reaches of space.
She could barely process the data of her own death and rebirth through the pain. Her existence became nothing but excruciating agony and her own shrieking. Her joints cracked as they extended and bent in impossible angles, her skin prickling with what felt like millions of shards of glass. Her lungs heaved electrifyingly sharp gasps, trying to gulp down air that simply didn't exist as she choked on her own ethereal tears.
She was becoming delirious as visions of the club members–mangled and mutilated beyond recognition–surrounded her. Their silhouettes danced in blurry shadows as though displayed by projectors onto massive screens, too few pixels to form a proper image. The sudden light and color was blinding, and she slammed her neon emerald eyes shut in a vain attempt to block it out. Even so, the visions continued, their voices layering over one another until they were indistinguishable from each other and became nothing but noise, deafening noise that threatened to rupture her newly formed eardrums.
Then, as suddenly as they had come, the light and sound were gone again, returning her to that cold, unfeeling darkness.
Echoes of pain still pulsed through her until those too died away. The flow of time had become increasingly convoluted. Moments felt like they lasted for days, and yet years flew by in a matter of seconds. All that remained was the darkness, the void. Anxiety loomed–a terror of the unknown and a fear that the pain would come again. Eventually, it did, and she was dragged back–clawing in desperation–to the cacophony of tortuous sensation. She begged for mercy in the fragmented shards of her mind–begged to be released into the beautiful, unfeeling darkness once more with a promise that she would not search for the light again. Just as she thought she couldn't possibly take any more, there was sudden, blissful silence.
In that dark void she ceased to exist.
No sensation could reach her.
No thoughts could form.
There was nothing.
She was nothing.