Looking into the Abyss

“In truth at the beginning I felt despair from the darkness and the thoughts in my head. The more I kept thinking about the past, the present and the future, the more it hurt, so I just stopped thinking towards the midway. I learned the most important thing is to keep moving forward.”

– Hiroyuki Takei, Shaman King

The door behind us opens, my blood turns cold and instinctively I turn to see what has entered. I saw a drone out of the corner of my eye, it wasn’t more than two meters away from us. Before I can turn, a bright bluish light comes from under its head and my mind goes blank.

Where am I? Everywhere I look there is only white, not white walls or floors but just white. I feel like I’m starting to lose my senses, afterall what does sight mean when there is nothing to see? What does hearing mean when not even my steps make a sound? What does touch mean when the floor under my feet can’t be felt? I know I’m standing on something but I can’t prove it! The only things I’m sure I can feel, is myself starting to hyperventilate and the anxiety taking over my mind. I try to kneel into a ball to at least sense myself, but I’m no longer sure if I can see and feel my body or if I’m just tricking myself into believing I do.

“No!”, I scream into the void. I tell myself with as much conviction as I can “Breathe and focus only on what you can do. There is no point in stressing about what you can’t change”. I remembered my father used to tell me that whenever he saw me getting too much into my head. It gives me a warm tranquility and happiness to know he is still helping even though we are apart.

Some time has passed and now that I've been able to recover from that initial panic, I’ve noticed a new feeling. Initially, I assumed it just was my mind trying to fill the absolute silence of the space with white noise. Then I started to pay attention to it and the more I focused on it, the more it felt familiar. Three distinct sounds which as I made an effort to listen to them they became stronger. Then, although I am still crawling in a ball on the ground, my body felt as if it was moving forward towards something in the horizon… or was something moving towards me? It is really hard to say while surrounded by an infinity of white emptiness.

Initially, this “something” looks like a gray dot that slightly changes color from time to time and the sounds coming from it are nothing but a faint buzz. As we get closer, I’m able to discern its shape or rather its shapes. Also, I realize it isn’t just a sound but it is voices although I can’t understand yet what they are saying. It looks like a single blob, changing in size and shape but always between three entities all the while each of the voices always accompany the same figure.

The first I recognized was a tree made out of words written in the air with golden and silver ink. When I focused on a word, I felt I could hear it being pronounced by an androgynous voice. Under it, its roots are wrapped around an invisible sphere that contains a serpent with the head of a lion. This tree seems mostly indifferent about me although I could feel a need to reach it, as if several missing parts of myself were held by it and it was calling me to grab them.

The second figure looked like a shining golden woman with immaculate and colorful silk clothing and shiny dark hair. The more I focused on her the harder it became to see her. I felt she was always present out of the corner of my eyes, all around me as if it was so immense I could not grasp her in my mind. And yet, I could clearly see her whole body in front of me, with her face being the exception, as from it a powerful light is coming blinding me whenever I try to focus on it. Despite not being able to look at her facial expression nor her body showing any emotion, I could feel indiscriminate and uncontrollable anger emanating from her. I don’t know if it is against me or something else, but it irradiates everywhere as the sun at noon irradiates light.

Finally, there is the bald man with peach colored skin, wearing simple black robes. On his face a well kept beard, barely existing but clearly taken care of with diligence. He is lacking a leg and standing in front of a deep dark cave carved into the emptiness. On its hand it holds a lance to support himself, this lance’s spearhead is made of silver colored fire. Inside the cave is an army of people clothed in solemn black robes. Strangely, he seemed peaceful and the army behind him made me think I would be safe.

For what felt like an eternity we kept getting closer but we never reached each other, although their size kept increasing more and more. Its shapes keep iterating between the three entities. Whenever one of them was about to touch me, it got pulled back and the next one would come.

I don’t know when, but after some point I’ve only been able to feel in awe. Even with the golden woman flaring its rage, the tree its indifference or the man’s love, all those emotions fade quickly. Consumed by the awe of experiencing something essentially human and beyond it at the same time.

From out of nowhere a green hue started filling the empty void like it was fog and at the same time the formless blob contracted into an infinitely small sphere. In a fraction of a moment, from it, the tree and the woman came out and grew in size reaching towards me with such speed I could barely notice it. Just before the two entities could reach me, they were stopped by the man in black and his army forming an infinite wall of darkness.

My eyes open and I see Marina looking down at me. First her expression surprised and then happy, opening her mouth wide open while smiling. Then she hugs me with all her strength almost to the point of suffocating me. The impact of this expression of love brings me back to my senses. The dullness and mental fog are no longer with me, although I can feel my consciousness being taken away from the lack of air because of Marina’s not so tender grasp. Rapidly and repeatedly I tap Marina’s shoulder to beg her to let me go until she finally does.

I’m looking at the ground, kneeling and supporting my torso with my hands as I try to recover myself, taking deep and long breaths. Each time I take air it hurts, it seems the drone that I saw got me in the chest. Marina kneels to reach me, looking a bit conflicted. She says with a soft voice “sweetheart please don’t freak out, they no longer want to hurt us”. As fast as I can I open my eyes and straighten my back to look around me. First, I freeze in fear, sweating cold as I see we are completely surrounded by drones. Then, Marina’s words reach out to me and I start to get an idea of what’s going on. Still, I want the details and ask “what the hell is going on?”.