The Endless Void

Only our ragged breaths broke the silence. My hand stayed locked around Sora’s, fingers tight. She suddenly hugged me and let out a silent, trembling cry. I patted her head, trying to sound calm even though my own heart was racing.

“Don’t worry, Sora. I’ll get you out of here. Everything will be fine.”

I kept holding her hand until she stopped trembling. Then I looked around.

There was a faint light here — impossible light. Nothing should have been able to reach down here, but a weak glow hung in the air and made the walls visible. It was the kind of light that didn’t come from a lamp or torch. It felt wrong.

The walls were covered in paintings and hieroglyphs. Gods with dog-like heads, men with knives, strange ritual scenes. I’d seen old drawings and statues during my other explorations, but these were different — darker. Some pictures looked like sacrifices. Heads being cut off. Symbols about giving power, binding souls. The images crawled along the stone and the more I looked, the more my skin crawled.

I tried not to stare. In that pale light everything looked colder, crueler. It made my stomach twist.

Sora was still clinging to my hand. I gently pushed her aside and helped her to her feet. She stood up slowly, blinking sand from her lashes. I searched the walls for any sign of a passage, any gap that could lead out. There was nothing — only stone and carvings and silence.

When I took a step, the darkness ahead seemed to swallow the edges. I could only see a little in front of me. But when I moved forward and reached that place, the space ahead opened a bit and I could see farther. Then, when I looked back, the farther places vanished again. It was like the room was revealing itself inch by inch, as if something was guiding our steps.

That made my skin crawl more than the pictures did.

I squeezed Sora’s hand so hard my fingers ached, and kept walking. I tried to force my mind away from those carved faces and the meaning behind them. Every step felt watched. Every shadow felt alive.

I walked with Sora alongside me, step by step, holding her hand tight. The sand beneath us shifted with every movement, whispering in the silence. Every step felt heavier than the last. We had no idea where we were going. The darkness swallowed everything around us, and the strange, faint light coming from nowhere did little to ease the unease.

I kept glancing at Sora. Her face, pale under the dim glow, was tight with fear, yet there was determination in her eyes. I couldn’t let her give up. I had to keep going. I was the one who had brought her here, who had put her in this situation. Even if the odds of finding an exit were almost zero, it wasn’t nothing. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t leave her.

We walked for what felt like endless minutes. My legs were heavy, my lungs burned, but I forced myself to keep moving. I focused on Sora’s small hand in mine. That hand… it reminded me why I had to go on. Why I couldn’t give up. The weight of responsibility pressed on me, and I carried it like armor, even as the fear tried to creep in.

Then, something caught my eye.

A massive door stood before us, impossible in size and scale. It stretched at least twenty meters long, far taller than any doorway should. My stomach turned, a mix of awe and dread crawling up my spine. This was no ordinary exit. I froze for a moment, unable to take it in.

I reached out and touched it. The moment my fingers brushed the surface, the door started to move. Slowly, piece by piece, the enormous blocks shifted. They were exactly the size of the stones used in pyramids, the kind I had studied in every exploration. My mind raced. Hidden galleries, secret chambers, ancient mechanisms… Could this be one of those theories come to life?

The door opened further, revealing pitch-black darkness inside. No light seeped in. I hesitated, staring at the void, and Sora’s hand tightened around mine. Her grip was firm, but there was trust there. I could feel it. She was counting on me. I couldn’t let her down.

I inhaled, steeling myself, and took the first step inside. A sudden gust of wind, like a breath from the darkness itself, brushed past us, sending shivers down our spines. The moment I stepped fully into the room, it felt… different. The dimension itself seemed to stretch, bending around us. The walls, the floor, the air—it all shifted in ways my mind couldn’t process.

I tried to steady myself, to tighten my grip on Sora, but my hand found… nothing.

“Sora! Where are you?” I screamed, my voice cracking.

“I’m here! Oni-chan!” Her voice answered, panicked and small.

“I can’t see you! Where are you?!” I shouted back, panic rising in my chest.

“I… I don’t know! Oni-chan! I—” Her words cut off in a strangled scream.

“Hold on! Hold my hand, Sora!” I cried, reaching out blindly. “Don’t let go! Don’t you dare!”

There was silence for a moment. Then I heard her again, weaker: “I… I can’t… Oni-chan…”

“What do you mean you can’t? Where are you?!” I yelled, fear making my voice raw. “You were right here! You can’t just disappear! Answer me, Sora!”

Her voice trembled. “I… I… When I tried to tighten your hand… I realized I was holding… nothing… Oni-chan… I—”

“No! No! Don’t do this! Sora!” I screamed, panic clawing at me. “Don’t vanish! Don’t leave me! I won’t forgive myself if you vanish now! Hear me, Sora! I… I can’t lose you! I won’t let it happen!”

Her scream echoed and then started fading, distant, stretched. It sounded as if the air itself was pulling her voice away, stretching her further and further.

“Sora! SORA!” I shouted, louder than I ever had. “I’m here! Don’t you dare leave me! Don’t! I’m not going to let you go! You hear me?! YOU HEAR ME?!”

But she didn’t answer. Her voice was gone, swallowed by the darkness. Only my own echoed back to me, bouncing off walls I couldn’t see.

I kept screaming, my voice raw and broken: “SORA! I’M HERE! HOLD ON! DON’T LET GO! I WILL FIND YOU! I DON’T CARE WHAT HAPPENS! HEAR ME, SORA! HEAR ME! I WILL SAVE YOU! I CAN’T LOSE YOU!”

The echo came back, my words stretching endlessly, fading slowly into the void. No reply came from her. Only my own desperate cries, twisting and repeating, as if the space itself wanted to separate us.

I stumbled forward, reaching blindly, calling her name over and over, my heart pounding like it would burst from my chest. Every step I took felt like sinking into nothing, the darkness pressing from every side, but I kept moving, shouting, refusing to let go—even as the sound of her voice disappeared completely.

“SORA! SORA! SORA!” My cries filled the black, until even the echoes began to stretch, thin, fading. But still I called. I had no choice. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t lose her.

But eventually my own voice faded too. The space felt like it kept stretching, expanding, and I couldn’t hear the echoes anymore. It turned painfully silent. I collapsed to the ground. No words would come. The floor felt strange beneath me — almost like glass or ice, cold and thin, like I was lying on something that shouldn’t be there. I couldn’t feel it properly, only the cold creeping up through me.

No. I can’t stay down. I can’t just sit here forever. I have to find Sora.

I forced myself up, pulling the last of my strength together, and started walking. Darkness pressed on every side. I had no idea where I was heading. I couldn’t tell if I was going in circles. There was no room for thinking—only one thought kept me moving: keep going. Even if I didn’t know whether I was actually getting closer, I had to move forward.

I just kept moving, my mind empty of any sense or reason. Nothing made sense. It was an endless dark void. I lost track of time — every minute felt like a day, every hour like an age. I kept going. My legs burned until they felt like they would split, but still I pushed on. In the end, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I collapsed to the ground.

I opened my eyes with a gasp, like I’d been pulled from water. The world was a knife — sharp and bright — and then everything flipped into darkness.

Images hit me all at once. My mother’s face, twisted in panic. A shadow looming over her — the man who violated her. I could hear her screams, the sound of her pain, the agony pouring out of her. My head throbbed; I pressed both hands hard to the sides of my skull like I could push the noise away.

Then — a tearing sound. Not the right word, but it was the noise of a life being ripped apart. The image I could never take back flashed before my eyes: her hanging there, silent and still. Her tongue hung out, her eyes bulging like they would pop. The sight burned into me, a pain so sharp it felt like my vision itself was on fire.

I clawed at the air, choking. My chest crushed in on itself. I couldn’t tell which came first — the scream or the memory. They bled together until I couldn’t separate the now from the then. I saw it all as if it were happening again, every horrible second played back behind my eyes.

“No—no, no!” I screamed, lungs burning. My voice was raw, shaky, like it had been dragged over glass. I puked out words between sobs: “Someone—please—someone help me! Make it stop! Make it go away!”

My hands trembled, fingers digging into my palms until it hurt. I pressed them against my temples as if I could push the pictures out, shove them into the stone, bury them so deep they’d never find their way back. “Erase it—erase my past—please. I can’t take this. I can’t—”

I was breathless, each inhale a fight. The darkness around me felt heavier, as if the air itself was pressing the memories into my skull. I kept screaming until my throat burned raw, until even my own voice sounded like an echo from far away.

Little by little it started to fade. The pounding in my head loosened its grip, as if the memories themselves were retreating.
That’s when I saw it — a faint glow, far off in the endless dark. My chest tightened. A last glimmer of hope… maybe my only chance. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t answer me. They felt heavy, stiff, like they weren’t mine anymore. I pushed, strained, but they buckled beneath me every time.

Still, I couldn’t stop. That light was slipping further away, slow but certain, and the thought of losing it tore me apart. So I dropped to my hands, clawing forward, dragging my body across the cold, unseen floor. My arms shook, skin scraped raw, but I didn’t care.

“Wait! Please, don’t go!” My voice cracked, echoing through the void. I begged again and again, chasing the glow. Inch by inch, I pulled myself closer, my lungs burning with every breath. The light pulsed brighter as I neared, as if it were alive, waiting… testing me.

Finally, I reached it. My fingertips brushed the glow, and the moment I touched it, everything around me exploded into a blinding brilliance. White swallowed my vision, my thoughts, my very breath. The last thing I felt was the weight of the darkness being torn away.