Maxi's maid tilted her head to the side, confused.
"Who needs you, Young....Master?"
He blinked rapidly, realizing he had spoken out loud. Clearing his throat, he quickly muttered,
"No… no one. It's nothing, don't worry about it. And I don't need anything."
The maid nodded, recomposing herself, while Maxi returned to his book. But his mind was elsewhere. Why did she need me? He wondered. What was it she needed from me that made me love her so much?
Then, suddenly—pain.
A searing, stabbing pain shot through his head and eyes as though needles were piercing through them. His right arm burned like fire, and from the corner of his vision, he saw the topmost eye in his three-eyed symbol shift—turning from its usual upward gaze to stare straight ahead.
His book fell from his grasp, hitting the floor with a dull thud as he clutched his head, thrashing in agony. A scream tore from his throat.
The maid rushed to his side. "Young Master! Are you okay?! Is this the doing of one of your siblings again?"
Maxi shook his head violently, unable to form words. The pain grew unbearable, his vision darkening—until suddenly, he wasn't in his room anymore.
He was somewhere else.
It was a black shadowy abyss but it seemed to be different from the void he found himself in in his dreams
But it also seemed similar as well in another way.
The floor was pitch black like a dream, but there was some light if you could even call it that.
There seemed to be a slight glowing sun on the horizon of this place. But its light seemed to be felt by something.
And those light dust particles seem to be the thing slightly illuminating the area
Maxi hesitated slightly to go forward towards the light not knowing if the light was good or if it was bad
It could very well be the light shining the way to his freedom, or it could just as easily be the light shining his way to an eternal fiery hell. It didn't matter what color the light was it could still mean both cases
But as Maxi thought longer and turned to the opposite direction of the light, he saw the radiance being greedily swallowed more and more by the gluttonous darkness until it was way too late, similar to the black void-like abyss in his dream.
So then Maxi had a dilemma, should he go to the unknown new light or should he just go with the black void, which he already knows what's about to happen to himself.
It was a hard decision but then he remembered a quote that said "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't"
Maxi then sighed after recalling the quote from his younger years, not to say that he was old, he was pretty young when he died. He was around his 20s if he recalled correctly
But nevertheless Maxi then starts walking.
Forwards.
Maxi was scared but being scared is the very thing that made him do this
For Maxi, fear isn't a deterrent but a challenge. A challenge that he will accept with open arms
Shaky open arms but open arms nonetheless
I mean, he did die doing something like this, so why wouldn't he do it again?
As Maxi slowly walked closer and closer, Maxi in fact did not see a shining sun being covered by some kind of big cloth or an angular fish with a sun as its angular.
Instead, he found something just as odd as the angular fish but shining with the same brilliance as the covered, palewhite sun would have
A towering, lanky figure stood before him, his back turned. The man's long, flowing fabric draped over his thin frame, moving as though caught in an invisible breeze. The robes covered every inch of his body except for his head, where long black hair cascaded down, nearly touching the unseen ground.
Then, the man turned.
His face was veiled, but the cloth was unlike anything Maxi had ever seen. It wasn't fabric—it was an endless expanse, filled with galaxies, universes, multiverses and what seemed like bigger. bigger and even larger, so much so that the words in his mind that he had a viable idea were not good enough to describe its magnitude.
But what word could even start to describe how big and how vast the amount of, what seemed like stars and planets grouped up together was
MEGAVERSE.
The word surfaced in his mind, as if plucked gently or fished out from his river of forgotten thoughts and knowledge he didn't even know he had forgotten, because at this point in time, he didn't even remember what the word meant.
The man reached up, pulling his veil slightly aside, just enough to reveal more of his mouth. His skin was a pure, impossibly pale white that seemed to glow with an otherworldly radiance that threatened to blind or to do even more and worse to Maxi if the veil didn't cover up already did.
The man smiled gently, his smile was just as mysterious if not even more, than the man himself as if he knew 1 too many secrets that he couldn't wait to reveal in some numinous plan
He spoke, but no sound came out.
Maxi tried to read his lips, though he was never particularly good at it. There were not that many situations where he had to do so, but there were enough for him to get used to it, not good at it.
He caught fragments.
"…you're nearly… few… years… introduce… this… I wish you the best…"
Then, agony. His muscles spasmed violently, his body shaking as if rebelling against the act of understanding.
The man's smile widened. He raised a single, long finger, wagging it from side to side in warning—Don't try that again.
But his smile said more
"Well at least not now"
"NOTYET"
Then, he extended his arms outward,revealing his somehow impossibly paler hands.
From behind him, eyes began appearing. A single eye at first, then more, rapidly multiplying. Different colors, different shapes, staring at him. Some were near. Others were impossibly far, watching from across universes, multiverses—realms Maxi couldn't even begin to comprehend.
Yet he felt them.
They weren't just looking at him inside his mind.
They were watching him in reality.
They were like cosmic spectators watching a puppet master's grand show
But as more eyes appeared earth-shattering realizations after earth-shattering realizations hit and filled his mind
They weren't just watching his peasant
They were watching
his past
His future
They watched him make life-changing and even universe-changing choices that he could barely begin to conceive or imagine
They watched his every step his every move his every reaction
Like reviewers reviewing a movie they could easily rewind and fast-forward
Their eyes were indifferent to it all.
Their eyes were indifferent to his birth or to his death.
And something about that made Maxi feel something.
that in the eyes of such terrifying beings even if only seeing their eyes the knowledge that his life was so worthless to them stirred something inside of him.
Then at that moment Maxi felt it.
[exignificance] surprisingly the feeling didn't feel new as if he had felt it before.
But Maxi didn't know or remember when.
But as more and more knowledge started filling Maxi's mind, starting to overload him, Maxi started to take the repercussions of having so much knowledge flooding his mind. He started suffering mental damage as blood started to drip down from his nose.
The man then gave one last gently luminous smile
Before covering himself fully under his veil.
Then all the light that once illuminated the area disappeared along with the eyes.
A clapping sound echoed within the space.
The shadows in the space shifted as they slowly. Become more and more deeper and more terrifyiny. It seemed as if the abyss was corrupting the shadows. To no longer stand as a mirror of an object, dependent on light. But to be its own, to stand alone for it to be its own object, its own creation without a master.
Well, at least for the little time it didn't have a master. Someone would take ownership of them soon. But for the time being. They were there own master.
So each shadow turned deeper.
It was quiet the terrifying sight. The best way Maxi could describe it was as if he was deep in the forests, camping sitting by his campfire. Which then suddenly the campfire goes out, leaving no embers no light at all. leaving him alone with the deep darkness of the forest.
Maxi was ready to accept his fate to become consumed by the shadowy abyss.
The clapping sound echoed in his ears even though it had long faded away
it continued.
It calmed his mind despite the Circumstance he was in all the knowledge that had forful entered his mind, and started to leave.
The feeling was like the slow pulling and untangling of a ball of yarn.
As even feelings that {Maxi} didn't want to remember were gone.
Maxi woke up.
A warm, wet towel rested on his forehead. His breaths were heavy, his body weak. Turning his head, he saw his maid placing a tray of food on his bedside table.
When she noticed he was awake, she rushed to him, wrapping him in a tight embrace.
Maxi barely registered it. His mind was still reeling. He asked not directly to her but to the universe, and this realm in general.
"What the hell just happened?"