At the edge of his vision, Izumi saw the violet glow — faint at first, like a dying ember in a sea of ink.But then it pulsed.Once. Twice.Each throb of light echoed inside his chest, syncing with the rhythm of his own heartbeat until he could no longer tell which one belonged to him.
He sat there for a while, motionless, watching the light breathe.Fear pressed down on his shoulders like invisible weight. His mind whispered a hundred reasons to stay still — to hide, to wait, to not anger whatever gods ruled this place.But the silence offered no answers. The Void was endless, merciless, and still.He needed to move. He needed to do something.
He thought of the world outside — the world he barely remembered. The heatstorms, the blinding light, the people who built cities just to survive the day.And yet, even that hell seemed kinder than this place.This world of perfect darkness.
He swallowed hard. "There's no way… this is where it ends," he murmured.Then, forcing his trembling legs to obey, Izumi began to walk toward the violet light.
Each step was deliberate, quiet, almost reverent.He placed his feet carefully, avoiding even the smallest pebble as if the ground itself was listening. The silence was thick enough to smother sound, and yet he could hear his own pulse — and something else.A faint echo.A whisper of movement that didn't belong to him.
He ignored it.Or at least, he tried to.
The air grew colder the further he walked. It bit into his skin, sharp and dry, carrying a metallic taste like frozen blood. A soft mist began to gather at his feet, shifting in patterns that resembled veins crawling across the earth.Every few steps, he stopped and turned, half-expecting to see someone — or something — behind him.But there was nothing. Only the dark.
The light guided him like a heartbeat in the distance, but every time he looked straight at it, it moved.Not away, not closer — it simply changed. The glow would twist, fold, or ripple like it was alive, breathing through the fabric of the void itself.He couldn't tell if it was leading him or testing him.
Minutes — or perhaps hours — slipped by unnoticed. Time felt meaningless here. The only rhythm that existed was his breath and the pulsing light ahead.
Then, suddenly —
A sound.
A deep, resonant thud rolled across the landscape like distant thunder. The ground trembled beneath his feet, soft dust rippling outward. Another thud followed, louder this time, and closer.
Izumi's instincts screamed. Every part of him wanted to turn and run, to disappear into the dark. His legs ached to obey, but his mind refused.If he ran, he might lose the light — the only sign of direction, the only thing that tethered him to hope.
He stood frozen, trembling, torn between terror and desperation.
The air thickened. The temperature dropped until his breath came out as pale fog. His hearing sharpened, catching faint sounds — a scraping, dragging noise like something heavy being pulled across stone.
The violet glow flickered. For a brief instant, the landscape around him was illuminated — and that's when he saw it.