Wherever he looked, it was white.
'Where am I?'
Brand drifted in the vast, empty void, aimlessly floating through the space. The silence pressed against him, soft and gentle.
'Is this… the afterlife?'
"We came to this world alone, and we die alone." His dad's old saying slipped out before he realized it. Hearing his voice echo through the void made him flinch.
Eventually, A small silhouette came into view, drawing closer. At first, he was curious and leaned forward to get a better look, but panic quickly followed.
He extended his hand and tried to push against the empty space, desperately attempting to swim away from the silhouette's path. A crash felt imminent.
Right when he thought the silhouette would crash into him, it simply phased through him.
His gaze followed the object as it drifted past him. A small angel, like the cupids he'd seen in books or movies, was waving at him.
"Hurry! Follow me!" The angel with long pink hair shouted, urgency sharpening her voice.
He hadn't fully grasped the situation and hesitated for a brief moment before panic set in. But in the weightless void, moving felt nearly impossible.
The endless white void began to spiral downward, folding in on itself to form a tunnel. That was when weight returned to his body.
'I had to follow the angel…'
The little angel did not wait for him and flew ahead.
Brand was now running through the tunnel alongside this unknown angel.
'Where are we heading? What's at the end of the tunnel?'
Thoughts crept in, but he stayed on course. There was no choice… he couldn't linger and risk the spiralling vortex behind crushing him.
The scenery began to change as they ran through the tunnel. Hues of colored light swirled through the spirals, but Brand didn't pause to take them in. He focused entirely on following the angel and the path she led.
After what felt like an eternity, a landscape came into view, encased in a glowing ring.
"That's the rift gate… the end of the tunnel!" The little angel exclaimed.
"By the way, I'm Seraphine." She puffed out her chest and winked at him.
"I'm Brand…" He replied, exhausted from all the mental and physical strain he had endured.
Together, they leapt toward the rift and escaped the endless white space, only for Brand to land face-first in the sand.
He had a mouth full of sand.
***
Brand's ears rang with a metallic clanging. The sound persisted even after he covered them.
He opened his eyes and found himself in a foreign place. He was no longer in the endless white void, nor in the ancient ruin.
Sand stretched in every direction. Dunes piled upon one another, rolling across the horizon.
Seeing that there was nothing that seemed to be the source of the sound, he came to a shocking realization.
'It came from within me?'
"Boo!" A little girl's face suddenly appeared before him, and he staggered in surprise. Strangely, the metallic ringing in his ears stopped the moment she appeared.
His vision shifted, a strange red tint spreading across everything he saw.
[Seraphine — Your kind, sweet, beautiful, cute, charming, understanding, and knowledgeable guide.]
A series of texts began appearing beside the little angel.
Brand stumbled backwards in shock, falling to the ground. Trembling, he pushed himself up with his arms and surveyed his surroundings once more.
"Were we still on Earth?" He asked the angel, the only one he could communicate with. After all, they had shared the same journey escaping the white void together.
Now that he thought about it, there was a strange familiarity to her. The events seemed almost prearranged, as if they had all been planned from the moment she had asked him to follow her out of the collapsing white space.
'The mechanical eye mentioned sending a guide?'
He tried to find a logical sequence behind what had just transpired, attempting to relate it to the ancient ruin, where everything had gone wrong.
"Were you the 'Little Sera' the mechanical eye mentioned?" He asked cautiously, still haunted by the experience in the ancient ruin.
"Yes! And I'm your assigned guide!" Seraphine exclaimed.
***
Brand stretched his body, fascinated by his current state. His tattered form had been repaired.
Repaired.
That was what truly spooked him.
'As if I've really become something inhuman…'
"My body was… really reconstructed into a cyborg?" he asked, seeking confirmation from the angel, the only being who might have a clue about what had happened to him.
"Yes, Brand. The serum injected into you was imbued with Seraphim power," Seraphine explained. "It coursed through your bloodstream, rebuilding your body from within!"
"..."
Seraphine began explaining the serum in more detail… its origin, its concept, and how it worked.
But none of it mattered to Brand. The only thing that mattered was that he was alive.
Revenge for what he had suffered? He couldn't even imagine it.
But one crucial piece of information had reached him.
'Seraphim… The mechanical eye's name.'
The mechanical eye bore the name of an angelic being of the highest authority. Even its appearance was modelled after descriptions from the Bible.
The suffocating pressure Brand felt simply by meeting its gaze was almost unbearable.
A new question formed in his mind.
"By the way, Seraphine, there's just one thing I'm curious about." Brand interrupted her monologue.
"Why did Seraphim leave me alive?" he asked. This was the most critical question. Such a being wouldn't leave someone alive without a purpose. He didn't believe Seraphim was that benevolent.
"Ahem, yes," Seraphine replied after a light cough. "He has given you a sacred task."
"But first, let's run through a series of tutorials, shall we?" she said, circling Brand. A space began to envelop him. The endless stretch of sand dunes instantly dissolved, replaced by a dark void with a glowing grid floor.
"This…" Brand trailed off, shocked by the sudden transition.
"I have some useful functions imbued within me, hehe," Seraphine giggled.
A chill ran across Brand's now cybernetic skin. Seraphine was far more powerful than he had imagined… to be able to conjure an entire false space with ease.
Yet she shrugged it off as if it were nothing, and immediately began her 'tutorial.'