Water.
That was all I could see, as my eyes fluttered open once again, despite me knowing that I should no longer have held the ability to see.
Though, not to be judgmental, it could all very well be hell. Yes, hell. That's the best thing I would be offered for the heinous acts I did while I was alive. And a few, too, against my own self.
However, the constant force pressing on my head refused to let me believe so.
Anyway, it could be the very first attempt at inducing pain through waterlogging, a form of welcome among the almighty demons.
The force was threatening to drown me, but at the very same time, it tugged me upwards.
It reminded me of when people would half-hang children from a building or some steep place, too steep to be called a hill.
It was their form of entertainment, fully aware that the little muscle-balls were hella scared.
Scared... I definitely recall something.
Leaving my internal monologue aside, unknowingly, a strange feeling began to bubble up inside me, running through me in short bursts, though faint.
I felt like moving, resisting, as I recognized the emotion within me. It was irritating, along with something primal, something I was far too familiar with.
However, before I could entertain any of those thoughts, the force doubled up, pulling me upwards with an instant jerk.
The perception blurred in vivid frames of myriad colors, until it finally came to a halt, revealing a young woman who had light platinum eyes, clear and unreadable, framed by purple hair that fell in loose waves.
Her skin was porcelain, pale and smooth, as with a nonchalant face she clutched my head.
"Remember. This was the last time."
A strikingly melodious voice followed, right before she plunged me into the bathtub, actually.
And for me? I could do nothing, but not in the sense of the opposing force, rather because my body didn't allow me to. I could not move myself in the literal sense, not even my mouth to speak.
Water rushed through my pores as I attempted to recall where I had seen that familiar face before, though the struggle unfurled itself sooner than expected, too much earlier.
I willed my hands to plant themselves for a nice push upward, but willing was all I could do, as the last remains of oxygen within my body almost exhausted, shifting my vision to black.
I willed my hands to plant themselves for a nice push upward, but willing was all I could do, as the last remains of oxygen within my body exhausted.
My vision shifted into something darker, and that's when I realized the familiarity of the situation I was in, the girl, the water, her words. I remembered it clearly.
Path of Unmentioned.
That was the novel I had been transmigrated into, and as a mere extra, no less—one of those characters who barely got a side story or two, just to keep the main story relevant.
Rael.
A character destined to die slowly, painfully, and gruesomely over many years after falling into the Eternal Despair Disease, when he was devoured by the Skin Stealers miserably residing in the Eidolon Line. Just for some sub-plot deployment shit.
Speaking of that, it was the only fantasy novel I had ever read in my entire life, and that too, repeatedly, again and again, until I lost count.
There were many other novels, far better than this one, but the power scaling, and the vastness of it all, were enough to captivate me for the while I was alive.
However, leaving that aside, the most concerning of all was that I was going to die, soon. And let me emphasize it, very soon.
I didn't want to die. Not when I had gone to insane lengths to achieve something just like this.
To win over my phobia, which, I felt, continued to haunt me even now, as I couldn't do anything at all.
We've all experienced that feeling, you know, that kind of dream where you keep falling eternally into pitch black, only to wake up suddenly before hitting the ground or getting hurt.
Well... let's just say that's exactly what was happening to me right now.
From the water, my vision had transitioned into pitch-black darkness along with me, as I kept falling into despair, with no direction to aim for, flung freely, as if the ground itself was rushing to meet me.
One might argue that I had been knocked unconscious after running out of oxygen, and that all this was just a dream.
I jest.
Because for my argument, we cannot think and imagine clearly while in dreams.
Though, the state I was in, was something similar.
Except this time, I would not wake up midway.
I would push past that limit we normally can't while in sleep, and enter into the area called Eldoinir Line.
Despite how user-friendly its name sounded, trust me, it was anything but that.
In the novel, Eldoinir Line was described as the area that lay between reality and the alternate entrance to the dreamlands.
My eternal fall into the abyss came to a halt, as if gravity itself had suddenly died, freezing me within one frame. The irritating feeling inside me somewhat settled down.
So, what to do now... I guess I'll start by sneaking through the skin-stealers, I thought to myself, recalling how the previous owner of this body had died.
Though there wasn't much about him, that particular scene was memorable, he had almost managed to slip past those skin-stealers, but at the very last moment, he fumbled hard, screaming his lungs off for some shit reason most didn't even care to read.
I stepped forward into the pitch darkness, with no idea what lay beneath or above.
Despite that, I could hear some eerie voices coming from a certain direction, which made it clear to me that was where I had to go, because those skin-stealers mostly liked to roam near the entrance.
And those eerie voices, well, according to the novel, that was their way of expressing displeasure after devouring their prey.
Yeah. They were constantly displeased, even after devouring them.