Chapter 62.

A plane of white as far as the eye could see. I didn’t immediately understand where I was presently located. I turned around in a full circle as I looked about in all directions. My eyes inevitably landed upon a young woman dressed in a black one piece with a flowery design.

Around her neck was a red and silver choker. A detailed white snowflake ornament hung down from the choker at rest peacefully directly above her cleavage. Her black one piece was opened up around the top and drew a distinct V shaped line from her exposed shoulders down to the center of her chest. Her hair was pure white, similar to her pale face, reminiscent of a finely crafted doll. With her petite lips arched up slightly into a charming smile and her red eyes giving off a mysterious pinkish glow, I couldn’t pry my eyes away from her. She hovered over a gap where a transparent unidentifiable fluid flowed down a long winding path far into the distance of the pure white world.

She lifted her palm upwards in my direction with her index finger pointed directly at me. She then curled it towards and beckoned me forward. With no control over my body, by itself, it instinctively desired to close the distance between the two of us against my volition.

Something screamed inside me that whatever she was on top of was exceedingly dangerous. If I entered, there would surely be no return. I would be trapped and unable to escape. That was the kind of feeling it gave me.

With no means to resist, I mindlessly walked forward in a trance towards the index finger that beckoned me as it mesmerizingly extended and curled, extended and curled; repeatedly and endlessly. I was completely drawn in, like a fish caught in a large net. I was enchanted, mystified and controlled like a puppet pulled by an invisible string attached to her delicate finger.

I was only a foot away from the strange fluid when the world took on a sudden unexpected change. My eyes were drawn downwards from her index finger to her chest, then her stomach, to her hips, thighs, legs, and finally her feet. Rather than say my gaze was drawn downwards, my eyes hadn’t moved an inch from their initial position, they were still in the exact same position as before. The reason for the sudden change in focus was that I’d fallen downwards. Before she disappeared completely from my line of sight, I glanced up briefly at her face and found a look of disappointment with a slightly displeased frown that replaced her earlier charming smile.

After that cursory glance, she disappeared behind the horizon of what appeared to be the edge of the hole I’d fallen in. The white world was no more and I continued to fall without any sign of the ground below into what appeared to be a bottomless pit with no end in sight.

I fell and I fell, further and further into the silent abyssal darkness. Each passing second I spent falling felt like I’d lost a portion of myself. The seconds felt like hours and minutes like days. My perception of time felt distorted like I was drifting into nothingness for an eternity.

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Drip.

Eventually I’d forgotten myself, who I was, why I was here, and what I was doing. I couldn’t remember anything that happened in the time before the darkness appeared. I’d been consumed and engulfed. I no longer knew up from down or left from right. For such a long time there had been no change in sight that could be used to differentiate anything. It was just emptiness and isolation with not a soul to be found.

I grew more insecure as time continued to ruthlessly flow by. I felt alone, afraid that things would continue on like this forever.

At least, that was until a single drop of warm water landed on my face. How long I’d been falling, I’d already long forgotten. This single change rippled out far into the darkness; amidst the once perpetual silence, I finally heard something, a weak voice cried out as it progressively grew louder.

“Mommy.”

“Daddy.”

“Big sister.”

“Where are you?”

“Why did everyone disappear?”

“I’m lonely.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Please come back.”

“I don’t want to be alone again.”

“Don’t leave me as well.”

“Don’t abandon me.”

In the vicinity around me, in the once empty space, bubbles slowly appeared one by one. When I looked closely inside the bubbles, I discovered there were countless different scenes depicted inside them. Some showed a child with long white hair that draped down to her waist. She appeared to be about eleven years of age. I examined a few others and found they all showed the same child, but older as her body grew and matured throughout her life.

After I skimmed through them, I found a bubble that appeared to be the earliest scene in her life. I found the girl collapsed on the floor. She’d woken up all by herself inside a large abandoned mansion alone. Well, she wasn’t quite alone. There was a small dog licking the cheek of the girl who’d just woken up. She looked very malnourished, she was clearly hungry and starved. She searched throughout the mansion, but was unable to find anything to eat. Her eyes were dead and hollow, but she instinctively struggled to live despite it all.

The small dog followed behind her as well, but it was obvious it was not in any better shape than her. The two of them continued to wander through the mansion together searching and searching, until the small dog following behind the girl collapsed.

When the girl noticed she no longer heard the sound of the dog behind her, she immediately turned around and found the dog collapsed on its side on the ground. She staggered her way back towards the dog while leaning on the wall to support her body. When she arrived at the whimpering dog’s side, she knelt down beside it and called out to it.

“Mr. Puggy. Now’s not the time to nap. We need to find food.”

The dog whimpered a bit and licked her hand once before closing its eyes.

The girl continued to plead to the dog endlessly begging it to wake up, but it never did. It had already long reached its limit, the end of its life, it was dead.

The girl cried and cried, mourning over the dog, but despite her cries, no tears fell. She was extremely dehydrated and there were no tears she could shed for her beloved Mr. Puggy.

In the end, she cried herself to the point of collapse.

The bubble popped and disappeared after that. Of course, I wanted to know what happened to the girl after that so I looked through the bubbles until I found what I was looking for.