Chapter 3

A being was in the middle of darkness. The only thing it could see was the darkness, it was not sure if the darkness was ever stretching or confined to a small space, it could only see darkness. That was until a tunnel emerged, with light at the end. Not knowing what to expect, the being was cautious for a second before getting an urge to go to the light, an urge so strong that it overrode all other thoughts or emotions. After reaching the end of the tunnel the light blinded the being, it could only hear the cry of something, a high-pitched noise. The being was most perplexed at this noise, because it realised the being itself was making it.

Instead of the relieve that the urge had promised, there was a myriad of blinding colours. There was a myriad, composed of all kinds of colours that it did not have the words to describe. Though they were vague, it was the first time the being had seen anything like this. Feeling pain from the overstimulation of its visual senses, the being receded its vision again. After several moments of comfort from the darkness, it tried to open its eyes again. It could only open its eyelids for a second, the only thing the being saw was a smile. Blood red lips with a skin so white it seemed to shimmer in the moonlight. It was the last thing the being saw before being forced back into the darkness that it was in earlier, however now it was aware of itself inside of the dark void.

Thoughts raced through the being’s mind, filling the empty space with all kinds of questions, hypothesizes, and finally a conclusion. The conclusion that the being simply did not have enough information. After reaching that conclusion, the only thing that was present in the mind of the being was the smile. It did not know who it belonged to, why the woman was smiling, or what was happening to them.

Suddenly the being was shocked, how did it know that that smile belonged to a woman. It knew nothing, but that piece of information suddenly sprung up in its mind like it was the most natural thing in the world! Why did this information seem so natural to it, and how did he get it?

But before it could continue its thoughts, it noticed a vibration. A vibration that seemed to ripple through all the darkness surrounding the being. While it was very powerful and caused large ripples in the fabric of the void, it was oddly familiar, and gave the being a feeling of security. After several moments of hearing this sound the being’s consciousness fell back into the darkness.

It was only until another vibration rippled through the darkness that the being’s consciousness awoke, an agonizing vibration that carried over all kinds of things the being had never experienced. It carried grief, sadness and self-hate. The being had never experienced something like this, it both enjoyed and hated the new experience. For it gave the being new but painful feelings that were hard to process, because of this it screamed. It could only wail because of the pain it experienced, this pain lasted for an uncertain amount of time until it finally subsided. The pain was replaced with a rhythmic sound of something hard hitting the ground at a rapid pace, while the being once again asked itself where this information stemmed from, it also enjoyed itself. Enjoying the noise, but not opening his eyes due to fear of seeing those blinding colours again.

This lasted until the rhythm suddenly stopped, the being felt that it was being moved, and that feeling was followed with the touch of something cold and hard against its face. It opened its eyes, fearing the touch more than the blinding colours, and saw something that resembled a spider. Despite the oddity of the white spider, the being was not scared. The being was delighted seeing it, since it reminded it of the white and blood red smile it saw before. The being finally found something it was familiar with, it was overjoyed. However, this lasted for but a moment as the spider started to turn away from the being and run off.

Not knowing what to do, the being observed its surroundings. It identified its surroundings as a forest area, how it did this the being did not know. Seeing that it was in an unfamiliar area and possibly dangerous area, it retreated into the comfort of the darkness and tried to calm itself by screaming its discomfort out. The being was only able to continue this for a moment until it was interrupted by a noise, followed by more noise and the feeling of warm air blowing towards, and against it. Opening its eyes, it saw a man standing in the door, his expression seemed perplexed. The being did not know who this man was and certainly did not trust him, along with the surroundings, and thus screamed louder.

The man released a panicked yelp and his expression turned sour before picking the baby up and putting it in a bed. It was only moments later that a woman entered the room and confronted the panicking man by picking up the being and cradling it against her body. The being was surprised and perplexed at first, why was this woman holding it so close to her, before he noticed the vibration. It wasn’t the same vibration he had felt before, but it was comparable. Feeling the vibration echoing throughout his mind, the being calmed down and cradled itself against the woman, and finally falling from consciousness due to the stress it experienced.

Back in the comfort of the black void, the being relaxed under the rhythm of the vibration making ripples in the void. During its period of relaxation, the being began to ponder the current situation. Who were these people, why was this woman exuding so much love towards him, and who was he exactly? The last question struck the being the most, since it still did not know what it was except for what existed in this void. It had only seen small parts of its own body, while it had seen those of the man and the woman.

The physical body of the being was touched when it was in the darkness, but it did not mind due to the rhythmic vibration that rippled through the dark void. It filled the being with calmness and a sense of security as it had done before. This was until this rhythm was broken, the being opened its eyes only to see that it was being laid in the cradle that it lay in earlier. Towering above him was another man, not the man he recognised from earlier. The man seemed to be a bit smaller in comparison with the other man, he seemed to have a softer face, and a subtler jawline.

Seeing this unfamiliar man, the being went to the comfort of the darkness. Not being very alarmed, but still uncomfortable, it did not scream. Instead it resided inside the dark void along with its thoughts, who was this man, and what was he doing? Its train of thought was interrupted by a feeling, a feeling that the dark void around it was being felt. Not with a direct touch, but more like that it was thoroughly analysed from a short distance. The being was alarmed, since it was the first time that something like this had happened. While it did not feel bad, it felt uncomfortable. Afraid of losing the comfort the void gave, the only comfort it got to enjoy up until now. It screamed once again, noticing this the thing that analysed it was startled and stopped its analysation.

As the analysation came to a stop, the void was touched by the outside force. After that, the outside force seemed to retreat its touch, and disappear.

While the outside force had disappeared, the consequences the touch brought were only just about to begin.

The touch had triggered something inside the void. The black void started swirling around itself, it was swirling around one point, where it seemed to condense into one small black point. The condensing of the black void seemed to strain Daelyn’s mind greatly, he fell from consciousness after it had condensed, and was unable to notice the condensing of the black void. The space that the black void had left behind, was some that seemed to be a pure contrast to it. There was a pure white void that seemed just as endless but much more peaceful than the black void.

Upon regaining its consciousness and opening its eyes, the being saw the man and the couple talking. Strangely enough, the being could understand them. He understood their language, the meaning behind their words and the message behind them. The being was perplexed, how did it know this much, did it now more languages, and, most of all, it wondered if he could communicate with them. Trying to form some words, the being could only release gurgling sounds that went unnoticed by the trio conversing. The baby concluded that it knew the language, but could not form the words due to the state of its body.

After they had finished their conversation, the being knew more about the other people in the room. The man and woman that seemed to be in a relationship were named Grey and Lyvia, and the other man was a mage named Elrieden. Besides this information, the being also gained the information that he was in a healthy condition, which pleased it greatly, and that its parents were unknown. The last piece of information worried the being greatly, it knew the concept behind parents and would love to have at least one. It wanted to explore this world, but knew it would be unwise to do this without a secure place to do this from.

Only moments after learning this, the woman proclaimed that they would be its parents from now on. Which both perplexed the being, and filled it with joy. For it did not know why they did it, but they wanted to take him in as their child, accept him, and cherish him.

The being was overjoyed from the prospect of a secure place to explore this world from.

The last thing the couple spoke about after the other man had left, was its name. They did not know it and neither did the being, they tried to find clues in the ‘basket’, as they called it, the being had arrived in. Finding nothing in the basket, they decided to name him themselves. After a rather short discussion, they decided to name the boy Daelyn.

The being was overjoyed and at the same time a bit saddened. It was a bit saddened, because very little time had been spent discussing its name. It quickly pushed this thought to the back of its mind, and rejoiced. It had a name and it knew now what gender it was!

This information made it far easier to paint a picture of what the being was, and it had a name! A name that was special to him, while there could be other with the same name, the being still carried it with pride.

After naming the Daelyn, he could visibly see the exhaustion affect his parents. After making sure that he was okay, they went to bed. Daelyn however, already had a lot of sleep due to the coma like state he was in before he arrived here and since he had frequently escaped to the void, making it so that he wasn’t tired in the least.

Upon trying to meditate and enter the void, he found some difficulty doing it. He was perplexed, earlier it was as easy as breathing for him, why was it suddenly so hard now?

Daelyn tried again, trying to regain the state of calmness he had used during his first time entering the void. As he was trying, he seemed to be missing something, like he needed to remember something but he could not grasp the memory. As he was finally able to grasp it, the pain from the mental strain from earlier suddenly kicked in full force from the memory.

Only after several moments of enduring the pain, did it subside. He decided to leave the rest of that memory for now in fear of more pain, and instead decided to once again try and enter the void.

Controlling his breathing from his lying position, he calmed down his body and with that his mind. He emptied his mind of all the images, emotions, and discoveries he had made earlier that day, and felt a white light engulf his consciousness. He felt like his calmness enabled him to slide down from his worldly sensations and enter a different space, as he entered the void.