The void was a strange place. It was darkness absolute. I only knew I was alive after stroking Turtley's. He didn't like that one bit, having reached his head out and bitting my finger several times. I'm sure it was just an accident...for the 20th time.

In this endless darkness, my mind was starting to play tricks on me. Without any stimulus, my brain began to fill in the darkness with moving shadows. They swirled through the endless darkness and seemed to get closer.

I read somewhere on the internet that the mind does this when confronted with darkness. It wants to fill in the blanks, but can't find anything to latch onto. This results in shadowy movements that feel like something moving in the dark.

Then my 'mind trick shadows' roared. They FUCKING ROARED.

"Just an illusion. Yes, that's it. I'm in a coma right now. I stroked out on the walk back and am unconscious in a hospital. Totally, that's it. Yes. It has to be..."

*ROOOOOOAAR*

Sweat immediately soaked my entire body. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I felt that boosting jolt. My eyes focused as much as they could and my heart rate soared. A million years of evolution to get me to this point; a sweaty boy who can freak out slightly faster than usual.

The shadow was now close enough to see. It emitted a dim light around it, almost like a glowing shell. The grey light surrounded the creature.

Without perspective, I couldn't judge distance or size, but the thing was growing by the second; along with a dozen friends right by its side.

The leviathan had no eyes, only a singular gaping maw with what seemed to be endless rows of teeth. The entire surface of it was jagged, like a worm made of rocks, making every one of its unnatural movements look sharp. It slithered through the black space, slamming against its friends and trying to out-roar each other. It swam forward with its titanic-sized fins, even though there was no water and we were in the void of...where were we?

*ROOOOOOAAR*

"I'm gonna be food!"

I tried to search around, look for anything to protect me. The space was just as black as before, only containing the deadly creatures that rapidly approached me. The end was nigh for Max Grand, just 18.

What I didn't know, was that I had actually been moving. I was being pulled toward an invisible source of gravity; rapidly accelerating. It was only when I felt a wall of jelly-like goo wrap around me that I could see the source: A planet

It was an entire planet, floating through the black void. My first thought was: were there are more hidden planets in this void? My second thought was: what the fuck! Why is there a planet floating through the void? Followed up with an I-don't-care-so-long-as-I-make-it-out-alive shrug.

Once I had passed through the clear jelly wall, the entire planet became visible to me. Oh, and I started to plummet. My throat was hoarse from all the screaming, so I made a note in my mind to scream later.

My impromptu skydiving session allowed me to finally turn around and look up at the void boundary. Up this high, I could see the leviathan creatures slam against the barrier, its teeth filling the entire sky, threatening to swallow the planet. It roared and crashed into the barrier over and over. Its buddies followed its example, throwing their endless chompers at the problem.

I watched with uncertainty, was this strange lunch-like-sandwich-material barrier going to hold? Apparently so. The creatures never made it through and began to float off. I watched empty space, waiting for them to come back and execute their final move, but as I fell closer to the surface of the planet, the entire sky began to shift and change.

The boundary of sky and void turned to a pretty light blue. A sun appearing in the sky to my right, casting down its brilliant light. All traces of the danger beyond the boundary disappeared. It was like a curtain was cast over the world, shielding the planet while providing something nice to look at.

I stopped admiring the sky when I realized I was still falling to my doom. I still had my screaming penciled in for later, so I for the moment was able to focus on my survival. I had watched dozens of 'How to survive a skydive without a parachute' videos on youtube in the past. This means I am fully prepared to execute those facts in reality. I will come out of this with minimal injuries.

The videos say to find gradient slopes and soft terrain so you can break the least amount of body parts; avoid water and flat areas. This lead to my first problem, I saw nothing but the ocean.

"..."

No! I could do this! I have racked up at LEAST a thousand hours of survival tips and tricks videos. I was a master of the jungle, a hunter like no other, a builder of civilization when the modern one fell. I was unstoppable!

I stared at the ocean, searching for the best spot to land. The waves were large and undulating, splashing over each other into destruction and combining to make even larger waves. From this, an idea sprouted from my mind.

I was going to aim for one of the forming waves. I would use the slope formed from the water as a pseudo-slide so that I can translate some of my vertical speed into horizontal speed. This will slow my momentum over a larger distance, allowing my body to handle the splashdown.

My aim was on point, zeroing in on the perfect wave. It rose above the others as I neared. Ten feet before impact, moving at terminal velocity, I was prepared, I was ready.

And then I smashed my face into the water, going right through the wave. So much time on the internet wasted! I had shattered all of my bones while turning all of my organs into shredded soup. I was little more than a red meat stain floating on the ocean.

It happened too fast to be painful. My brain scattered before the sensation of 'pain' could be registered. My mind sat in this ethereal state, like a lucid dream full of flashing lights and sensations. What it was exactly, I had no clue, but I knew it felt...itchy.

As I was, ya know, dead, I thought that would be the end; I would be handed a certificate of death by a grim reaper and then be poofed out of existence. Strangely, my lucid epileptic disco calmed down and I looked down on the Me Puddle.

I used this out-of-body experience to achieve peak comedy, "I would give you CPR, but me, myself, and I all seemed to be booked at the moment."

After my genius knee slapper, I watched over my bloodstain with confusion. My bloodstain began to wiggle back together like I was watching a video in reverse.

The black lightning from the tunnel seeped out of my cells and wove itself into an intricate black lattice. In doing so, it dragged my admittedly delicious-looking body goo back together and slowly reassembled me. From a slushie of meat paste, back into something vaguely human, finally ending with me being better than fully healed.

My body came together perfectly. Every cell was moved to its optimal position, every muscle fiber was perfect, every bone more flexible, every hair...gone. The one thing the healing hadn't fixed was my hair; my one beautiful brown locks floated away in the ocean waves.

Once my body had healed, my world had gone dark as I had reentered my body. I groggily awoke, only to panic and realize my little buddy was missing.

"Turtely! Where are youuuuuuuuuu!"

I caught a mouthful of saltwater and quickly spat it out. I could get sucked through a tunnel, I could almost get eaten by void leviathans, I could fall 30 kilometers into water, I could die, but I could NOT lose my turtle buddy.

Right as I was going into a full-blown panic attack, I felt a small tug on my toes. Looking down, I found Turtley the 18th nibbling at them, trying to get my attention. He had apparently survived the fall unharmed. Maybe that strange lightning healed him as well.

I brought him out of the water and gave him a massive hug.

"Don't you EVER leave me again!"

*Sniff* I knew it from the moment I met him; he was my pretty little turtle. My precious boy!

I leaned back into optimal floating position, placing my passenger on my bare chest. All my clothes had shredded on impact. I started to flutter kicked my feet and propel us through the ocean. Max and Turtley, unstoppable duo!