The last sensation Callum remembered as he lost his consciousness was what could only be described as true pain, unfiltered and immortal. It was the kind of pain that nestled within one's very soul before it began to gnaw at the body greedily as it spread from the inside out. Now, though, it was gone; The ravenously hungry pain had faded away at some unknown point, and since that point, he had felt no physical sensations at all. Ever since that point, he had only his emotions and thoughts with him.

He had tried to open his eyes, but he could not be at all certain that he had succeeded, as he saw only a gray nothingness that stretched on for eternity. In fact, he was not entirely convinced he had eyes at all or even a physical shape. I feel so...loose, he thought as he tried to move his body in any way he could, to no avail. He had never felt so powerless, so doomed to Fate. He had never felt so lonely, as though he were cut off from existence. It was as though there was a divide between himself and reality itself, that Fate had toyed with him before casting him wherever It desired.

His stay in the dark room for a few days was nothing compared to this. Here he faced something entirely different than an absence of light. Here was the absence of everything. It was devoid of even nothingness. There was no light or dark, hot or cold, not even an up or down. It was as though he was in an entirely unknown plane, a plane of nonexistence.

Callum was revulsed. The revulsion he felt was almost primordial, as though the source of it was not him but something ancient and powerful. The feeling was equal parts familiar and foreign, like a childhood friend who had changed drastically since the last time you met. He didn’t understand where it came from at first, and upon thinking about it, his memories came in waves.

It was awful. It began with flashbacks, vivid memories of the horrendous torture. Slowly, the phantom pains faded into a feeling of being hollowed out from inside, of being violated. As he discovered the source of that primordial revulsion, he felt despair, disgust, and rage. The sickening sense of violation arose from none other than the monstrosity that tried to consume him, the monstrosity that he could feel resting within him at this very moment.

“Damn it,” cursed the disembodied voice he had grown to hate. “That idiotic mortal ruined the ritual, and now I’m not only stuck back here, but I’ve got baggage. Damn it, damn it!”

Silence came over the space. Callum felt truly strange, an overwhelmingly powerful and strange sensation of discomfort had come over him. It was a horrible feeling, having had such a horrific being bunking in his body. He felt diseased, plagued even. The being was easily comparable to an unremovable parasite, one that was sentient and had tried to overcome its host only to fail, creating an intolerable relationship of adversary and hatred. Now, they were alone in this empty space together, with neither of them having bodies.

“Well, kid,” the voice suddenly disrupted the silence with a mocking tone. “You better get comfortable here, this is your new home.”

“Yeah, well, it was your home first, vile demon,” Callum said. His voice was filled with an almost bloodthirsty anger as he lashed out against the being again and again, “This sure is a disgusting home you’ve got. No wonder you turned out to be so pathetic and miserable, you wretched little thing. Not only are you hideously deformed and without a body, you live in some bleak and weary hellhole like this. This is truly the only place that could hold someone of your kind, you disgusting mongrel.”

Once more, silence came over the space when Callum’s berating came to an end and his voice faded away. The atmosphere was heated and tense, the quiet seemingly heavy despite Callum having no body, and the space being weightless. After a while, the disembodied voice began to speak once more.

“This isn’t my home, you buffoonish little human. This is one of the cells of the Planar Prison. This is no one's home. No one lives here. This isn’t a place for living at all. This is where things are sent to die.”

…

Of all the cloaked figures in the Room, only one remained standing. This lone figure watched as their companions began to stir, the silence broken by groans and grunts as they began to force their bodies upright.

They seemed to be in a daze for a moment, uncertain of what had occurred. They quickly realized that the ritual had been interrupted, and beneath their masks, their faces contorted into an inhuman grimace born of both shame and despair.

The figure who had been chanting was the last to come to, and upon regaining consciousness, they quickly began to usher the other figures to resume the ritual. As they took their places once more around the lifeless corpse of Callum Clark, the figure began to chant again. This time, however, the figures did not mutilate the body but joined the figure in chanting. The strange and mystical language reverberated throughout the room, the many voices seeming to become one.

Slowly, the room began to fill with the purple haze once more. It steadily began to grow thicker and thicker, however, the figures were unfazed now. They continued to chant, their arms outstretched as they stood around Callum’s body.

…

Callum felt a strange tugging sensation. He didn’t expect it, so he began to resist it almost instinctively. However, he was completely unable to put up a fight against any physical influence in this ghost-like state. Thus, he began to feel himself move for the first time since he entered this strange void-like place, albeit of someone or something else’s will.

As the tugging sensation grew, the bleak and gray nothingness turned into a familiar shade of purple, and the revulsion he felt emanating from that parasitic creature turned into glee as it erupted into cheerful laughter. “Yes! Yes! Good, you strangely dressed mortals didn’t let me down after all. I’ll reward you splendidly when I arrive, I’ll ensure you all have worthwhile lives, that you have riches and power! You will surely rejoice as you enjoy the countless joys of worshipping a Prince of the Kulthuzar!”

Callum was not slow to catch on to the implications of the voice’s words. An uncertainty blossomed in his heart, giving birth to doubts and fears that he would survive, or that his soul would remain unextinguished. His fears only grew when the gray and purple space around him began to shift before his very eyes, becoming the very Room of Sacrifice that housed his body. As he looked upon his lifeless husk of a shell, he felt a desperate and overwhelming need to plunge back into it, to merge with it as one once more.

It felt as though it were calling to him, beckoning towards him invitingly. A strange connection existed between his soul and his vessel, a connection that not even the most studious of scholars in his world could hope to understand. And so, he mustered up his willpower and strength and forced himself to charge at his body with all his might.