-- x --

Darkness.

A deep darkness.

In this darkness, a teenager gradually recovered his consciousness.

“Where?”

“What is this place?”

“Where am I?”

As the teenager'’s lucidity grew clearer, he began to ask questions.

The boundless darkness that enveloped him was silent and unresponsive.

The hope in the teenager’s heart waned, he tried to examine himself, however, he could not find himself.

The confusion in his heart inevitably magnified.

“Rather, who am I?”

“Who am I?”

“Why…why am I trapped here?”

The lucid teenager’s impatience gradually grew, although the darkness was safe, it was eternally unchanging. It was like a cage that trapped him.

Naturally, he began to want to break free and escape from this place.

“I want to leave!”

“But where must I go?”

“Is there a path for me to take?”

“Is there even a path out?”

As if responding to the youth’s confusion, a small ray of light began to appear in the darkness.

The light was orange in colour.

It was extremely faint.

Its existence was only faintly discernible.

However, in this absolute darkness, even if faint, this orange light was distinct.

This attracted the teenager’s full attention.

He strived to move closer to the glimmer of light.

After an unbeknownst amount of time, the teenager seemed to have approached closer to the orange light as it had gotten slightly larger than before.

“Where is it coming from?”

“Will it allow me to leave here?”

Longing to escape the darkness, the young boy approached the orange light with increasing eagerness...

-- x --

Weak. I felt very weak lying on the bed. I couldn't move up my arms, they were sore. My eyes were still half - closed. But I could see some orangish light.. was that fire? Was our house on fire?

Thump, thump, thump a metal striking noice was constantly being hammered into my ears. Carpenters? working in our house? Why? Maybe due to me being tired from overexhaustion, my brain had somewhat dulled. Ahh, maths was like this always using brain cells as fuel. But, now I couldn't form complete thoughts. My brain was a bit haywire.

"Mom," I called out unconsciously with all my strength. But the latter part of sentence, "why didn't you wake me for the maths test " died down in my mouth. The maths test, it seemed couldn't be attended. I felt very glad internally, atleast now I had an excuse for getting low marks in the maths exam. I could finally take some bedrest without worrying to attend the lectures. Then, friends and relatives will shower me with gifts, ask me about my help and I can atleast expect some pocket money from them.

Suddenly, two large roughed hands helped me sit properly.

"Thanks a lot mom... wait Dad, is that you?" I closed my right eye and fully opened my left eye . My sight was still hazy, but I could see a man with extraordinary stature holding my shoulders. Why was dad here? It was just mental stress, he didn't needed to leave his for it. I said in a very weak tone, "Dad... it's ok, you don't need to..." as my sight became clearer, I saw a stranger with a worried face and a lifeless look in his eyes. Even though I hadn't seen him, he felt familiar. He looked like someone... he reminded me of protagonist's father from the Douluo Dalu! Was I hallucinating?

My body instinct kicked in as I escaped his embrace, and crawled back until my back bumped into the wall. I looked again at him, to check if I was hallucinating. The man had a very shocked expression, clearly not understanding what was happening.

"Who, who are you? Why are you in my room? Where's my mother?" As soon as heard the word mother, an unusual expression formed on his face. The pain in my head started increasing. I massaged my temples and my forehead trying to remember things. "I remember... " I remember studying till late night, preparing for the next day's test. I remember running from a white silhouette. I also remember meditating in front of the sun !? The hell? The pain in my head quickly shot up to the point it was bearly bearable. I started hallucinating, seeing things which I had not experienced in my life. I was even in my classroom giving my maths test. It was like I existed at two places at one time.

For a moment, everything went blank. Nothing was there, only silence. But then something in my mind snapped.

" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.."

I started to experience an overload of the memories which clearly didn't belong to me. The process was painful like forcefully accepting something that my mind and body rejected, it was extremely painful, I felt myself choking from this memory overload. I clutched by head with my two arms and screamed my lungs out. It felt as if someone was drilling into my skull, as if 1000s of hot needles had strucked my head. I kept banging my head on the wall, yelling it to get out. I didn't want anything, just for this pain to get out. Tears rolled down my cheek, and I felt like vomiting...

Mom, dad, brother where are you? Why did you leave me in this pain? Who's this stranger? Come back. Please, I cannot tolerate this any further. As I was on verge of going insane, everything went blank. Last thing I remember before returning to the same darkness was the man hitting my head.