When Rohan entered the void, he knew. He knew he had died. And for the first time, there was a strange sense of peace in that knowledge. He was content—not because he was leaving the world behind, but because, perhaps, he was finally going home. He was hopeful. At last, he thought, I will meet my family again. He imagined the warmth of his mother's embrace, Arya's laughter echoing through the air, his father's steady hand on his shoulder, and his grandfather's old stories over steaming cups of chai. He imagined home—something that no longer existed in the world he had left behind.
But that comforting thought was shattered in the next instant.
The darkness came like a wave—not a blackness of night, but a complete erasure of all that was. It wasn't just the absence of light but the absence of everything: sound, weight, thought, and identity. He was swallowed by the infinite dark.
Peace fled from him like breath from lungs underwater.
His body disintegrated—not torn apart, but unmade, like it had never existed at all. He didn't feel pain. There was no pain here. In fact, there was nothing to feel at all. No sensation, no breath, no heartbeat.
Even the idea of feeling began to slip from him.
There was no 'up' or 'down,' no direction, no beginning or end. Time itself had melted into a singularity of non-being.
And Rohan—what was left of him—drifted.
No limbs. No lungs. No skin. No name.
Only a faint shimmer of consciousness, like a dying candle in an eternal storm.
He didn't know if seconds passed. Or centuries.
Thoughts formed but evaporated before they could shape meaning. Memories faded. Not just forgotten—but unreal. The sound of his mother's voice, Arya's grin, his father's cologne—they flickered and disappeared like smoke in a vacuum.
It was like being awake inside a grave with no body and no dirt. A floating soul in a cosmos that refused to acknowledge its presence.
There was no peace here.
No torment either.
Just an eternal limbo.
A void so absolute it felt like a punishment beyond hell.
Or perhaps… this was hell.
And yet—
Through the abyssal silence…
Something moved.
Then, without warning, a brilliant light pierced the void—blinding, searing. Rohan's very soul felt as though it would disintegrate, unravel into nothingness under the weight of its radiance. It was a divine presence, immense and incomprehensible, and it felt like it was coming for him. His essence trembled, threatened with dissolution.
Then, a voice broke through the blinding light—shaken, desperate, and raw with emotion.
"Barrier, my lord… barrier," someone pleaded, not for their own sake, but to save what remained of the boy's soul.
The words were not just heard in his ears but felt within every atom of his being. They vibrated through him, reverberating with a power that should have shattered him.
Rohan couldn't place the voice. It sounded not like sound but more like force, like it resonated through the very fabric of his existence. The voice carried weight, something timeless and powerful, but also… concerned. Then, a rush of cool air—or something like air—surrounded him. A prismatic, transparent shield enveloped him, soft and fragile yet unyielding. It protected him, like the delicate shell of an egg around a young chick. But unlike a chick, Rohan was aware, trapped in a cocoon that was as much his prison as his salvation.
The blinding light remained, its source still unseen, yet the crushing weight on his soul lifted—just slightly. It was still there, pressing in from all sides, looming with a presence that couldn't be touched, couldn't be seen, yet made itself felt in every corner of his consciousness. He couldn't escape it.
Then—somewhere beyond the blinding white—Rohan sensed it: a presence. Not an existence in the way humans understood, but something ancient and incomprehensibly vast. He could not see it, not truly, but its essence enveloped everything. It was everywhere. It was everything.
And in that light, visions began to unfold. He saw galaxies swirling in a cosmic dance, colliding and birthing stars in brilliant explosions. He saw entire universes being born in a breath and dying in silence. Black holes devoured the remnants of ancient worlds, while nebulae cradled the seeds of new life.
He was witnessing the pulse of creation itself. Countless realities spun within that radiance—each unique, each governed by laws older than time. And yet, within that immensity, he wasn't crushed.
He was allowed to witness.
Something in that presence had chosen not to obliterate him. Not yet.
A deep, resonant voice broke through the silence once more—richer this time, filled with desperation cloaked in reverence.
"My lord… that is a mortal soul," it pleaded, trembling with urgency. "He needs a barrier to withstand your divine presence, or his essence will unravel into nothingness."
The voice did not echo like the others—it arrived. Clear. Present. Not inside his head, but beside him, around him, like it wrapped itself in space and sound. There was a warmth to it, a familiarity that made something inside Rohan ache. A voice that knew him—not as a man or a name, but as a soul.
It spoke of him like he was something delicate. Breakable. And in that moment, Rohan understood—this was not just a warning. It was a plea for mercy.
The barrier that formed around him wasn't a shield of light or steel—it was a divine reprieve. A single breath of safety against a presence that could unravel stars.
Then came the response.
Not a voice in the traditional sense. No sound touched his ears, and yet the meaning struck like thunder.
The void trembled. Space folded in upon itself. Something vast, ancient, and terrifying stirred—and then pressed against him.
A vibration.
So deep, so primeval, it felt older than creation itself. It didn't speak in words. It thought, and that thought became truth.
"You are the skeptic child."
The words weren't spoken—they were. Truths pressed into his very being.
"The one who questions all. Who believes in nothing unless it is proven. Do you believe now, mortal?"
A shiver trembled through the echo of a spine he no longer possessed. He couldn't move—there was no body to move—but inside him, something shifted. A ripple through the core of his consciousness.
Not pain. Not panic.
Fear.
Or something older than fear. Ancient. Primeval. A sensation older than flesh, deeper than thought. Something carved into the bones of existence itself.
To this incomprehensible cosmic entity, Rohan was nothing more than a flicker—a breath in a void that spanned countless universes. A soul barely holding together under the weight of what it was witnessing.
And yet, it was watching him. Waiting.
Testing him.
The light pulsed. Grew. Intensified.
Then came the voice again—not spoken, but woven into the silence itself:
"Then I offer you a taste. A teaser to clear your doubts."
Reality buckled. Space twisted. The infinite folded in on itself. Rohan felt the tremor in his soul—a pressure like gravity inverted. As though the fabric of what is had peeled back, revealing something underneath.
A truth not meant for mortals.
And whether he was ready or not, he would be shown.