Chapter 481

The alarm clock screamed its typical 6:00 AM song, a jarring sound that Jack had grown to despise. Yet, today, it was different.

"Must still be dreaming," he thought to himself, chuckling in disbelief as he was not tired at all. "Is this what it feels like to be dead?" he said out loud, his voice unfamiliar, even to him.

The room was not quite what he was expecting as he stared into his window. The early morning light illuminated a street he didn't recognize, lined with buildings he'd never seen.

"Okay, this is weird," Jack said, a hint of nervousness in his tone. He walked to the window, the cold wood under his bare feet not registering.

Outside, the street was full of people, but they weren't walking or talking. They were just standing there, staring, their faces devoid of emotion.

"What's up with the mannequin look?" Jack asked the unresponsive room, his brow furrowing in confusion. He made his way out, each step feeling more unreal than the last.

The world outside was quiet. People watched him with vacant eyes, unmoving, not blinking.

"Seriously, this dream needs an upgrade in the extras department," he commented to a group, eliciting no reaction. "Jack, you could at least play along" John commented.

Jack took note of his reflection, the mirror hanging precariously next to the stairs. "Who's this handsome devil, hey John."

"This has to be one of your strangest comments," his neighbor responded, a trace of something, almost recognition, passing in his eye. But just as Jack reached for the knob, he saw them in his periphery.

Their movements were synchronized. Too synchronized.

Each step, each blink. Like they were copies of one another.

A faint unease took root inside him. "John, can you not copy me man."

"I can, and I will." "Ha, you finally decided to act different for once," Jack laughed, his voice taking on a playful tone.

The world he thought he had grown up in had shifted and turned on him. "It is real?" Jack was taken aback.

It's been real. "Why am I not dreaming anymore, why am I waking up" John said.

"Maybe this was never meant to be real to you, maybe that is how you cope." Jack turned towards John.

"What the hell are you saying man?" "I don't know, am I actually talking to you? Maybe not," John took a step forward, he looked completely still, and emotionless.

Jack made his way out to the hallway. Every person he encountered, they all stopped.

He stared at Jack with a look of utter disdain. But it was not for Jack, the look in their eyes had nothing to do with Jack, nor any relation, there was just pain behind every stare.

A look Jack had once knew. Jack ignored them, choosing to focus on the open door leading to a roof.

He pushed it open and stepped onto the edge. The height didn't frighten him; in dreams, he often flew.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and leaped. As he expected, he didn't fall.

Instead, he floated, soaring over the city. "Look at me go!" he yelled into the wind, exhilaration coursing through him.

His joy was short-lived. As he floated higher, he saw them, standing below, their heads tilted up, watching him.

"What, you guys don't want to fly?" he mocked, but their hollow gazes were starting to unnerve him. He looked further up, to his roof, and saw John sitting there.

Jack could only feel sorry for him, having seen his face a look of sadness in him he didn't think John could show, being how "strong" of a person Jack thought he was. Jack just wanted to forget and continue with his fantasy.

Suddenly, a dark figure, much larger than the others, appeared among them. Its form was shapeless, constantly changing, yet its presence was overwhelmingly oppressive.

"Is that a boss level?" he joked, but fear tightened around his heart. The figure pointed at him, and the surrounding people started to act.

They ran, jumped, their bodies moving in impossible ways, coming after him. Jack screamed, trying to out-fly them, but they were relentless, fast, closing in on his trail.

They leaped over each other and into him, and his view changed to a first-person point of view, seeing exactly what the people running after Jack, now "inside him," were seeing. A burning feeling inside of his back felt hot and ached in a cold fashion, then his view cut out.

Jack suddenly could see his entire body again, he was falling fast, but was still himself, just falling out of the sky. He tried to see why, but his body would not look down to where his feet were.

He was screaming and wailing, not feeling any air go into his lungs, suffocating himself, crying until he could only wheeze out loud for a good hour of pain. He finally plummeted and his body went right through the concrete, cracking the street, still intact but falling into an infinite abyss with no end in sight, as a loud ringing sound in his ears.

His body still felt nothing at all. It continued to grow stronger the longer Jack kept plummeting, making him try and bash his head into the surrounding void to somehow escape, he felt an insufferable amount of pain he had never felt before, all while his ears started to bleed.

It felt never-ending. He had seen no bottom nor anything to give him any semblance of what to do, it was as if the ground never existed to begin with.

He looked up as if trying to see how far he fell, nothing to see up there other than black. As Jack tried to regain some composure, a bright flash shined, only to show the bodies and souls he killed when dreaming.

It lasted for more than an hour of seeing them endlessly parade one by one in front of him, his mouth ajar as tears never stopped falling, and him seeing every single one of them made him feel all sorts of negative emotions, only continuing the longer it went on, it was like they were infinite. Each and every single body of those he had tormented in life just made him cry harder at each face he had come across.

He had never thought it possible to keep up such pain, he wished it to stop and never look at them ever again. "I'M SORRY" Jack tried to yell out.

His eyes are full of a void-like abyss where no water could form, as all the tears had already passed, not even snot coming out at all. His screams barely audibly sound to himself, trying to still cry, but no tear can be made.

The light flash went on, then his body came right behind him and reattached itself in the shape it was left when falling, showing only his back now, as Jack's entire body began to regenerate. Then a loud explosion erupted behind Jack, sending him far above him, where he saw a tiny glimpse of the hole from where he fell, finally, making him smile wide as a sign of relief.

Then something else got out of the hole. It was large and moving fast.

As soon as Jack's body was flying towards his small, small, hole, so he could at least finally know if anything is ever going to end, the object struck and pulled his body back in. The shape finally came to view.

The shapeless entity he had seen from his dream world. Its hands are now large enough to fit in an entire star.

It held onto Jack's torso and used its other hand to keep punching his body with brute force. It then held him up again and began ripping off all his nails one by one, making him bleed non-stop, then went straight into removing every tooth he had with slow intent, one by one, hearing all his bones inside slowly begin cracking out of the mouth as they came off.

The force of the pull making Jacks ears come off and start oozing out an unidentifiable blood. The being began staring deep into his eyes.

Then used one of his fingers, no larger than an ant on earth, and ripped out Jack's eyes, and made him feel a sensation he never could imagine to feel, making his mouth gape even harder as the nerves and all his eye sockets have become completely emptied. Jack could still see everything even though his eyes were completely gone.

Then, it started piercing a tiny, sharp, nail inside the pupil of one eye, continuing on until Jack started feeling his blood vessels all over his brain as they slowly began rupturing. The creature used its fingers to scratch at all his hair as it slowly came out of his head.

The pain all came flooding in one by one at each second as Jack no longer even cried. He wanted nothing to happen to him, or for him to at least do anything.

He felt so cold, like he was shivering inside as the world felt to him more intense than what a star feels like up close. His face felt melted even though it wasn't, his veins visible from his eye-sockets as the shapeless entity began ripping off all the skin on his back with agonizing effect.

His fingers started feeling stiff as it broke all the cartilage inside, no bone nor blood, as it was only cartilage at this point, all 10 fingers as it broke all the hands' joints, slowly tearing out every single tiny bone it can get, one by one. Jack felt his entire body start to decay inside out, not even a second to regain or process anything.

The creature used its giant fist and pierced it right in the center of his body, making Jack feel his heart almost completely stop, as he felt all the muscles in his stomach decay one by one. His stomach acids leaked onto the entire system as it spread like wildfire, melting off the rest of Jack's innards, his ribs, spine, muscles, intestines, bladder, lungs, bones, brain, nerves, flesh, cartilage, blood vessels, and heart all gone in a matter of seconds, all felt by him and spread from inside the entity, no escape in his body at all.

Only leaving Jack's mouth, blood, teeth, and nerves completely empty and decaying on his insides and skin completely rotten off. Jack had passed long ago by this point.

Yet still lived as a spirit inside of the shapeless being. Seeing his own reflection and current state, forever changing shape and feeling endless suffering within its confines as Jack floated around trying to scream, to no avail, looking as horrifying as he has ever felt.

His soul would remain like that for as long as there was no such thing as eternity. Never ceasing as there was no place he could cease to be.

Not knowing if anything is ever going to happen again for a second or last any less. There was no ending, no escape, as even though Jack wanted death, there would never be, in a realm as non-existent as the infinite void.

There would be no such thing as death. Only a slow decay, only being able to have awareness.

There would be no concept of existence, time, or reality. Jack did not know how anything felt at all at that point, nor could ever, not being able to tell, only knowing and feeling despair of everything there is.

The feeling could never end for as long as anything may be considered or measured. Forever is never and ever would be forever, as is such the only thing the entity can understand, to feel nothing, and to think there will never be another thing at all, to be no more, to not, and will not want at all, no matter what or when is ever at any point, with only one emotion left to stay the same within Jack's soul, his pain would never ever cease, no matter where, how or why it is possible, such would not be something considered of being as true or even possible in his endless soul, for there will never ever be an ending in a neverending beginning, the one feeling there could ever be to ever stay, unending.

Forever lost, Jack, would feel his body never existing nor ever again as a whole. There never was any form at all to ever exist in such a realm.

No form of what may feel ever exist, for a soul may be lost within it. In any case, shape or manner, never could there ever be such an end as never is not at any given end.

Never to know, Jack will only feel pain, forever.