Dark Sh*t

This is getting pretty boring, actually.

I can't feel my body; it's like all sensation has been sucked away. I might or might not be tempted to tear my eyes out, not that I could see much of anything anyway. Thankfully, I have no hands, so the urge moves along, burrowing in a deep, dark corner of my mind.

Maybe my status sheet is also there, somewhere, because it sure as fuck it doesn't appear when I wish for it.

How long have I been in the dark, can someone please tell me?

Even the voices went quiet after a while, and if I still had a mouth I'd be screaming profanities by now.

I'm probably still alive—maybe even surely alive. I didn't do anything outrageous, did I? I simply tried using my skill. I mean, I can control flesh for fuck's sake—why would some other ability decide to kill me the moment I tried to understand it? It just doesn't add up.

Then again, maybe trying to make sense of all this was a logical fallacy in itself—and now I'm dead because I overthought it. That would really suck some heavy, hairy balls.

So I keep struggling to move, while part of me simply admires the darkness all around.

There is black, but that is merely a color, one that can be seen even under broad daylight. Then there are shadows, and true darkness, but those are just the absence of light. This stuff...is composed of something far beyond that.

It is mesmerizing, in a way. Or it would be, if I weren't trapped inside it.

It doesn't shift, doesn't acknowledge me. It simply exists, a vast, unfeeling thing that surrounds me completely.

It's like being a blind fish in an ocean of black. I can't see, but I feel the vibrations of something moving, something shifting around me. Something I cannot grasp.

More time passes, and I finally start moving. Well, twitching—about as much progress as a cockroach stuck on its back—but hey, baby steps.

I keep going, following some vague sensation—maybe a current, maybe just my own dumbass instincts leading me in circles. Because that's exactly what happens. I realize pretty quickly that I'm going nowhere, spinning like a goldfish in a toilet bowl.

Then, I hit a wall. Not one I can see, of course, because that would imply some level of fairness. No, this is just an immovable force pressing against me like the universe itself decided to sit on my chest. I can barely feel anything, but somehow, I know I've touched this thing before without realizing it. I try to push, straining like a toddler trying to deadlift a bus. The outcome is predictable.

So I keep moving. Hit another wall. And another. And another.

And then, finally, finally, it clicks. I'm not a fish in some vast, mysterious ocean. I'm a fucking bug trapped in a shot glass. The space around me is so pathetically tiny that I can't even pretend to move freely.

Holy shit. I feel like the kind of idiot who walks into a glass door and apologizes to it.

Cringing inwardly but moving along, I force myself to accept this staggering revelation. Turns out, the endless void wasn't endless at all—just my dumbass failing to recognize that I'd been pressed so tightly against the walls that they were all I could perceive. The suffocating darkness was the container itself.

This tiny, miserable teacup I'm trapped in—it's cylindrical. I can't see it, but I know it now. It's an instinct, an understanding that settles in my awareness, bringing with it a vague sense of scale. And that scale is small.

Unbelievably, pathetically small.

I still feel like a disembodied will—no flesh, no bones, nothing to anchor me—but I'm starting to piece things together. I'm inside the Soul Well. Or at least my mind is. Maybe even my soul. That thought fits in a way I can't explain, like a puzzle piece snapping into place.

And I'm not alone.

Six little "pebbles" drift through the murky, viscous not-quite-water surrounding me. They hover and swirl, moving as if carried by some unseen current, bobbing up and down in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. Have they been here all along?

…Yeah. They must have. I was just too blind to notice.

I reach out—somehow—summoning my will to seize one of these floating specks. It's not a hand that grips it, not really, but something makes contact.

And the moment I touch it, the thing screams.

Loud. Chaotic. Feral. A jagged mess of sound, like a creature choking on their own tongue while trying to talk.

…Goblin 1? Is that you!?