Zephyra

Zazm groaned softly as his consciousness stirred. His eyes fluttered open, and the first thing he felt was a dull pressure behind his forehead. He raised his hand slowly, holding his head.

"...Ugh. What... where..."

There was no sky above him. No ground below.

Just an endless, black stillness—so thick it pressed against his senses like invisible fog. It all came crashing back.

The portal. The Void. The escape.

He jolted up, eyes widening. He spun slowly in the weightless dark, surrounded by the thin shimmer of faint particles—his own makeshift space pocket in the Void.

"...I did it," he muttered to himself, tension slowly draining from his body. "I actually created a space... escaped the pull."

But before he could even get his bearings, something—or someone—appeared in front of him.

A girl.

Dangling upside down.

Purple hair like liquid stardust flowed in slow motion. Her glowing lavender eyes blinked lazily as she hovered a mere inch from his face, her expression unreadable but oddly curious. Her presence didn't emit heat or pressure—just a strange sensation of being watched from within and without.

Zazm's heart skipped a beat.

He jerked backward with a startled yelp. "THE HELL—?!"

His back slammed against an invisible wall of the space pocket. He clutched his chest. "What the—okay. Okay. I'm seeing angels now. Great. Must've died. This is heaven? Kinda mid, not gonna lie."

The girl blinked slowly and righted herself in the air, now floating upright. "You've been lying there for so long. I thought you actually died."

Her voice was strange—soft and lilting, but detached. Like a song with all its emotions stripped out.

Zazm narrowed his eyes. "Okay. Who are you—and what the fuck are you doing in the Void?!"

She winced. "That's... too many questions. My head already hurts."

"You have a head?" Zazm muttered.

She gave him a sideways glance, then slowly spun around mid-air, folding her legs like she was sitting cross-legged on nothing.

"Well then. Let's start somewhere simple. My name is Zephyra. I'm flying here in the Void, as you can see."

Zazm squinted at her, then glanced around at the nothingness. "Flying," he echoed. "In the Void."

She nodded with complete seriousness.

He exhaled and rubbed his temple. "Okay. Okay. Fine. Zephyra. What are you?"

Zephyra shrugged, giving him a strangely carefree smile. "No idea."

Zazm blinked. "...You don't know."

"Nope. Just float here. Me, or... maybe just my consciousness."

She tapped her own head. "Hard to tell anymore."

"That's not how it works," he said, eyebrows scrunching. "You can't just exist without knowing what you are."

Zephyra's smile widened. "And yet here I am."

Zazm was about to protest again, but something about her expression made him stop. She didn't seem insane—just timeless. Like she had forgotten how to be confused about her own existence.

He sighed and slowly floated down, sitting in the center of his space pocket. "Alright, sure. Whatever. I'm stuck here for... a while. Go on then. You've got a story?"

Zephyra's glowing eyes flickered with amusement as she slowly descended and sat across from him.

"Of course," she said, voice quiet, as if telling a secret the Void itself might eavesdrop on.

"Would you like to hear how I became nothing?"

"Uh-huh." Zephyra looked around lazily. "So what are you?"

"Huh?"

"I told you mine. Now yours," she said, tone still uninterested, but her gaze sharper now. "You don't belong here. I can tell."

Zazm stared at her, then exhaled through his nose. He sat down, mirroring her posture.

"You really want to know?"

Zephyra rested her cheek on her hand. "No. But I asked."

He scoffed faintly at that. "Alright. Name's Zazm Mystic."

Zephyra didn't react.

"I was born in a normal world. Pretty average kid, I guess. I did sports, kickboxing, school, had a family, blah blah. Nothing crazy."

She blinked once. Her face remained neutral.

"Then, things got... weird," Zazm went on. "I started seeing things I shouldn't. Little skips in time, flickers in space. Glitches in reality. At first I thought I was going nuts."

"Probably still are," she mumbled.

Zazm shot her a look. "Thanks. That helps."

She shrugged again.

"Anyway," he continued, "I wasn't alone. Turned out there were others like me. People with powers. We called ourselves Catalysts. Each of us had different abilities, and for some reason—we were being pulled together. Or maybe pushed."

Zephyra shifted a bit. Her eyes didn't move from him, but she crossed her arms now. The pose looked natural on her—too natural, like someone who's been waiting centuries for someone to talk to but forgot how.

"We found out the multiverse was breaking," Zazm said. "Like, literally. Universes were colliding, unraveling. Some just disappearing like they never existed. The threads connecting them? Fading. Some rotten from the inside. Others being eaten."

"Sounds fake," Zephyra said flatly. But it wasn't dismissive. It was instinct. Defense. Her voice had lost that layer of boredom—just slightly.

Zazm leaned back a little. "I wish. I'm not here to save the world. I'm here to understand what's doing this. There's a root cause—somewhere. And it's not just a glitch in one world. Something's pushing all of this. I needed a place where I could study it without time restrictions. No distractions. Somewhere still."

He gestured around them.

"This was it."

Zephyra's eyes narrowed faintly.

"I planned to create fake timelines—empty simulations. Just hollow universes I could study and train in. Time and space obey me here more than anywhere else. But the human mind doesn't survive well in nothingness."

She didn't respond. Just stared.

"I wasn't even sure I'd survive falling in here," Zazm admitted. "I jumped in hoping to escape something. Barely made this pocket before the portal collapsed behind me. Then... boom. Woke up, and found you floating in my face like a ghost."

Zephyra leaned back, now lying on air as if it were a hammock, arms crossed behind her head.

"You talk too much," she said, but her tone had shifted. It wasn't disinterest anymore—it was habit. She'd been alone too long to know how to sound curious, but she was.

Zazm glanced at her. "You asked."

"I know," she said. "That's why I'm still listening."

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened one, peeking at him. "You said you made this pocket?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

Zazm hesitated. "With my ability. I control space and time. I can bend reality to create hollow zones—places where nothing interferes. I basically stitched this into the fabric of the Void."

Zephyra raised her eyebrows just slightly. "That's cheating."

He grinned. "Or smart."

Silence returned, thick and soft, but now... not empty. Just quiet.

Zephyra stared into the dark.

"You really came here to fix the multiverse," she said quietly. "That's... insane."

"Yeah," Zazm agreed. "But necessary."

Zephyra didn't reply for a long time. Then:

"Alright. I'll tell you my story next."

Zazm looked over.

"But I'm not good at it anymore," she added. "So if I sound like I don't care, it's not because I don't."

He nodded. "That's fair."

Zephyra sat up. Her purple hair shimmered faintly against the endless dark.

"It's been a while since I had someone to talk to. Don't mess it up."

Zephyra floated slowly in the air, arms loosely crossed, her gaze unfocused—aimed at no particular point in the infinite blackness. She wasn't smiling. She hadn't smiled once since they met. Even now, as she spoke, her voice carried the same low, dry tone, like someone who had forgotten how to care but couldn't forget how to speak.

"I wasn't always like this," she said abruptly.

Zazm, who had just sat down with arms resting on his knees, looked up at her. "You're finally going to talk?"

She didn't respond to the jab. Just kept going.

"I came from a universe far ahead of yours. We didn't need powers to travel the multiverse—we had tech. Algorithms, machines, calculations. We cracked the boundary between universes using math, not magic."

Zazm's eyebrows rose slightly. "First time I'm hearing that."

Zephyra nodded absently, more to herself than to him.

"I was the first test subject. First human to attempt it. Everyone else used drones, projections, simulations. But I volunteered." A pause. "No… I insisted."

"Why?" Zazm asked, frowning.

Her eyes flicked toward him, distant and glassy.

"I made a mistake. A big one."

She drifted downward and finally sat opposite him, cross-legged on the cold, invisible ground of the pocket space. Her back was slightly hunched, like the weight of her words had pulled her closer to herself.

"In my world… I blamed my mother for something. Something petty. I don't even remember what. But I pushed it too far. Said things I didn't mean. She broke. My parents divorced. My siblings were torn apart because of me. And I thought..."

Her voice dropped lower.

"…maybe I could undo it."

Zazm's expression shifted to something more serious. He leaned in.

"So you tried to find a universe where you didn't do that."

Zephyra nodded.

"I did. I found one. Same world. Same family. But happier. Nothing broken. I stepped in. Lived their life for a while. And for a second, I felt like maybe I fixed it."

She paused. Her eyes no longer met his.

"Then I died there. Car accident. That version of me was gone. And my original body, back in my universe… it was empty. Consciousness swap. No anchor left. I didn't go to an afterlife, or fade. I ended up here."

Zazm sat back slowly, stunned into silence.

"The Void," she murmured. "No time. No space. Just... this. Floating."

He blinked. "But… that doesn't make sense. Nothing survives here. Not even energy. Not even thought. It's anti-everything."

Zephyra gave a small shake of her head.

"I didn't survive," she said flatly. "I'm surviving. That's different."

Zazm stared at her, trying to understand. "Your body's gone. Your soul should've shattered. Even consciousness shouldn't retain form here unless…"

He trailed off.

"…unless you were bound to something," he muttered. "Or someone. Or you became something else."

Zephyra shrugged slightly. "I don't know. Maybe the machine changed me. Maybe I broke in a way that didn't die right. All I know is I float. I forget things. I remember other things that don't feel like mine. And I talk to myself until I forget why I'm talking."

Zazm was quiet for a while. Then said softly, "You remember just enough to keep hurting."

Zephyra didn't answer.

He looked up at her again. "Still... you shouldn't be coherent if you were here for as long as you said. The Void should've devoured your mind."

She tilted her head, her tone almost sarcastic—almost. "Guess I'm just built different."

Zazm smirked at that. But only briefly.

"You remember multiversal mechanics?" he asked.

Zephyra nodded once. "Most of it. Some of it comes back when I see people like you. Brains working. Space reacting. It reminds me of how things used to work. Patterns."

Zazm leaned back, eyes scanning the dark above them.

"…Then maybe you didn't just survive randomly. Maybe your consciousness latched onto something—some constant. Maybe it changed you at a fundamental level."

Zephyra considered that.

"I used to care why. Now I don't."

"But you're still curious," Zazm said. "You asked my name, listened to my story. You haven't forgotten how to want answers. Just how to ask for them."

Zephyra's expression didn't change. But for a moment—just a breath—she didn't look quite as empty.

And for the first time, she asked softly, almost like it hurt to say it:

"…What's your theory?"

Zazm smiled, just a little.

"Thought you'd never ask."

Zazm stared out into the abyss where the stars of no universe blinked. His mind raced with possibilities—questions—paths he hadn't accounted for. But one thing was clear now:

That man… whoever he was, wherever he vanished to, might hold answers.

Zazm turned to Zephyra.

"That man you saw," he said slowly, "he could be someone I need to find. Someone who's touched the edges of things we don't understand. Someone useful."

Zephyra hovered silently, staring into nothing. No nod. No reaction.

"So," Zazm continued, "come with me."

That made her blink. "What?"

"Come with me," he repeated. "You said it yourself—this place is eating you. You're barely holding on. But I can help."

She squinted at him. "You're not thinking of pulling my consciousness out of the void like some packet of data, are you?"

"Something like that," Zazm replied. "What if I wove what's left of your consciousness with mine? I don't mean possessing you or absorbing you. I mean… linking. Stitching."

Zephyra's eyes narrowed. "You want to fuse your mind with mine?"

"Temporarily," he clarified. "You've survived here for who knows how long. Your presence proves you're stable—despite everything. If you tether to my consciousness, you might get to leave. Travel through me. Think of it like being a passenger in my head."

"Sounds intimate," she muttered, unimpressed.

Zazm ignored the jab. "And in return, you guide me. That man—whoever he is—you try to remember where he was. If we find that universe, and he's real, and I can reach him… you help me get there."

Zephyra floated in silence. Her expression didn't shift, but there was a tremor in her voice now, hidden under her dryness.

"And you promise to take me to a normal world?"

"Yes," Zazm said without hesitation. "A world with air. With light. With… people."

For the first time since meeting her, she stopped moving. Just stood—still.

She looked down at her hands. Pale. Flickering slightly at the edges.

"Every time I tried to remember my old world, it just slipped," she said. "Faces—blurred. Names—gone. I held on to the guilt because it's the only thing that stayed sharp."

Zazm stepped closer. "Then let's make something new. Anchor yourself to me. I'll hold the memory for you until you can do it again."

Zephyra looked at him. Truly looked at him this time—not through him, not past him.

"And what if I go insane in your head?"

Zazm smirked faintly. "I've had worse roommates."

A long silence followed.

Then, quietly, Zephyra said, "Alright."

She extended her hand—not fully, just a small motion, hesitant and unsure.

"You better not be lying," she said.

Zazm reached out and gently took her hand.

The moment their fingers met, the space around them rippled—faintly, like a heartbeat stirring for the first time in centuries.

"I don't lie," Zazm whispered. "I bend reality. But never truth."

And the fusion began.

---

A void without time had no sunrise. But still, something shifted.

The space pocket Zazm created in the void had changed—quietly, subtly. A trace of rhythm hummed in the emptiness. Not real music. Not real sound. But a melody only they could hear.

Zazm lay on his back, one arm draped over his forehead, eyes half-closed as he stared at nothing. Somewhere near his feet, soft strums echoed—awkward, off-beat, but persistent.

He turned his head slightly and sighed.

"Zephyra… what are you doing now?"

She sat cross-legged, a dark-purple guitar on her lap, fingers clumsily picking at invisible strings. Her eyes stayed on the fretboard, her expression unchanged—deadpan, focused.

"Trying to learn guitar," she answered flatly.

Zazm groaned and facepalmed. "You can't learn guitar."

"Why not?" she asked, still strumming nonsense.

"Because there's no real guitar here. You're not real. None of this is real."

She tilted her head. "That's very hurtful."

He turned to face her. "No, seriously. Where did you even get that?"

Zephyra shrugged. "You're forgetting I'm just a ghost now. I imagine it, and it appears. It's all from your memories anyway."

Zazm narrowed his eyes. "Wait—what do you mean from my memories?"

She strummed a dissonant chord and replied matter-of-factly, "Practically everything you've ever experienced. Since the day you were born."

He sat up, blinking. "Everything?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I didn't mean to. But we're merged now. I float through your mind sometimes when I get bored. You've had an interesting life."

Zazm opened his mouth. Closed it. Rubbed his temples.

"Okay. That explains a lot… and also makes this very awkward."

Zephyra ignored that. "Also, I hate your teenage music phase. The emo stuff was unbearable."

Zazm threw a pebble at her, which instantly disappeared mid-air. "Get out of my brain."

"I live here now," she said calmly, plucking a clean note.

He lay back down with a grunt, then asked more quietly, "So… how long has it been?"

Zephyra paused.

"According to the way your mind is tracking time… about a year."

Zazm's breath caught slightly. "A year already, huh…"

"Mhm."

He didn't speak for a while. Zephyra continued playing—this time slower, a bit more in tune, like she was trying to mimic something he once heard as a child. He noticed that.

"You're changing," he said softly.

"No I'm not," she replied instantly.

"You weren't like this before."

She stared at the invisible strings. "I've just… been alone too long. Watching your mind is the first real thing I've had in… however long I've been drifting here."

There was a pause. Zazm rolled onto his side, looking at her.

"I don't mind you being there," he said. "Just… don't go judging me for anything."

"No promises," she replied dryly.

But her fingers kept playing—still clumsy, still offbeat.

Zazm exhaled as he rose to his feet, rolling his shoulders and stretching out his arms.

"Finally. I think my body's fully healed now."

Zephyra, still sitting with the ghostly guitar fading from her lap, glanced up. "Are you sure? What if something happens again?"

Zazm raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you worry?"

She gave a flat shrug. "I know everything you know. If you're confident, I'm confident."

He blinked. "Right… forgot you're basically living in my head now."

"Mhm," she replied with a quiet nod.

Zazm grinned, placing a hand forward. "Alright then. Time to go."

With a twist of his fingers, the void bent. A swirling portal tore open in the static darkness, glowing with a warm green hue. A breeze brushed his face—real wind, filled with the scent of leaves and life.

He stepped through first.

And the world on the other side was unlike anything else.

Giant, bioluminescent trees stretched into the sky like ancient titans. Floating petals drifted lazily in the air, shimmering like stars. The grass pulsed faintly with color, and a distant river sparkled with silver light.

Zephyra stepped out beside him, and for the first time since he met her—since she'd appeared upside-down in the void—she didn't speak.

She just stared.

Her eyes moved slowly, like someone trying to remember how to see again. She looked up at the canopy above them, where soft light filtered down through the glowing leaves. She turned her head toward the wind as it passed, brushing through her long purple hair.

Then Zazm felt something on his cheek.

He touched it with surprise. A tear.

He looked at Zephyra.

She wasn't sobbing. Her face barely moved. But tears quietly fell from her eyes, one after another, streaking down her pale skin. Her mouth was slightly open, her breathing shallow—as if she were afraid even to inhale too sharply and break the spell.

Zazm realized then: he was feeling it too.

Just a flicker.

A sliver of her emotion pulsing gently through their linked minds. Her awe. Her grief. Her forgotten longing. It mixed with his own confusion, his own fatigue, and together it left something heavy in his chest.

He didn't say anything.

Didn't need to.

Instead, he stood beside her, silent under the glowing trees of a new world.

And for the first time in years, maybe in forever, Zephyra remembered what it felt like to feel.

Zazm stepped forward, hands tucked into his pockets, his voice calm but touched with concern. "You alright?"

Behind him, Zephyra blinked, as if waking up from a long dream. She wiped her face, eyes still wide as she looked around. "…It's fine. It's just been… so long."

Her voice was quiet, rougher than usual, but honest. "I've seen the world in your memories. All of it. But this… this is different."

Zazm glanced over his shoulder, giving her a crooked smile. "Well, you don't have to just watch anymore. You can do everything. Since I bound you to my consciousness, you can touch, feel, eat, sleep—whatever you want. You just won't be visible to other people."

Zephyra looked at him sharply, as if surprised he'd thought that far ahead. Then her eyes dropped to the ground. She slowly stopped floating, letting her feet hover just inches above the grass.

Then she stepped down.

Her feets sank slightly into the soft, glowing soil. She took another step. Then another.

And on the fourth step, her legs trembled. She lost balance and nearly fell forward—

Zazm darted forward and caught her by the arm, steadying her.

"Hey," he muttered with a small laugh, "you haven't walked in ages. Don't push it."

Zephyra blinked, her face oddly serious despite her near faceplant. "I just got a little too excited."

"Yeah, I can tell."

She floated back up again with ease, but now her hands extended outward—curious, reverent.

She brushed her fingers across a leaf. It shimmered under her touch, shifting colors as if responding to her presence.

She touched the bark of a massive tree, tracing the ridges like it was a sacred relic. Her hand dipped into the grass and came back up with a few glittering blades tangled in her fingers. She smelled them, eyes distant, as if imprinting every sensation into what remained of her soul.

Zazm watched her quietly, arms crossed.

It wasn't much.

But after eternity in the void… it was everything.

And for the first time since they'd met, Zephyra didn't sound bored. Didn't sound hollow.

She was… present. Alive, in her own strange way.

And Zazm didn't say anything else.

He just walked alongside her, letting her rediscover the world one sensation at a time.

As Zephyra drifted beside him, her fingers brushing against the leaves and grass, Zazm found his gaze shifting from the landscape to her—seeing how she moved with a quiet wonder, like a child discovering the world for the first time. It was strange.

She wasn't smiling. She wasn't grinning or even laughing. She wasn't celebrating her newfound freedom.

But every action, every touch of the trees, every moment of awe… that was happiness. Even if she wasn't showing it in the usual way, he could feel it—somehow. It was as if her emotions had spilled over, and the edges of them bled into him.

Zazm took a deep breath, feeling a sudden warmth tug at his chest. It wasn't his joy, but it was something he hadn't felt in so long. Something that had been missing for years.

It wasn't the rush of victory or the thrill of a battle. It wasn't even the quiet satisfaction that came with a solved mystery. No, it was something deeper. Something tied to presence.

Zephyra's emotions—her relief, her peace—were leaking into him through their bound consciousness. It was strange, but it also felt... right.

He felt her joy in tiny fragments, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting together. Every time she stopped to touch a new thing, every slight brush of her fingers against the world, he could feel that faint happiness.

Zazm wasn't happy. But something about the weightlessness of it, the way her joy was so unburdened, made him realize how long it had been since he'd felt anything remotely close.

It wasn't the madness of chasing power, the relentless pursuit of answers, or the pain of survival. It was this—simple, small, but powerful—being.

As he watched her, he realized that he hadn't felt true peace in what seemed like an eternity. It was always the next goal, the next mission, the next step.

He had been too busy chasing the endless threads of time and the unending mystery of the multiverse.

But now, with Zephyra experiencing the world for the first time in years, he was reminded of something fundamental that he had long forgotten.

For a brief moment, he felt like he could understand what it meant to just… exist. To simply be alive.

Zazm found himself smiling a little, though the emotion was distant. It wasn't his happiness, but Zephyra's. Still, it was enough to stir something in him, something he had long buried.

"Glad you're enjoying it," he murmured quietly.

Zephyra didn't respond, her attention still focused on the world around her. But he could feel her contentment flowing through their bond. And, for the first time in a long while, Zazm allowed himself to feel that peace, even if it was just for a fleeting moment.

Zazm stood on the edge of the mountain cliff, the wind tugging at his coat, his gaze locked on the sprawling medieval city below. It was massive—cobblestone roads, gothic towers, glowing runes embedded in rooftops, strange creatures flying through the sky like messenger birds made of light. The sky had an unnatural golden hue, as if someone had painted it with magic. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the peculiar symbols etched into the mountainside beneath his feet.

That's when a voice echoed through his head—clear, gentle, familiar.

"Finally... Zazm's here."

It was Miwa.

Zazm blinked, startled. Telepathy? He hadn't heard this in a while.

"Miwa? Where the hell are we? And how long have I been gone?"

"Relax. You're just one day late," she replied with a teasing tone. "Honestly, you almost arrived exactly on time."

His eyes widened slightly. That meant... only a day had passed outside while he was in the Void?

A soft float landed beside him—Zephyra hovered, her translucent form phasing gently back into semi-solid as she stepped down onto the mountain stone. She had clearly heard the conversation too. Her expression was blank, but her head tilted slightly, curious.

Then came another voice. Deeper. Calm. Firm.

"Zazm."

It was Jahanox.

"Let me fill you in. Things got a little... unconventional here. We're staying low. Long story short, we're in a fantasy type realm where kings, queens and magic exits

. We had to blend in with the system. So we're roleplaying. You're the eldest son of the Arion household. Miwa's the youngest sister. Kiyomasa, Jennie, Ai—we've all got roles. We're royalty. You're technically the heir."

Zazm went silent for a beat.

"...What?" he replied flatly.

"It just turned out like this." Jahanox sounded tired. "We needed a cover fast. This world has rigid logic woven into it—basically like a fantasy novel's rules. You'll understand when you arrive. For now, just play along."

"I just got out of a portal, I can't teleport immediately. It'll take a day or two to stabilize again," Zazm responded. He glanced at Zephyra, who was still listening, arms crossed midair like she was trying to process the sheer absurdity of it all.

"Then rest for now," Jahanox said. "But prepare yourself. This world isn't just a roleplay. It has a lot of things we don't know. Wait we'll talk later..."

"Hey Nova....."

"Bastard where did you go?"

The voice went silent.

Zazm ran a hand through his hair, sighing. "What the hell did I walk into?"

Zephyra gave a slow spin midair, her ghostly hair catching the wind as she looked toward the distant city.

"This feels like some overly complicated isekai story," she muttered dryly. "You're a royal now. How tragic."

Zazm gave her a side glance. "You know what isekai is?"

She shrugged. "You know it, so I know it." Then she smirked faintly. "And from what I gathered from your memories, you are noble material."

Zazm groaned and flopped back against a rock. "This is insane."

"What are you gonna do next fight a demon lord or gather and Harem?"

"Neither I'm gonna gather information." Zazm bluntly replied looking forward, "Then let's go there since everyone is in the other corner of the world."

Zephyra floated closer, arms folded behind her back, feet barely touching the ground. "So... you gonna start acting like the heir to some legendary household now?"

Zazm stared at the sky for a long moment. "I'll need a sword. And probably a cape. Maybe a butler."

Zephyra cracked a small smile—faint, subtle, but there. "This world's doomed already."

They sat there for a while in silence. The golden sky shimmered above them. Somewhere out there, the others were pretending to be someone else, playing parts in a strange world governed by story-like logic.

Zazm exhaled, muttering, "Alright. Let's see what kind of stupid fantasy novel I've landed in."

_______________________