The place that wasn't
Kieran landed without a sound.
Not on the ground.
There was no ground.
He was standing, floating, sinking, all at once—his body stretched and compressed, pulled in every direction like the space around him was trying to decide what shape he should be.
And then, he realized—
He had no body.
He looked down, but there was nothing.
Only the faint impression of a self, like a shadow without a source.
The place around him breathed.
Not with lungs, not with air, but with awareness.
It wasn't empty.
It was watching.
"You are home."
The voice didn't come from one direction. It curled around him, inside him, beneath him.
It recognized him.
And that was the worst part.
Because Kieran did not recognize it.
Shapes stirred in the distance—if there even was a distance. They moved like bodies, but they weren't. Their edges blurred, flickering between forms, too many limbs, too many eyes, not enough mouths.
Until suddenly—
They all smiled.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Grins carved into existence, stretching too wide, splitting their faces into wounds of joy.
"You were never supposed to leave."
The words echoed, layered, repeated.
And Kieran remembered.
Not his memories.
Theirs.
A world that had no walls.
A place where flesh was temporary.
Where identities melted, where names were only things to be borrowed, worn, forgotten.
Where he had once belonged.
He had been one of them.
He had been so much worse than them.
And they had locked him away.
"Wake up."
The whisper came from all directions, slithering into his thoughts, unmaking them.
"Wake up."
The space around him shifted.
And for the first time, Kieran saw what was beneath everything.
It wasn't darkness.
It wasn't light.
It was teeth.
A great, endless, spiraling maw, stretching infinitely in all directions, waiting patiently.
And now—
It had noticed him.
Kieran tried to scream.
But his mouth was already gone.
Because he wasn't Kieran anymore.
He was just a piece of something bigger.
Something that had been waiting.
Something hungry.