He felt as though he had been taken apart.
Not his body. Something more fundamental, something further inside than the body. As if the person he was had been smashed to pieces, shattered into countless tiny particles and scattered into a vast, unseen undercurrent. The heart that was "Allen" was still there; it could still think, still be afraid, but apart from that, he couldn't hold on to anything. Up, down, left, right, all those concepts had disappeared. There was no ground, no sky, no direction, only a very slow, ceaseless sensation of "flowing" forward... Like being sucked into a river whose end he couldn't see.
The river was very dark... Not black. The color was more like a deep purple tinged with gray, and in it floated countless things like shards of glass. Allen didn't know how he was able to "see." He couldn't open his eyes at all; his eyelids felt welded shut. Yet the images still jumped through his mind, frame by frame. He could see the currents around him, could see his own soul broken up within them, like a half-transparent mist being stretched and churned by the water and then slowly drawn back together.
Am I dead? he thought.
No one answered. Of course he knew no one would answer. But the moment the thought surfaced, another one rolled up right behind it. No, if he were dead, how could he still be thinking these things? How could he still know about "himself" and "his surroundings"? He tried to move a finger. There was no finger. He couldn't feel anything, and yet he did know he was still feeling. The dislocation of it made him want to throw up, but he couldn't even find anywhere to throw up from.
All he could do was think.
Think about who he was... Think about what had just happened. The plane and the clouds and the fissure and the old man's hand. And then that red eye... The moment he thought of that eye, Allen's "heart" clenched hard, as if something had flicked it from the inside out. It wasn't pain. It was an overwhelming sense of being locked onto by something. Like standing in an open field at night and suddenly realizing a pair of eyes behind you is staring at you without blinking.
And right now, he was standing in that "open field." It was pitch black all around. He tried desperately to turn his "gaze" away, and just then, he heard a voice.
Not heard with his ears; he had no ears. But the voice came anyway. In fragments, as if rising up from very, very deep underwater, passing through many layers of waterweed and stone before landing in his mind.
"...This is..."
As if someone had spoken inside his head.
Allen went abruptly "rigid." His consciousness felt as if it had been seized in a fist, and every floating, scattered piece of "himself" was pulled together toward a single point, like iron filings drawn to a magnet. That feeling of being watched came again, and stronger than before. Not a pair of eyes. A gaze. No, heavier than a gaze, as if it had real substance. As if someone had pinned the back of his neck with their stare, lifted him up whole, turned him over, and examined him inside and out.
He wanted to scream, but no sound would come. He could only "hang" there while that gaze swept over him, inch by inch.
Then more sounds appeared. Not that voice speaking, but all around him, as if countless people were talking at once throughout the entire undercurrent. There was the sound of wind, of breaking glass, the drone of unfamiliar languages, like hundreds of radios all tuned to different frequencies at the same time. The sounds were fragmented, too fragmented for him to catch a single complete word. He heard someone crying, someone running, someone shouting in a language he didn't understand. And there was a very soft woman's voice humming a melody he had never heard before. The tune was like water, cool and light, carrying a sorrow he couldn't put into words.
He strained to hear it clearly. But suddenly all the sounds went far away again, like a tide going out, leaving only the whooshing of the undercurrent, closing in around him from every direction.
Then he saw light again.
Not a harsh light... Streak after streak of incredibly thin light, flowing like water. Some were blue, some silvery white, and a few strands were dark red. They floated all around him like some vast school of fish, swimming in from far away and swimming off even farther. He "stood" in the middle of the light, like a leaf so light it couldn't be any lighter, pushed forward by the current of light little by little.
There was something up ahead.
Allen couldn't say what. But he knew there was something ahead. Something huge, so huge it had no shape, like a wall, or like a door, or like an upturned bowl. All the light was heading there, as if being sucked into the same crack. He didn't want to go. He didn't want to be drawn in. He began to struggle. His mind thrashed like a fish inside his own fear. He tried desperately to turn around, to swim back, to return to the plane, to return to the side of those two old people, to return to that world which had been bumpy but was still "normal."
He couldn't move.
The current was too strong. So strong it was as if the whole of heaven and earth were tilting in one direction. He watched himself draw closer and closer to the light, closer and closer to that unknown thing. It no longer looked like a wall. It was more like a net, woven from countless fine threads of light, and within its mesh something flowed, liquid, shadows, images flashing past. He saw a city, saw a sea, saw a pair of hands. He saw a figure from behind, with silvery white hair, standing somewhere very high.
"Mom..." he suddenly cried out inside. Even he hadn't seen it coming. What he'd seen was clearly someone else's back.
Then every image shattered.
The current of light suddenly sped up, and his mind felt as if it had been thrown over a waterfall. The light passed through his "body" like countless fine needles, piercing in one by one, then pulling out again. It didn't hurt, but the sensation of being "shot through" was far too vivid. He felt like a stone scoured over and over by the light, its surface starting to flake away, layer after layer. And those flakes were his memories, his emotions, his habits, everything that made him "Allen." He clung to them desperately, trying not to let them be washed away. But the current was too fierce. He couldn't hold on. Some things, he couldn't even remember what it was he had forgotten.
Only that gaze remained.
From beginning to end, it was there. Everything else was slipping away, and only that gaze stayed, unmoving, like a thorn driven into him.
"...Interesting."
The voice came again. Closer this time, and clearer. A man's voice, very low, very slow, with a composure that made Allen's scalp prickle. It didn't sound like he was talking to Allen so much as talking to himself and letting Allen overhear.
"This soul... is the same kind of thing as me."
Allen wanted to answer. He wanted to ask "Who are you," "What do you want," "What's happened to me." But all he could do was "listen." His mind was pressed flat, as though pinned underneath something, unable even to breathe. Yes, he'd even forgotten to breathe. He no longer needed to breathe. When he realized that, he suddenly wanted to cry. But there were no tears either.
He remembered the old man's last words: "Don't look, close your eyes." He regretted it now. Maybe he really shouldn't have looked. If he'd listened back then and kept his eyes shut tight until the storm had passed, would he still be here now? Would he have passed out like all the other passengers, obediently, and just had an ordinary nightmare?
He didn't know. All he knew was that the owner of that gaze was coming closer. Very close. So close he could feel the darkness ripple outward, ring after ring, whenever the other "spoke."
"Don't be afraid."
The voice suddenly settled over him like a hand placed on top of Allen's head. Very light, yet it left his whole body unable to move. It wasn't comfort. It was more like someone who'd caught a fledgling that had fallen out of its nest, holding it in their hand and saying offhandedly, "I'm not going to eat you." But Allen couldn't tell the difference. The voice was too close, so close it overlapped with his own heartbeat, as if it had grown out of his own body.
"Right now, you can't do anything at all," the voice went on, with a very faint amusement that sent a chill down the back of Allen's neck. "Very soon, you'll become something else entirely."
"Though that will be your honor."
Allen's "mouth" moved. He had no mouth. But using every last bit of his strength, he squeezed a few words out from the depths of his mind.
"Who... are you..."
For an instant, the darkness went still.
Then that gaze grew brighter... Red to the point of darkness, like embers slowly catching in the dead of night. Allen felt himself being pulled into that gaze, falling into it little by little. He wanted to look away, to close his "eyes," but he couldn't. The gaze was too close. So close he could see that it wasn't plain red at all; inside it was a ring of incredibly fine gold, like an eclipse.
"You'll find out sooner or later," the voice said.
Then the current dropped sharply downward. A tremendous force dragged Allen's mind down, and all the light rushed upward, as if he were plummeting away from that sea of light. The voice was still in his head, as if carried off by the wind, or as if carved into him. Echoing over and over again.
"Don't be afraid... Soon you won't ever be afraid again."
At last Allen couldn't hold on any longer. The final thread of his consciousness snapped, and he fell into a soundless void. He couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything. Only in his chest, or where his chest used to be, something was beating. Very slowly, very heavily, as if someone very, very far away were pounding on him with a fist, blow after blow.
That pounding followed him all the way down...