Chapter Text
For a while, his world was only darkness. He wanted to open his eyes but every time he tried, it was like his eyelids were made of lead, and that exertion alone was enough to make his head hurt. Shadows crept in and out of his vision that was forever fixed to one spot simply because he lacked the ability to look anywhere else. Sometimes, it was a black shape against a light background. Other times, two or three outlines faded in and out in the grey dimness.
Once, he descried two yellow gems above him, bright like stars yet blurry like the trails of light left behind by fireflies. "San... San," a voice called his name. He recognized it but did not know it. Many voices called his name all the time.
"San, please wake up."
When he returned, the darkness changed. It started with a shard of green, blinking and luring. Life, he thought. Or... Earth. The idea struck him as odd; he did not know where it came from, except for that one lone source that penetrated the night.
And then the colors followed, growing around the edges of the first and spreading like water. The gold overlapped the green, swirling like borealis in the sky. Health. Red joined in next, stark and vivid. Fire. There was harmony in the mixture, but the moment was dominated suddenly by the entrance of teal. Strength.
When more continued to come, he began to notice a structure. The hues were liquid in a container; each a part of a whole volume that filled a crystalline form. Orange, humor. Pink, movement. Basil, growth. Scarlet, defense. Then came black, but not the same that blanketed him now. Ink. Lastly, the purple – his own – shimmered lightly with the rest, somewhat there and not at the same time. Knowledge.
He thought it was done when they all came together. Together, they were a beacon in the void. The key. Another idea crept into his brain unwillingly, much like how a foreign shadow moved in to shield the colors. It was uninvited, immiscible with the others. An intruder. It blocked the light and lifted it from where it once sat comfortably...
All at once, everything spilled and the power was so strong it pierced into his eyes like knives. He attempted to shut his eyes, forgetting that they were already closed, and needles were sent flying to his brain.
"San!" The voice came again. He was back out of the darkness, a momentary reprieve... or was it? "You had a bad dream, that's all. Can you sit up?"
But he could only hear, and the only eye he could see with was his mind's. He tried to move, only to find stone and earth layered on top of his limbs – at least, it felt that way. The voice urged him again, growing desperate. I can't! he wanted to scream. It's not time yet. There was more to see, some unfinished part of the story. I have to go back.
So he went back. With the crystal gone, he assumed only the night remained. But when he tried hard he could make out the figures in the grainy dark. Tiny ones, as if he were a giant looking down on the world. Hundreds, thousands, millions of them coalescing into deformed pieces, yet none of them matched. The largest piled over one another, colored in a shade even darker than the background. Is that even possible? It charged, drowning every other bit on the field: the one with a glowing outline that matched the first color he'd seen emerging from the void, and then the smallest one with a pale, unsaturated image, as if all color had been drained from them.
He still could not move, so he relied on feeling. Every cell and nerve in his body was tingling, vibrating, warning him. Something was wrong, he knew, and he wanted to fix it. But he now understood that he was not a giant after all; he was just far away and out of reach, a crow in the clouds watching predator hunt prey. Like the crow, all he could do was wait for his turn to soar down and pick up from the aftermath.
Before any of that could happen, though, another burst of light blinded him from the bowels of the void and fight. The flames engulfed all pieces and figures, large and small alike with no direction, manner, order, or bias. He could tell that although this was less significant – imminent – than the spillage of colors, this was somehow more dangerous. For when he jolted awake again––
"If you can hear me, San, you have to talk to me!" The yellow gems were back, glowing more fiercely than last time.
He shouted back, I'm trying! As painful as it was, he had to get everything out. All that he had seen, so that others could decipher any meaning there was behind those images. There was scarcely an instant for him to form his sentences, and he only hoped that the owner of those yellow gems understood what he had said.
Just as quickly he was back in his own world again. This time, he knew, the darkness was going to be eternal.