Work Text:
It is cold.
Why is he surprised by that? It’s always cold to him, he himself is cold. A walking, shivering icicle with bones poking out of his bruised skin. He has always been like this, ever since he remembers. He was a boy surrounded by eternal cold and harshness so much that he became it, too.
He remembers the first moment he started remembering, the very first second of existing and being conscious of it. He saw nothing, but empty darkness - not just shadows, not just lack of light, but complete and utter blackness. No matter how much he stared into it, it never became clear, never became comprehensible. There was nothing around him, nothing existed, but he. An empty void, which was a perfect place for the cold to grow.
Void over him, void around him, void beneath him.
He had nothing but his trusty old, but warm blanket draped over his shoulders - his only line of defense against the slowly creeping frost. There was no wind, no snowflakes or sounds of the wildlife, only him, the darkness and the cold. It was always still, soundless yet it still somehow crushed his weak little body.
His alabaster skin was slowly changing hues to blue, then purple, then black and back to alabaster again. He would have been hidden in the snow, as colorless as he is, but he stood out like a sore toe against the blackness. Like a light in a place where the sun never reaches. Yet, he remained, as stubborn as he is.
Void over him, void around him, void beneath him.
As much as the cold was harsh and unforgiving, he felt at home in it. The empty and freezing void enveloped him in a tight hug, like a caring parent with a lot of love to give. They guided him, they held him, they carried him, they were his home. The cold around him became him, the lack of sun became him, the blindness became him, the emptiness became him. The void was nothing, the void was over him, around him and beneath him.
He became the void, he became nothing
The emptiness was never a stranger. They and he were similar, in a way. He just had a shape.
A shape that often hurts. Being human hurts, existing hurts. Their shapes hurt everything, including themselves. Every shape he took hurted, he was starving, he was suffering. Having a shape meant existing, having a shape meant pain, having a shape meant being something.
He was something yet nothing at the same time.
It is cold.
Cold preserves, it envelopes, it cares in its own way. It lulls you into madness within its embrace. Every being that fell victim to it disappeared from one world and went into another. The person laying in the snow before him was about to make that cross.
Beings think there is something for them to see after they cross, that there is either a paradise or hell waiting for them on the other side. They think that something similar happened to their ancestors and will happen to their next generations. They all have different stories of it, they all have different names for it. They never know what lies on the other side.
On the other side, he waits. He is their own void, he is their own nothing.
Nothing over them, nothing around them, nothing beneath them.