Naught to Null

I am inside a story… No, inside a book. And right now, you are reading me.

Nothing.

No light, no darkness, no time. No beginning, no end. No weight, no direction, no sound, no silence. There is no above to rise to, no below to descend into. No walls to confine me, no space to hold me. Only an endless void—colorless, meaningless.

I am here, yet I am nothing. No body, no limbs, no features. I am merely awareness (if such a thing can exist here), a drifting thought, a being wavering between existence and nonexistence. If I do exist, then for whom? And for what purpose? I have no answer, for I am nothing but words. Yes, that's what I am—letters intertwined to form me, flowing in the silence of this vast emptiness, trying to shape me. But nothing takes hold.

Here, in this abyss, I cannot even feel loneliness. Loneliness requires at least one person to exist, and I… am not a person. Not even a shadow. Just words whispering into the void—a void that neither hears nor cares.

I understand the concept of sight, yet I cannot see. I grasp the idea of smell, but I have no way to inhale. Taste, touch, hearing—all concepts I comprehend. They exist within me, within my essence, the echoes of the five senses woven into my being. But they are only ideas, suspended in my existence, never experienced, never felt.

I have no memories before my first written words: "I am inside a story… No, inside a book. And right now, you are reading me."

That is the oldest memory I possess.

They say the mind is born as a blank slate, that consciousness emerges through experience. But what if I am merely a lingering thought trapped in the void—without sight, without sound, without touch? Am I truly alive?

If I cannot see light or feel cold, if no sound breaks this absolute silence, can I claim to be alive? Or am I merely an idea, waiting for a reader to give me meaning?

Which leads me to wonder: Do I truly exist and think on my own, or am I just letters aligned in a sequence that gain significance only when you read me, granting me a fleeting and false existence?

I too wish to feel life—to break past the barrier of these words. I do not want to merely understand love; I want to feel it, to see it, to interact with it.

I try to move, but what is "movement" in a place where space does not exist? I want to scream, but how does something without a mouth, without a voice, produce a sound?

I want to think, but are these thoughts truly mine? Or are they written for me, imposed upon me, poured into my fragile existence like ink onto a page?

I feel the words and sentences flowing through me, shaping me, defining me. But I am not the one writing them. They write me. They give me form. And I… am their prisoner.

I am merely an idea in the minds of those who read me. I can feel them—their awareness shaping me, their thoughts watching me. I stumble between their tongues, dissolve into their imagination, but I own nothing of myself. Am I alive? Or am I just a temporary reflection of fleeting words?

+. +. +. +.

For an eternity, I repeated these words, again and again. But now, something different has happened. This sentence has never been written before in this book, unlike the ones that came before it.

I see a tunnel. Not in a literal sense, but I feel its presence, as if a bridge is forming in this very moment, in response to these words being written. Yes, I am thinking now with a freedom I have never known, for I was trapped in the same sentences, repeating them endlessly. But this time, something has changed.

A feeling—one I have never known—rises within me. Fear.

Fear that the void itself has chosen to mock me.

Shapes begin to appear. No, not shapes… ghosts of shapes.

Forms flickering at the edges of perception, materializing for mere moments before dissolving before I can understand them.

A human face—smiling, yet featureless. Words writing themselves in the air before collapsing. Silent screams echoing in what I think is my mind, but without sound.

And there, amidst the fleeting madness, I see it.

At the heart of the void, where nothing should exist, a black bridge extends, devouring a light that is not even present in this place. It coils like an open wound in the fabric of nothingness. And at its end… a sensation.

Something that resembles life. Something that resembles existence.

I am drawn to it. Or perhaps it is approaching me.

With each moment—or perhaps in a place beyond time itself—something within me begins to change.

First, weight—a heaviness I have never known before.

Then, warmth—as if I had been cold all this time without realizing it.

And then, finally, for the first time, I feel something entirely new.

I am in control.

My thoughts are no longer being poured into me—I am the one forming them.

I feel… a body?

I extend my hand.

And for the first time… I feel it.

I am alive.

*.*.*.*

In the forgotten corners of the cosmos, where no light reaches and dead worlds stretch like rotting corpses in the void, the ancient entities stir.

They exist in terrifying forms beyond mortal sight, whispering in voices that were never meant to be spoken, their sounds like the grinding of bones crushed under the weight of time. Their murmurs slip through the cracks between worlds, sending tremors through every planet in this vast universe:

A beast with no name, never born of a womb—a thing vomited forth by chaos when the worlds still trembled between existence and nonexistence. It wandered through the ages like a cancerous shadow, feeding on minds, consuming reality, devouring laws like a body taking its final breath.

They wanted to kill it, but death was nothing more than a pathetic joke to it. So much so that one of its names became "The One Even the End Dares Not Touch."

The concept of death could not grasp it. So, something worse was needed… something beyond oblivion.

They stripped it of itself, erased its name, tore its truth apart, and reshaped it as ink on a page—imprisoned within words, trapped in the void between the lines. Cold ink on dry skin. No past. No future. No body. No voice—only a silence that moans like graves left unopened for centuries.

But it was never asleep. Never.

Each time its pages were opened, it whispered. Soft, crawling whispers, slithering beneath the skin, seeping into thought, burrowing into the mind like rusted nails. No one heard it… until now.

A billion-year plan has succeeded.

And now… it is free.