I’ve never been in the void. I’ve never actually been in the void before. All I have done is dangle limbs and body parts into it. But now, now with everything I have and everything I am plunged into everything that the void is, I can finally, finally know what it’s like to be engulfed, enveloped, consumed. 

The box holding the World Stones disintegrated in front of my eyes, as I suspected that it might do, and so I madly grasped through the void to collect all seven stones in my hand, which I managed to do just barely. I am holding them tight to my chest right now. I cannot lose them. I cannot lose them. Whatever happens, I cannot lose them. Everything relies on these seven tiny pieces of rock. 

Well, actually, that’s not true. Everything depends on us slaves and what we do. The rocks are just an opportunity. It is up to us to take that opportunity. It is up to us to make the best of it, to find our power, and to use all the power that we have, all the power that we’ve been building inside of us for so very long. 

I have to prove to my people that we can win. I have to prove to my people that we can be saved. I have to prove to my people that we can save ourselves. We can save ourselves and we always have been able to save ourselves and all we have to do is unlock that power that is inside of us, that has been inside of us all along. I have to prove to my people that it doesn’t matter what the odds are, it doesn’t matter what we are up against, we can still win. 

Of course, I have to get out of this void with all the stones in order to do that. So that is what I turn my focus to. 

I have no idea where I am going. It feels like I am falling and flying both at the same time. It feels like I am being pulled each and every way, all at the same time, like I am going everywhere at once. Yet at the same time, it feels as if I am going nowhere. As if I am absolutely still and the world is absolutely still all around me. It’s impossible for me to get a sense of direction in all of this. I don’t know which way I’m going, if I’m even going. I don’t even know if I still exist. 

There is blackness all around me. Blackness that is deeper than black, darker than black, blackness that is not blackness at all. I cannot describe it. I cannot describe it at all. I have seen it before. I have seen it many times in my travels through the palace. But that was nothing like this. It was nothing like being surrounded by the darkness on all sides, everywhere, wherever you turn. 

It’s so dark that my own deep-hued skin seems light against it. Well at least I can still see myself. At least I can still feel the Stones against my chest. At least I know that I still have a body, I still have the Stones, and I still have my existence, however strange this existence might be. I exist, and I can hold on, and I can move forwards. 

And I have to move forwards. I have to do it as soon as I can. Because I don’t know how much time is passing in this place. I don’t know if I have been here for seconds, or days, or hours or years. I don’t know if I’ve been tumbling through this darkness forever or if only a few moments have passed. I don’t know if my thoughts are all racing through my head or if they’re being stretched slowly like taffy. I don’t know if the world around me has changed immeasurably or if the Emperor is still standing there outside the tunnel, watching me go in. 

The void is not oppressive, though. It’s not oppressive at all. I feel a sense of freedom, a sense of belonging here that I have never felt before. There is nothing here. Nothing taking me and twisting me and controlling me to be its own thing. Yet there is everything here. All that ever existed, all the people, their hopes and their dreams, all take up residence in this void, and I am one with it, I am one with it all. There is a oneness here that nothing can describe, nothing can imagine. A oneness that perhaps nothing can even experience. And I am part of it all, I’m part of the whole universe. 

I almost want to just let go. To let myself loose and experience it all. I feel like I could lose myself entirely in this. I feel like I could find myself completely. I feel as if everything I am and everything I was and everything I could become could come to me and I could become everything that I have ever been or will ever be all at the same time. 

I feel as if I am immersed in a secret knowledge that I cannot explain. I am immersed in a secret knowledge that I cannot understand. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is but it’s there. I can feel it. I can feel it and it’s there. It stretches out before me, beyond space and beyond time, beyond number and beyond form. I can feel all the knowledge, secret knowledge, forbidden to me, and inexplicable. 

I am bathed in it. On all sides I am engulfed and enveloped and immersed. I am consumed by it. But I am not burned up. I am all this knowledge all around me and it is me and we are one. I can feel it reaching towards me. It reaches towards me and I reach back. I am ever-reaching, always reaching, and I can grasp it, I can grasp it with every fibre of my being. But somehow, there is something that I can’t grasp. Something that I can’t grasp no matter how much I reach for it. 

There is an energy all around me. There is energy within me. It hums and thrums and twirls and dances. It’s beyond shape, beyond form, beyond symmetry and gravity and movement. But I can feel it flowing through me. I can feel it flowing through each part of my body and all of my mind. I cannot name this energy. I cannot put any description to it. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s nothing. It’s absolute nothingness. But it’s everything at the same time.

Something about this void, about this immersion, it feels like home. It feels like something I have never known before, and it feels like something I have always known deep in my heart, something I have always longed for, something I have always felt an intense connection to and an intense disconnect from. I breathe. I feel wanted here. Not wanted for my magic or my obedience or my work. But wanted for some unknown, unknowable quality of my soul which has always been mine and has always been me. It is an utterly glorious sensation.

I can feel myself losing myself. I can feel myself losing myself more and more, unraveling as I experience the void in all of its entirety. I cannot let this happen. I must hold on to my consciousness as I float, or fall, or fly through the void. I must hold onto myself so that I can find a way out of this and into the world that I must save. 

Yet, in a strange way, this void feels like the whole world in all of its entirety. 

I try to navigate the void. I really try to navigate it, trying to grasp at whatever I can and propel myself in any way that is possible. But I cannot even propel myself, or turn myself, or direct myself at all. I am entirely at the mercy of the void. And I do not know how long I will be in here. But I have to get out. I have to get out. I simply have to. Except, I have no idea how.