floating...am I floating?

Dark...void...desolate...endless.

An infinite void of endless nothingness.

No walls.

No floor.

No air.

Infinite nothingness.

Am I floating? Who could say, I could be standing or I could not? I could be bodyless. What is a body? What's the point of a body? It decays into nothingness when you dye then what happens to you? Do you decay into nothingness along with it or leave and enter a new body that will continue to decay before you leave it again forever jumping from body to body person to person?

An infinite and endless cycle.

Ha, what bullshit am I spouting this must be what death is forever falling in nothing destined to one day just stop and vanish.

"What doth thee want?"

What was that?

"Hey come back."

"I love you."

"#*^."

What is going on?

"AAAAAaaaaaa"

"HELP."

"GET AWAY FROM ME."

"HHHHEEEELLLLPPPPP."

"I would sacrifice the world for you."

Who is speaking?

The quiet void shatters pieces of the darkness falling in shards of black glass. Images whisk by of times long gone to history. People speaking languages never heard for millennium, cultures lost to time.

I catch a few words spoken here and there as they pass, the images are fleeting moving too fast for my eyes to see many details. My hair flutters in the wind as I soak in all the scenes flying past me, my fingers itch as pictures flash in my mind wishing to materialize into reality.

"Wow," my voice echoes overtaking all sounds. "Haha," laughing I reach my now visible hand towards the images flashing by. My fingers brush the painted lines but nothing happens, the images and voice keep going with no interruption.

"What is this place?" I whisper looking up to the dark void and watching the images vanish into nothingness back to the edges of time.

"What are you?" I mumble and the void mumbles back.

"Huh...huh...huh...huh...?" My voice echoes around me as the images begin to slow down.

"What's going on...what's going on...what's going on...?" Slowly the images stop and I am left staring at myself.

My brown hair sways at my sides as I turn my head the images doing the same. Turning around I come face to face with myself once again our noses a hairs breath away. Stumbling back I look to my side each time myself look's back like I am surrounded by mirrors.

My heart pounds my skin becomes hot as I watch myself watching me. "How?"

"How?"

"How?"

"How?"

"How?"

"How?"

They all repeat their eyes as wide as mine fear coating the faces around me. "What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

The heads- my head tilts to the side as they- I begin to walk towards me. Falling I crawl away from them as they come towards me flicking my head towards all four. "Who?" they say their voices ringing beside my ears. "Who are we?"

A cold sweat trickles down my shivering spine as they get closer their faces smiling as they giggle. My back hits the legs of the fifth one my chest heaving as I slowly look up. She- I lean down eyes locked to mine "We are you," she grins.

Her face cracks like she was behind glass each section of her face changes. A section of her hair turns red another blond, one eye becomes a vibrant blue, the other a warmer brown, but her mouth it vanishes into a shadow of itself lost in a haze of smoke.

The shattered pieces fall into each other creating a hole of endless darkness above my head. The world shifts and I fall into the hole screaming.

I'm back to the void but this time I'm falling and the darkness is gnawing at my skin like a rabid beast. My lungs hurt as I scream and scream and scream, till I stop my body hitting the ground.

My chest inflates as I open my eyes coughing on my bedroom floor.

"Feeling better now?" Looking up K smiles down at me waving from her spot on my bed.

Pushing myself off the ground my arms shaking "Where was I?"

K tilts her head "What do you mean?"

"Where did I go when you did what you did."

"You went into our inner world like we all do?"

Glaring at her I lean on the wall beside my bed "Well why is our 'inner world' like that?"

She looks at me her eyes scanning my shaking form "Where did you go?"

"That was my question?" I seethe.

K rises locking eyes with mine "Where did you go?"

Glaring at her I fall onto the bed my legs gone "A black void filled with weird images."

"Where?"

Grumbling I grind my teeth "A black void with weird images."

k steps away from me mumbling to herself as she paces around my room. Watching her I rub my shacking arms as my skin prickles as images from the void fly past my eyes. My skin goes cold as I feel wind brush past my skin my throat aching. I'm falling again.

"...Jara...Jara...Jara...JARA." K screams shaking me.

"Huh...huh...huuuuuuhhhhhh?" Her hands are touching me. I grab her arms feeling the texture of her clothes and temperatureless skin. "How am I touching you right? How are you touching me?"

K freezes for a second before teering her arms away from me, her eyes drop the shock vanishing from her face a second later. "If I can touch you then who is in our body?"

"How would I know I have never been out of my body before."

K stands deathly still before marching out of the room. I stumble after her "You stay here," K shouts.

"Why? Its my body I want to get back to it."

K grumbles "Our body its our body not yours ours." K's face drops all signs of frustration vanishing into a calm stillness "Stay you won't be able to follow me anyway."

"Where are you going?"

"The inner world."

"Inner world, how? Why?"

"Each of us has a connection to the inner world as its what we created for us to go to when we weren't in front. It's the closest place to the body we can go." K goes to leave but I grab her shoulder turning her to face me.

"Then why am I here and not there?" I press.

She pushes my hands off her "I don't know how you got out only three of us can get out of the inner world without being in front, we don't know why but we can. How you are without having gone to the inner world first I am going to find out."

She turns to leave again and I grab her again "Then bring me with you."

"No," she pushes me off.

Grabbing her I pull her close "Yes."

She pulls away "No Jara."

"Why?"

"You can't," she seethes.

"Why not?" I hiss.

"You can't."

"Why?" She turns to leave again her body beginning to fade. Grabbing her she returns fully to view "Why?" She pulls away moving farther from me "Why, K why can't I go?"

"You just can't," she says.

"Why?" I press "Why can't I? Why? Why? Why? Why won't you tell me-"

"BECAUSE," she shouts her chest huffing "You have to gift something in return to go back."

I freeze "Gift? Gift what?"

She sighs her back slumping "You."

"What?"

She sighs running her hands through her hair "You have to give them something of yourself."

"Them? Them who?" I ask tentatively.

She turns fully to me pulling the collar of her shirt down a mark appearing on her collar bone "We don't know who or what they are, all we know is that they come from what you described as the void. The void is actually called the medial."

"Middle, between," I whisper. "So you're saying I was in a place between things."

K nods "Sort of from what you said you went to the medial which to the elysian's and boundless is the place we go to before life and after death."

"Like the river Styx?"

"Sure but don't say that in front of the boundless they are kind of salty about it."

"Why?"

"Haaa I can tell you another time that is a whole other thing right now I need to get back."

"Then explain to me what I need to gift," I press.

She sighs rubbing her head "Nothing because your not going."

Stomping towards her I poke her shoulder "Like. Hell. I'm. Not. Going," pushing her back I bring my face inches from hers. "It's our body and I want to get back to it, you said the inner world is the closest we will get so finish explaining what I have to give to get back."

She sighs stepping a comfortable distance away. "Fine," she pulls down her collar again showing the slithering black marks on her collar. "These are a sign of what I gave to get back," I nod. She adjusts her shirt covering the mark again "I give them pieces of my being."

"Pieces of your being I don't get it, what is that?"

"Each person has a different toll on them when they leave which means they have a different toll to pay back. For example, Libby is one of the three who can leave but has the biggest toll out of all of us."

"What does she give?"

K points to her head "She gives her mind."

"What do you mean her mind?"

"All of us are the same age, but as you might have seen Libby acts a little younger than us."

"I thought that was just how she is," I say.

K shakes her head "She wasn't always like that, she has is the most playful of the bunch but each time she leaves the inner world and comes back her mind slowly whittles away. She also is the one with the most mentally and physically taxing memories which as you have seen drove her slightly insane."

"K don't say that she is not insane."

K just grins knowingly changing the subject back to her "What I give is my being, each time I return a part of my existence is taken."

"Existence? Wait isn't that more than just your mind?" I screech.

K shrugs "Maybe but it takes longer for me to vanish than the others, ones existence goes back more than the time you can remember." She turns her back to me again. "To go back you have to make a deal with them and gift them a part of yourself."

K begins to vanish again "Wait K tell me more your not done explaining everything yet." K dodges my hands staying just out of reach. "K don't just leave me here. K...K...K you bloody bitch," and I am alone again. in my house where no one can see me.

"You fucking bitch K haa," kicking the ground I go back to my room patting my chest my heart pounding from confronting her. "I have to gift something to these people to get back to my body. But where in the world am I?"

Sighing I rub my face as I sit on my bed. Gift gift gift what and how do I gift something from myself like my mind or my existence?

Footsteps jar me out of my thoughts as they come closer. Is it my body? Standing up I move towards my doorway peering into the hallway. My vision zone's in on a figure walking down the hall their long skirts tattered and dirty. Who is that? No one in my house has a dress like that?

The figure slowly turns around their face aglow by the sunlight streaming through the window. All the blood leaves my body, the person face covered in red and white their skin hanging in thick clumps of leather on the cheeks bone glimmer like pearls. They open their mouth the tendons stretching and pulling the jaw into place.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH," I scream running back into my room. I go to slam the door shut but my hand passes right through it. Why can I sit on the bed but not touch the fucking door when I need to? Sweat drips down my temples as footsteps slowly approach.

"Come on come on bloody door close."

"Would you like some help?"

"AAAAHHH," whipping around a person or thing stand behind me. Their body crocked from legs each a different size. Their torso cut into three different parts some skin some scales. Their whole body a patchwork of a Frankenstein monster masterpiece.

"We heard you wanted to give us a gift?"

Gift? What gift? Give to who?

"You have to gift something in return to go back."

"Gift? Gift what?"

"You."

"What?"

"You have to give them something of yourself."

The gift, so these are the people I have to gift to.

"Each person has a different toll on them when they leave which means they have a different toll to pay back."

The toll, so now is the time to give the toll.

"What will you gift us?" The person...thing says their voice shifting between that of a girl to a boy to something else, something other.

What will I give?

What can I give?

Libby gave her mind and K gave her existence what of myself can I give to them that they would accept?

"What will you gift?"

Locking eyes with the empty sockets of the being my heart pounds in my chest sweat dripping from every crevice. "I will gift you my heart."

~

Rule #6 Do not leave gif-

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