Pursuit of the Sun 1.2

Pain and suffering, both mental and physical, had forever given way to blissful peace. Finally, he had found the well-deserved rest and the silence of eternity. Only a brief, unpleasant moment of dissolution, and then the dark abyss enveloped its faithful servant like a warm blanket. This unfortunate character's journey was over forever. Realizing this pleasurable emotion, he suddenly understood that he still existed. The last thought, tinged with a slight bitterness, poisoned his newfound tranquility. Trying to relax and merge with the void, he futilely confirmed that he was still capable of awareness. He had no memories left, no remnants of his former personality, but the very fact of his identity, for some unknown reason, seemed like a wrong, terrible mistake to him. He wasn't sure if he had arisen in the void, like a rebellious echo of consciousness, or if he had somehow survived the final dissolution in the night abyss. Fragments of unknown souls whirled past him in a chaotic vortex, but he himself merely floated, moving away from the bottomless funnel of emptiness. Winding like a snake, his consciousness rose higher and higher, as if demanding a final, decisive action from its owner. This strange, insignificant trial had now become a heavy torment for him. Once again, the universe denied him peace. A raging stream of thoughts, as turbulent on the surface as it was empty inside, spewed out various forms and objects, but he felt no significant connection to any of them. On his path, he encountered dark, ancient fortresses, but the phantom easily passed through their walls, bound by a deathly silence. The gaze of his sightless eyes pierced blindly through the boundless ocean of time and space, but he realized that he could distinguish living souls and their organisms. Entering an ugly rat, he scurried across a ruined kitchen hall. Jumping into a bird, he soared into the sky above the shining blackness of the unknown. He found a human, but the host turned out to be too strong-willed to possess him for long. Satisfied with a fresh corpse, he turned it around with strangely familiar movements. Higher and higher he rose, with each moment feeling more and more anger towards the kingdom that had rejected him. The creatures he encountered on his path could not notice the subtle shadow, and he himself was blind and mute to remind them of his existence. Fragments of other people's captured memories and thoughts swirled in his mind, but he could not find his own. Sometimes, his very invisible presence made living consciousness freeze in horror. Suddenly, an old medal appeared before his eyes. A spark of something familiar, something close, pierced the ghostly aura. He realized that he had lingered too long, that he had been playing the role of a silent messenger of the void for too long. It was time to end this.