(Part 1)
Soft voices murmured and faded, echoing in the distance. In this maddening silence, those strange voices seemed to jar Arche's consciousness awake.
He let out a single, long tired exhale. He could have sworn he slept for ages, and even with his vision returned to him, all he could see was darkness.
"Wh-What the [tornado fang]? Where... am I?" Arche spoke wearily. His head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, and every thought was a chore, rebounding off the walls of his mind. He desperately attempted to bear recollection of how he ended up here, or what he was doing before, however, his efforts proved unfruitful.
As he peered out in front of him, he started to see faint glimmers of light. One by one, they faded into existence, strangely resembling stars. They seemed to be coming closer to him, or perhaps, he was coming closer to them. Hues of vibrant colors filled the black void, and soon enough, Arche was left utterly speechless by what surrounded him.
For some time, he lost all fear and confusion, gaining awe and a strange sense of enlightenment, however, the flood of frightened emotions soon came crashing back and resurfaced itself into his mind.
He frantically looked around, until noticing something very peculiar; he couldn't feel his body. No physical form. Focusing solely on where he was and what happened, the last thing he would bother to check, obviously, never occurred to him. Arche peered down beneath him, then tried to stretch out his arms... but there was nothing. He immediately felt ill. "Th-This... This is crazy... Am I... Haha...
Hahahahaha!"
Arche wanted to scream. To shout and kick out his legs in manic frustration and fear, but all he could manage to let out was a low, sad chuckle. That chuckle then grew into a hysterical laugh.
"Am I... dead? This is really it, huh? Aha... Hahaha..."
Only the dreaded silence greeted his proclamation of madness.
No body. No hope. Only what seemed to be the universe to bear his soul. He became quiet and the hysteria had dulled, as well. He drifted, letting everything go blank. Gazing at the curious space around him, Arche's mind relapsed to what he knew about the First Law of Thermodynamics.
That no energy in the universe is created, nor destroyed. But rather, every particle-- every atom-- within us, will go on to become something else. Perhaps something greater. A microbe, a tree in a rainforest or the clouds that observe us from above... This Law was not something Arche had given much thought to, but now, he couldn't help but settle into the possibility.
"Maybe I'll just... drift away..." He couldn't comprehend how he could see or speak without a body, though he couldn't begin to care at this point. Arche grew tired. "Yeah... Into the unknown..." A few seconds passed by.
"Pardon me. Do you insist on napping here?"
Suddenly, a strange voice entered the silence.
Whatever passed as Arche's eyes snapped open and he tried to find where the voice was coming from.
"Try not to be alarmed. You're not dead." The voice appeared behind him. As Arche turned around, he halted in place at what he saw. A semi-transparent white figure, devoid of any distinguishable features like a face, hair or skin. He looked like... a white silhouette. The only thing he could decipher was his gender.
"Wh-Who the hell are you?!" He shouted.
For a brief moment, Arche could somehow make out a semblance of a smirk on the man's face. "We can get to that matter at a later time. In any event, I've been expecting you for quite some time, Archetype."