Abyss Riser

Chapter 0: Prologue

<Static... Hey... Remember...>

Something hazy fills my thought... As I try to grasp what it was, but it just slips past me, like how it would if you were to try and grasp water.... 'Remember'... The only word I could make out was 'Remember'. Like an itch you can't scratch, this word stuck to me. I know it is important but I just can't seem to remember what I should be remembering... As I focused, another memory came...

<Static... I won't leave you, okay... We're in this together...>

A boy... I thought as I was watching the visions.

<.... You're helluva a lot uglier when you don't smile... No matter what, keep smiling...>

As the static became clearer, I catch glimpses of a silhouette of a young man... I felt calm and composed watching him, despite not knowing why... My emotion... I feel so very strange... as I watched him, I felt as I was both looking at him and looking from his perspective... It's so peculiar... Suddenly, another memory came like a sharp knife.

<.... I'm taking all your memories... Wait!... Pleas-!>

I felt cold and uncomfortable, as the shivers run down my spine... The memory was vague, yet there was this strange sticky, yet oppressive force attached to it... The former part of the vision depicted a silhouette of a woman... No, it was a man? No, a child?... The more I thought about that person's figure, the more I find it hard to ascertain that person's features. It felt like trying to understand an optical illusion, in which you'd only just get even more confused. But this was better compared to the feelings I got from the latter part... there were five girls and five boys beside me as we faced that person. We were in an extremely white room, similar to how others would normally describe what heaven looks like, but the furniture of the room would say otherwise. There were multiple monitors as walls, each showing complex equations. The various chairs were computer desk chairs and desk themselves each had three-dimensional holograms floating above them. My gaze shifted to the strange humanoid figure. The humanoid figure opened it's mouth, and in just a few words from that person and we all began falling to our knees one after the other... The voice was demanding and held a lot of authority... The feeling I got as we fell from it was indescribable and strange. It was like the strange sensation from phantom limbs, described by disabled war veterans. It was unworldly and if I was forced to describe it in one phrase, then I would say it was 'beyond uncomfortable'...

"How long are you planning on sleeping?"

As I was caught within that unpleasant memory, a voice suddenly called out to me. The voice sounded as if it belonged to a woman and a rather sad at that. I don't know why but her voice somehow threw me off... I felt a strange sense of Déjà vu listening to her. Her voice felt strangely familiar and yet very soothing despite that she had only just said a few words... A strange sense of motivation fills me and I began focusing on her voice.

"Hey, are you listening?"

As her voice starts to get clearer, I start being able to feel my surroundings. 'I must be waking up soon', I told myself.

"You need to wake up and ran away from here. They're coming to get you. If you stay right here, you will be killed."

As she continued talking, I only then began to truly comprehend her words after a short while. Mainly because the way she said 'If you stay right here, you will be killed.' with no sense of panic nor tension in her voice, it gave me a strange sense of bewilderment rather than being alarmed. 'If the situation was so dire, would anybody sound so calm?', I asked myself, but then-

"It looks to me that you could use a more encouraged to get you on your feet. Don't blame me for this."

"Gahhh!!!!"

A new set of visions flooded my head all at once. 'The-these... aren't normal memories!', I stuttered in my head as I told myself that. And as I began looking at them, my nerves shot up in agonizing pain, and I awoke with a freight. I could not begin to describe, nor do I want to recall what those visions were...

"Good, you're finally up. Now turn around and start running."

The feminine voice said as I rubbed my eyes... And then I rubbed my eyes again...

"Hang on... It's still dark..."