There is no sound, no light, no sensation. All Pekoyama has here is darkness. The last thing they remember is being on the beach, a flash of breathtaking pain, and then this. Nothing at all. They are aware of time passing, but only if they think about it. When they don’t, everything melts away. It’s easier this way.
Sometimes, rarely, there is something. A tightness in the chest, usually, or sometimes an ache in their fingertips. These odd pains are the only time they are ever actually aware of their body. The rest of the time, it fades into nothingness. They recede deeper into themself when that happens, shrink back into the nothing until it goes away. The worst, though, is the rare sounds.
It’s always their Master’s voice, but far off, as if he’s speaking through a layer of pillows. The last thing they remember of him is slicing his face open, watching him collapse. They remember him shouting for them, vaguely, unsure if the memory is real or invented, but they’re sure that’s all this is. A phantom memory of him come to torture them, taunt them even in death. They’ve failed him, now they’re being punished.
The voice sounds clearer this time. Usually it’s just incoherent sounds, but occasionally a word will make its way into whatever remnant of consciousness they currently exist as. This time, it’s a full phrase, I need you. It’s agonizing. It’s everything they’ve ever wanted to hear from him and they’re trapped here in this pit of nothing, and he probably isn’t even real, and they’re dead.
They’d thought dying would accomplish something, that for once in their miserable life they’d be useful to him, but all it did was tear them away from him. Hell is finally being needed and being unable to answer the call. Their entire being wants to reach out to him, find him, keep him safe, but as much as they wish to, there is no body to follow their commands.
Outside of their coma, he will see their fingers twitch in the direction of his voice.
