More shit about Void Fever + explanation on what void as a substance is, as well as void as a concept.
As stated previously, Void Fever is a side effect of ingesting big quantities of void. Normally, one would not ingest big quantities of void, but if you are injured and void gets into your wounds, that puts it into your system.
But why is void so harmful? And how can someone live in a place entirely comprised of void without getting sick?
Void is harmful because of its secondary name. The Nothingness. Before there was Anything, there was Nothing. When Everything was created, the Nothingness still existed. The Nothingness weaved its way through the empty cracks of reality to create the in between spaces like the Backrooms. These in between spaces are called unreality. Pocket dimensions are unreality as well due to deities creating Something out of Nothing.
The Nothingness cannot interact with reality, because it will overtake and consume it. Everything will return to Nothing. It all decays to the void eventually. And since anything that’s real counts as Everything… the void will take it too.
But the Nothingness has a physical form. You know it as Classic. And Classic chooses for the Abyss to be hospitable for life by combining void with the concept of song. Song is a neutralizing force that counters things. If it has nothing to counter, it does its own harmful thing, so you have to have balance.
But circling back to Void Fever, it is a textbook example of how badly someone can get consumed by the Nothingness without getting erased from canon.
Void Fever corrupts everything about a person infected with it. It corrupts the body, mind, and soul.
The body: Every vital element of the body is filled with liquid void. Blood is slowly replaced, stomach acid becomes frigid as its properties return to nothing, any spit, tears, spinal fluid, the wet shit in your lungs, ANYTHING, becomes void.
You are flooded by it. No matter how much you purge your guts, no matter how many times you’ve coughed your lungs out, no matter how much you cry, it will still be there. Replacing every new blood cell, every new tear, with Nothing. And as much as you want to, you can’t move. It’s all too heavy. Too painful. Too cold. So you lie there on your floor, staring at the ceiling, choking on your decaying body as your gag reflex tries to rid you of this agony. You couldn’t scream even if you wanted to.
The mind: The Nothingness turns your mind off like a light switch. Slowly making everything go dark. Your memories become hazy and distant, any thoughts you make are quickly drowned out by the encroaching fog, basic understanding of concepts are lost as you are left with only the present. Nothing to remember from the past, no reason to think about the future. There is only the now.
And even then, the now becomes the past, and the future becomes the present. Try to flip that mental light back on. I dare you. You’ll forget why you tried in the first place before you even started.
The Soul: This is a fucked up one. The soul is the intrinsic part of life that makes it unique. All life has some form of soul. And the soul is hit the hardest when the Nothingness comes to claim it. The soul is where all emotion is derived from. The soul is the spark that makes life feel real. The soul is where willpower comes from. Sure, the body makes the chemicals and the brain transcribes the chemicals, but the trigger is the soul.
It’s debated on which of the three attributes of life detects danger first, but the soul, hopelessly fragile, is the part of life that when it dies, it dies screaming.
The soul is slowly stripped of everything that makes something alive. Your will. Your emotion. Who you are. Violently ripped to pieces as it is replaced by emptiness, and you along with it.
If you could still move, you’d have nowhere to go unless directed. If you could still think, you’d have nothing to imagine unless directed.
You are still conscious. You are still aware. You are aware of the numb static of your previously active mind. You are aware of the pain your body is in.
But it’s not you who is experiencing it anymore.
Once it’s taken everything, you are left with nothing.
