Chapter 6: Journey through Hell (1) - Arrival
[Author Note] This is one of the biggest chapters at 2600 words, but there aren't many gruelling details here, just Karn's experiences in Hell described in 1-2 sentences/dialogues. Keep on reading and showing your love, send me a power stone so that I can keep on writing. Ciao![AN End]
A hurt-wrenching silence everywhere gave me a sense of uneasiness that was hard to describe in words. The fading voices of my teachers and family disappeared one by one as if my mortal flesh had gone to sleep forever, leaving behind only a whisp of my consciousness.
'Where am I?'
I thought; still scared to speak out in case the assassins were lurking nearby. Before I could even open my eyes, the pain of separation was already rising in my chest, burning my whole as if I was set ablaze on an inferno.
[*opens eyes*]
(*silence*)
'What?'
'Where am I?'
I thought for the second time.
Fear grabbed my heart even more vigorously. Even in the remotest of places on Earth was there no such darkness that which surrounded me right now.
- 'I need to find a way back home.'
- 'What happened to my parents and teachers?'
There were no directions, no shapes around me. The darkness that surrounded me was different from anything I had encountered before.
'Where am I?'
I thought for the third time. The sky with no stars and moon was extremely horrifying for some reason. The more I tried to reason with my circumstances, the lost I found myself. Even with a thick layer of pollutants above the ground, there should have been few visible stars.
[*stands up*]
'WHAT!?'
I looked down. The 'fear' I thought had already reached the peak kept on rising, there was no ground beneath my feet. I didn't feel any sensation as my skin touched whatever was beneath me.
[*swings arm*]
'Please land at something', I panicked as I flayed my hands in the air like a dog's wagging tail.
'There is not even air around me?', my arms flayed without resistance in the dark atmosphere.
'Where the hell am I?'. The Fourth time.
Each time I thought "where was I", it brought new fears into my already weakened mind.
'No sky, No Ground, No Atmosphere!!! What kind of a hell hole is this!!!!!'
'....'
'WHAT!?'
I hadn't realized because of suddenly finding myself in an unknown location, but my broken hand wasn't hurting at all.
[*pinches hardly*]
I didn't feel the pain from pinching the skin of my arm.
[*jumps*]
'Why does it feel like I'm not going down after the jump?'
I felt the reaction of my feet rebounding on whatever was below me, but I couldn't feel them land.
'Is there no gravity here?'
[*jumps again*]
I felt the rebound of the ground again when I tried to jump, but I didn't land anywhere.
[*...*]
[*...*]
[*...*]
\[*...*]/
After a series of experiments, I found out that this place defied all the common sense of the modern world.
I looked around and towards one direction - which direction? I couldn't even make a guess - I saw some vague and blurred silhouette of entangled branches. Not having a point of reference to make a guess, I couldn't even tell whether it was right next to me or really far away.
The shadows that appeared in the distance were the only thing my vision could make out in the empty darkness of the abyss. The shadow wasn't clearly visible either, in the dark black emptiness, it appeared as just some squiggly dark brown lines.
'Let's go there first.'
I start walking towards the trees.
Without a sense of direction and destination I walked. I had not felt more hopeless even when I was living like a fugitive with no purpose in life.
'Mom, Dad, You are alive, right?'
----------
**(a day later)
I couldn't fathom the time passing by.
Walking in that absolute calamitous darkness, I was not even sure whether I had actually moved a single inch.
No, it wasn't just darkness either, it was something more than that. It was NOTHINGNESS.
'Is this hell? Am I dead?'
It felt like one day had passed, but I couldn't be sure.
In that hell, I was immune to pain. I didn't feel hungry even after a day. Not that I ever felt excessively hungry even if I didn't eat for one whole month, but this was different.
'Guess I'll have to wait for a month to see whether this world has really killed my appetite!', I thought.
It was the side-effect of practising the [way]. After I collapsed due to practising the incomplete version of the [way] techniques, I found out that my body had changed just slightly.
Whenever I ate food, there was no sense of fulfilment.
And when I didn't eat food, there was no sense of hunger.
'Did mother send me here knowing that this place existed?', I decided to simply follow the shadows.
----------
**(a month later)
'Is there even a point in following the shadows?'
'If there is no light, how come there are shadows?'
'How can there be trees in this godforsaken land with nothing?'
Self-doubt became a common occurrence, but the trees didn't leave my sights.
Hahahaha, am I going crazy? Crazy panicked laughter left my mouth but my ears still felt nothing. No noise, No sight, No sensation, and No Taste. Everything that I had known from the past was slowly becoming a 'myth'.
My body wasn't generating sweat or saliva, I didn't feel the need to do any physical task. Slowly and ever so slightly, I could feel the mental barriers that defined "me" shattering and falling down.
---------
**(one month later)
I didn't get hungry even after two months.
I didn't feel thirsty, nor did the absence of food bring me lethargy, pain, or panic.
I still walked continuously towards the shadows - the only thing that existed in the whole bloody dimension. Sometime back I had found out that I still had my tablet with me, and I had rejoiced at the fact for six whole hours.
The folding tablets of the 22nd century, which occupied less than 2-inch square space, I named it HP - Hell Partner. HP was a special hunter tech designed for excavation teams that went on Ruin explorations, this was the same tablet I had carried to the Planet Thunderous Veil a couple of years back with the Maiyatt team.
In two years of living at the mountain base, I was given full access to all the Hunter-level information to well prepare me for the hunter examination, and that is why currently HP was having the most comprehensive database within it.
'Aah! Hunter examination?'
I wondered how time changes so quickly.
A few months ago, I was worried that I will never become a hunter because of me being a fugitive, and now I'm in Hell, a place where dead souls go to suffer.
---------
**(a few months later)
Hell became bearable after getting used to it for six months. HP with its seemingly infinite battery was a good companion.
The star energy powered battery inside HP would last for almost a century with regular use.
Although there was no Starlink - the 22nd-century version of the Internet - HP's one Petabit of memory was already filled with all the information on Earth. HP contained countless books, articles, and research papers which ranged from cutting-edge to outright archaic and ancient.
In Bharat, Hunters and by extensions Users enjoyed the highest authority when it came to information exchange, and I had all of their research and knowledge in my hand.
I have already started learning various things which I couldn't earlier.
'Maybe I can figure out the mystery of this dimension after I study some science.', I naively thought.
---------
**(a year later)
I started practising the [way] again. I was basically a 'Chiran-jivi' (an immortal) with how things were going. There was no hunger, no pain, and didn't even have to breathe to stay alive.
If not for the sensation of having a body, I would have thought that I was just a fleeting ghost.
Even though I started studying science, starting from the elementary level, I thought I should also focus on practising the [way].
With envigorated confidence and having thought that I had found a way out of Hell, I was unstoppable.
At least, I thought I was.
I practised the [way] and learnt various different scientific and mathematical theories.
I devoted all my time to learning.
I learnt.
And I walked.
---------
**(10 years later)
'AAAAAHHH!!! I WANT TO GET THE F#$@ OUT OF THIS PLACE!!!'
Ten years had gone by without notice.
Practising the [way] - which didn't make any difference on Earth - was like drinking hot lava in this Hell.
'At least, I can gather Prana now.' I consoled myself of all the pain that I had to go through because of my lava stomach.
I had achieved minor success in the cultivation of [way] and could finally gather Prana inside my Chakra.
I could feel my Root Chakra invigorating my body every moment. Although as I compared my success with the ancient texts left behind by sages of the old, my experiences were vastly different from how it went for my parents and teachers.
'I hope I can soon activate my second Chakra.'
There was a very faint feeling of enlightenment. However, as I continued to practise, I realised that my second Chakra wasn't activating at all.
In fact, the Root Chakra itself felt like a bottomless pit that could never be satiated no matter how much Prana I filled it with, but even then I was confident that some enlightenment was just around the corner.
---------
**(15 years later)
I had zero progress in Chakra activation, however, lately, I can feel like someone is spying on me. I couldn't tell whether it was because my senses had become sharp or dull.
'What is that white light?'
Suddenly a spark was lit inside of me. Every time I closed my eyes, there would be a faint white glow in the darkness that I could feel, but it was not visible through my eyes.
'I must be going crazy?'
I thought I was schizophrenic.
However, after many trials and errors and conforming to my doubts with the help of the [way] mentioned in the [logs], I came to the conclusion that I was close to activating the third eye.
A shocking revelation and childish fantasy had me going on for 15 years.
I relied on any little dream and hope I could to keep my sanity.
'Please wait for me, I will definitely come back!'
I deluded myself into believing my family might still be alive.
---------
**(20 years later)
I was wrong.
I am nowhere close to activating the third eye.
'When will I get my ability?'
My mother had got the revelation as soon as she activated the Root Chakra, and yet even after a decade of activating the first Chakra, not only do I have no ability, I can't even activate my second Chakra.
I had difficulty even controlling the Prana. Although I could easily gather it inside my Chakra, I couldn't materialize it even a little bit.
'Why is this Prana so aggressive, it shouldn't be like this?', I thought.
If I was not careful in managing the excessive amount of Prana that had gathered in me after a decade of continuous efforts, I felt like I could blow up any minute. I felt bloated even though I hadn't eaten anything for decades.
---------
**(30 years later)
Still no third eye.
I feel like the [way] is all fake. The light that I thought was just a hallucination is still there, however, nothing is happening to it. Light is still only inside my head, and my eyes don't see anything but the squiggly brown lines in front of me that looked like tree branches.
---------
**(35 years later)
I have gained P.hD level mastery of multiple subjects through 3 decades of constant studying, however, nothing else changed. Light still didn't disappear, neither did the trees.
'Am I even moving?'
HP's GPS was a total bust, and neither was the gyroscope sensor working in Hell. I had decided to call this dimension or whatever it was "Hell". It was most definitely not heaven, as such solitary confinement for decades couldn't possibly be heavenly for anyone.
After mastering Computer Science and Engineering, I tried to mess around with HP but still couldn't make it into sensing anything around me. I just didn't have any mechanical parts or tools to work with.
---------
**(40 years later)
My body had started to ache all around.
It wasn't really painful at the moment, however, it had slowed down my pace quite a little bit.
I couldn't focus on learning new technologies yet. I was studying Mettalurgy when the pain started to occur.
Another thing I discovered was that it wasn't only Prana that my body was sucking in infinitely. All information and every knowledge I mastered, I could remember it like the back of my hand.
For some reason my brain capabilities have transcended human capabilities, it wasn't simple eidetic memory anymore, it was as if my brain itself had evolved into new compact microspecies that worked efficiently without me even having to put a thought in it. I could still remember my first day in Hell as vividly as if it happened yesterday, every sense or no-sense that I felt or didn't feel was as vivid as if I was feeling them right now.
---------
**(45 years later)
My body started to break down.
The pain was becoming increasingly severe.
There was no third eye still, but the feeling of having another entity inside my head was growing with every second. The fact that someone was spying on me was feeling more and more plausible after my brain had evolved to sense things beyond what the average human brain is capable of.
Sometimes I felt completely powerless and couldn't control my body, whereas at other times I would get completely detached as if going into a deep 'zen' state of nothingness.
It was as if the "eye" was driving the car that was my body and I had lost any power over which direction to take my body in.
'The Eye is trying to devour me!!' A revelation hit me.
Pain increased.
I feared for my life.
'I don't think I will be able to fight this invasion anymore'
---------
**(48 years later)
The slight increase in pain every few minutes was making me anxious, but I still kept on moving.
Meditation helped elevate some pain and bring back some semblance of control, but I was still scared of losing my individuality.
---------
**(six months later)
I was wrong.
Meditation had become ineffective soon after. Even that is not working anymore.
I lost all my physical senses.
My body wouldn't listen to my demands.
I lost mobility.
I can't walk.
I had to get back in a meditative pose, but it is a lost cause.
'Am I going to die like this?'
The thought was constantly haunting me.
'If I can't do anything about the "eye". I will die.'
---------
**(49 years later)
I didn't die.
'I have to materialize the [way] somehow!!'
I couldn't think of anything else to do with my mobility still compromised.
'Ever since white light became more vigorous, pain has become somewhat bearable.'
It looked like the white light that I had been seeing for decades was fighting for my body's control with whatever was invading my mind.
'I have to sit cross legged first.'
'AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!'
The assault of unimaginable pain hit me again. As if whatever it was didn't want me to give power to the light.
Even though pain while doing nothing was bearable. Every time I tried to control my body the pain multiplied by thousands.
(*sobs*)
'YOU WONT STOP ME~!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!! '
I wanted to die because of all the pain, but I kept on going.
'LISTEN TO ME DAMMIT!!!! *thud*'
every muscle that I moved brought with it unimaginable pain much worse than before.
[*tries to grab his head*]
'AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!'
I felt being impaled by thousands of needles all over my body again and again as I moved a single muscle.
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**(50 years later | Hell)
[ LIGHT APPEARS ]
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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