Chapter 1: Chapter 1 - Learning to Drown
Alexander woke up from a terrifying dream, sensing the cold drops of sweat forming under his long, black, silverish hair flowing down his neck, gently brushing his shoulder. He took a deep gasp as the young man moved his pale and lean arm towards his head, pushing the palm of his hand against his forehead.
Using his fingers, he gently combed his hair before ruffling it, shaking off the dread and anxiety from the dream he had. Throwing the makeshift sheet from rags, he sat right up on the bed
He refused to let a simple dream disturb his moment of tranquility from waking up and facing another day. Starting the day with some light stretching, but with heavy annoyance as he felt his mind would split in half sometime very soon.
*****
A couple of days ago, he had begun feeling a strange call, which had been growing quite stronger in only a third of those days until it became too unbearable. He knew what it was the call was: the call to tether his soul between both the overworld and the Depths, or otherwise known as the soul world.
Nobody had truly understood what the call really was. From what Alexander had understood, it was something like letting yourself drown and answering some sort of call that would begin the process of awakening and enlightenment.
People usually called them Diver, as that was what the awakened people actually did. Their job is to dive into another plane of reality, this plane was called the Depths.
Alexander had heard stories of people who had survived their first Dive and returned to the overworld. The work came with insane rewards but came with a steep cost in sanity, or in most cases, losing your life in the Depths.
Alexander knew that not everybody was destined to be a Diver; there wasn't a lot to be happy about, while at the same time, it was the opposite.
You could daydream about the most excruciatingly disturbing situation, and it could easily be tales.
Before even that could happen, one needs to form their soul core first, but there was no guarantee that even the strongest could survive that transformation.
While the soul and the body were not in fact similar at all, even if there was some falseness to it. The soul and the body are two separate beings, and that was as much as Alexander knew.
*****
Alexander was sitting down, still breathing heavily, as he pondered life. From his experience from a baby to who he was now, life was certainly a cruel mistress.
His bed had long since collapsed, the wood of the bedframe had been eaten through and through by rot, and the horrid conditions of the outskirts, where the Corruption was forcefully decaying everything it touched.
His knee was bouncing from his anxiety, or the madness that was slipping out; he clenched his left hand until he drew blood, completely unaware as he observed the condition of the house he lived in.
The windows had long been destroyed as and there existed a huge gap in the roof of the abandoned house. Alexander still remembered it to this very day, when a Gate had torn itself open in reality, allowing the corruption along with numerous beasts that brought havoc to his section of the outskirts.
He didn't live at this place at that time, but he sure had experienced the horrors.
Those wicked abominations took everything from Alexander that day: his parents, his precious sister, and his annoying brat of an older brother who always teased him. He could only see the ghosts of them in small, flickering dreams. Happy, their faces were happy.
He was not.
Gritting his teeth, 'Damn it to all!'
'This damn crappy life, I have had enough of it!'
Standing straight, he was somewhat of a short but lanky kid, no older than 16, with exceptional speaking skills; he could easily weave lies into truth and inspire people with his tongue.
Alexander was lithe, frail, and hungry; the torn spaces of his rags showed the sorry state he was in. His eyes were dark, dark as if they were consuming light instead of reflecting it.
Lost in thought again, he glanced at a fly that was annoyingly buzzing around his head. He couldn't smell that bad, could he!
'Asshole!'
The frail young kid whipped his hand around, his small hand waving the fly away. He looked at the fly with discontent as the fly bounced into a wall. With the years of corruption and decay that a single fly was enough to create a domino effect.
The roof of the house was creaking and groaning as the pressure from time and the corruption of the Depths caused the roof to collapse on itself, absolutely demolishing everything in the abandoned, broken house, turning the few things he still held into dust.
His eyelid twitched along with a finger; this was ragebait.
Alexander released a heavy groan of pure anger. After everything, the fly was still around and buzzing around him. Carefully walking over the wreckage with his bare feet, the ground changed to concrete.
Walking by the side of the road, past the decaying houses to his right and through the dense smog that was constantly settled in the outskirts from ancient times when the old humanity had brought total annihilation to all of life on earth.
*****
The government wasn't interested in the outskirts, why would they even? It is a waste of resources, money, and manpower. The corruption was as dangerous as it already was, and using resources that could instead make humanity stronger.
The outskirts were a zone that could be sacrificed if it meant the survival of humanity. 'Damn it all! Why would I even bother living this hell!'
In the distance, Alexander could see the massive megabuildings; they served as massive factories as well as a place to stay. He had remembered it all, and he did not regret a second of his choice to escape that hell.
Feeling more dread from his memories at one of the megabuilding's rather than his first Dive, he could no longer think clearly; he just wished to be guided and to guide.
Luckily, Alexander had lived very close by to the only government station in his section of the outskirts, a jailhouse, a place for those without connections, status, or wealth could go to experience their first dive.
All he had to do was just survive forming his soul; that is all he knew, and that was all he wanted to accomplish.
So when he arrived and turned himself in, just as the Call of the Drowned became deeper, more profound, and easily more haunting. Bringing him close to the edge of insanity before his transformation into a Deepborn. He wasn't really that surprised when he was tackled and beaten to the ground before being forced and strapped into a chair.
Alexander could feel himself being usurped by something else that was clearly not the Call of the Drowned; their song, their resonance, sounded false… Horrid and terribly miserable.
The overwhelming everything finally took its toll on poor Alexander as he didn't register that he had been pierced by a soul dagger, which forced the awakening process. He only saw a white, blinding light that engulfed him with flames. It was only then that he felt everything for a moment before going unconscious.
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