[POV Orion]

  There was no light, there was no darkness. Only an absence. An absence of everything that once defined my existence: the cold of the hallway where I fell, the warmth of Sora’s hand, the monotonous white of my ceiling. I was suspended, not in space, but in a condition that defied physics and logic. I didn't feel my body. I didn't feel weight. There was no up or down, left or right. It was pure consciousness, floating in a non-pce.

  Time did not exist. How much had passed? Seconds, minutes, eons? Impossible to know. My thoughts, or what was left of them, were like bubbles slowly rising in a dense liquid. Fragments. Ideas without context.

  A strange sensation began to spread through what seemed to be my "periphery." It wasn't a sound, but it was as if a deep, vibrant hum was born in the very fabric of this non-reality. It was constant, almost rhythmic, and it felt... technical. Like the murmur of gigantic machinery, but at a level that only my "essence" could perceive. Then, the cold. Not the cold that makes you shiver, but a metallic, dry coldness. A clean, surgical cold that seemed to permeate my consciousness. And an elusive, yet present, smell: ozone, machine oil, something sweetly artificial.

  I tried to move an arm. The arm did not exist. I tried to breathe. There were no lungs. There was no air. Panic, that old companion, threatened to engulf me, but it was a muffled panic, as if a thick yer of gss separated it from my core. My humanity struggled to emerge, but it was a weak, distant voice in a vast desert of new sensations.

  Then, the images. They were not projected onto a screen, but sprouted directly from the essence of my being, from the deepest corners of what had been Orion Winst.

  The first memory was my parents' faces. Young, smiling, their eyes full of a love that I, in my apathy, had often taken for granted. My mother, with her dark hair and easy ugh. My father, with his slight beard and protective gaze. They were frozen in time, a snapshot of a life that no longer existed.

  The scene shifted. It was my tenth birthday. A table full of presents. Colored balloons floating in the room. The cake with ten candles. Them by my side, singing "Happy Birthday." The happiness was pure, unadulterated, the kind of innocent joy only a child can feel. I felt a pang of something akin to pain, to yearning, but it was strange, filtered, like the echo of an emotion that no longer entirely belonged to me. How could I remember something with such crity and yet feel so... detached?

  But the vision of childhood happiness became distorted. It merged with the darkest memory, the day my world first broke. The phone ringing. The officer's voice. The words: "car accident... they didn't survive." The feeling of the earth opening up beneath my feet. Disbelief. The void. That void, which now surrounded me, had been born long before the Celestial Object. The connection was undeniable, the downward spiral that led me to apathy, to Sora's rejection, to the final desperation.

  And then, Sora. Her face. First, smiling on campus, ughing with her friends. Then, her expression of concern in the café, her inquiring eyes. Finally, the moment of confession. The pang of hope that ignited in my chest. And the raw honesty of her rejection, her words, "You have no ambition, Orion. You are not someone to build a future with." The echo of her voice still resonated in this shapeless space, a painful truth that had been burned into my being. And her face, pale and terrified, as I dragged her through the hallway, her eyes struggling to stay open just before the darkness consumed me.

  While these personal memories pyed out like a worn-out tape, something else began to infiltrate. Strange images, not my own. As if another data source were trying to superimpose itself on my own memory.

  I saw fshes. They weren't dreams, they weren't memories. They were like bursts of visual information. Beings. Not human. Ethereal, almost energetic forms, with elongated limbs and an inner glow. They moved in a space that was neither Earth nor sky. It was a kind of boratory, vast and dark, filled with imposing metallic structures and luminous cables. These beings, or entities, were... constructing. Connecting. Maniputing something.

  I saw hands, not human hands, but delicate, precise appendages, maniputing circuits that emitted a blue glow. Thick, pulsating cables stretched from an unknown source to what appeared to be... a silhouette. A silhouette with soft, delicate, unmistakably feminine forms. It wasn't a person. It was a structure, a construction.

  The mind of Orion screamed. What is this? What the hell am I seeing?

  The personal memories mixed with these alien intrusions. My parents' faces, then a fsh of that alien being. The birthday party, then the blue glow of the circuits. Sora's rejection, and then the vision of that female figure being wired, energized, her form taking an artificial perfection.

  I felt a kind of "pulse" in my consciousness. As if something within this non-body, or non-pce, was turning on. The constant hum intensified, becoming a vibration that seemed to fill every atom of my "existence." The metallic coldness became more present, not as a pain, but as a new texture, a new reality that was asserting itself over the confusion.

  The light. A subtle, bluish glow began to filter into this void. It wasn't sunlight, nor the light of a bulb. It was an internal light, seeming to emanate from me, or from where I was. A light that slowly began to dispel the bckness.

  My memories, my life as Orion Winst, began to drift away, shrinking, becoming distant dots in an expanding universe. They were part of me, yes, but they no longer defined me. A new identity was being forged, a new perception. Orion's apathy was being burned away, purified, making room for... something more. Something new.

  The pressure in my skull, which had marked the end of my previous life, now felt like an expansion. A massive download of information. Not words, but concepts, pure data. Models. Calcutions. Strategies. My mind, which had been slow and sluggish, was now a processor of incomprehensible speed.

  The blue light grew stronger. I could feel... eyelids. Something that felt like skin, but was smooth, perfect, without pores, without imperfections. A sensation of muscles. A jawline. A neck. The shape of a face. A face that was not mine.

  And then, with immense effort, as if an invisible force had pulled internal strings, my "eyes" opened.

  It was not to darkness, nor to my room. It was not to a white ceiling.

  It was to a new world, bright, and terrifying.