I

"Hopeless..." said Void, in a whisper. "Aimless wanderer. This is you."

"Fool. Drifter. Orphan, changeling. Bastard. Shapeless shade."

I sailed across the astral sea, riding invisible waves, on my back, starlight washing over my face. White specks populate the space, orange, black, and purple, and colors indescribable. I was among the nebulas. I could have been pulled into the creation of the next universe, or snuffed out by the explosion of the sun. I was an object in motion, struck by some force. I had yet to encounter any resistance. It could have been years, it could have been hours, spent splayed out, adrift. No guide, no reference. The line between warm and cold had dissolved completely. Light and dark conjoined in a way that words failed to capture. There is a God. It is real, and it can only be seen when no one else is watching.

There, I see it, through my eyelids. Up ahead, some sphere of milky white, with soft edges. It grows in size; I see now, so I am the one moving, and it is still. It's growing larger, faster. I must be moving pretty fast, I think. I can't stop. If it's anything like the last time, I'll pass right through it like a plane through a cloud, and return to the star-lit void in an instant. But it's nothing like the last time.

I draw nearer, fast, faster. The sphere is so large I can't see the whole of it anymore. It's like a wall, encompassing all space in front of me. I hope it's hard; perhaps the impact will kill me. Perhaps, I am already dead. Either, or.

II

It felt like diving into viscous fog. There was a hardness that took the breath from my lungs, and then a coolness that was not discomforting. I became slower, and slower now, enveloped by fog. All around me was white, or gray. Up and down were gone. There was gray ahead, as there was behind. and Darkness was below. I could swim, here. I could pull, and push weakly against the endless mist. My momentum still carried me onward, to nowhere in particular, or so I thought.

Black-ish tendrils reached up from below. Closer, now, they appeared to be segments of pipes, ends fused together by... They were mishapen, jagged things, four in all, that all reached down into the dark below. Massive things. One was near enough for me to reach out and catch onto. I felt it vibrating, humming softly. I decided to follow them down. They seemed to meet at a point I could not see from here. One hand after the next, I pulled myself deeper. Until I was fully immersed in the blackness of the void. Blackness, not darkness. An absence of light and shadow. Pulling myself along, until there was a shift in sensation. It felt as though direction was returned to me, and gravity was in effect again.