Prologue
He didn’t feel the explosion. Only the plummeting sensation of falling. The loss of something immortal, something pure. His tears were caught in the fall, and they blazed up behind him in a fiery trail. His hot-white soul was burning around him. It wasn’t built for a mortal world.
This was all wrong. No. No, he could not accept this. It was as though he was looking at himself from outside his body, hypnotized as he watched himself lose everything.
The impact hurt, but not in the way he expected. He was too numb to feel pain. No, it hurt somewhere deeper. Somewhere intimate, infinite.
He lay there, still, unmoving, as the Stars faded from the sky, as the Sun rose, as she set, as the Stars wheeled overhead once more. He watched it all with unfeeling eyes. No, that was a lie. He watched it all with empty, numb eyes. But he still felt things.
Things like bitterness, resentment. Pain. He had never been touched by such a feeling before.
Everything felt like a vivid illusion. It couldn’t be real, could it?
Perhaps if he closed his eyes, then none of it would be real…
Perhaps everything would go away. Perhaps he could return to the purity of Nothing?
He missed Nothing. It was so much easier than Something. Experiencing Something hurt. Nothing left him so blissfully empty.
His eyes snapped open, and he took in the dark sky, truly, for the first time.
So far...
He wanted back so desperately.
But he had to find her first.
