Awakening The Abyssal System

Amidst the repetition, hours or even days passed. Now, the words had lost their sound; all that remained was their meaning, floating like dust within the room, inhaled into Buck's lungs.

Lying on a white gurney was the body of the past Buck, now known as Soldier One Hundred and One. Static and soulless, hollow.

Beside him, a military agent, now wearing her open trench coat, held a golden tweezer, carefully gripping a curious object, slowly hovering above Buck's chest.

The relic was then placed upon his torso, and to the static boy's surprise, it automatically sank into his flesh, like a stone thrown into water. Before he could react in fear, his body became immobile, his eyes blinded, and his nerves turned inside out.

The fragile relic seemed to connect to Buck's nervous system, causing excruciating pain that would have made him grind his teeth if he weren't paralyzed by it. His spine felt as if it were exploding with pure electricity coursing through it, provoking various stimuli that rendered his body unstable.

Then, suddenly, the world began to crack, not just that but also to melt, dragging Buck into a massive, cacophonous spiral, like a pool being drained.

All he could do was think, and even that was becoming difficult. His sense of identity seemed to have been completely melted away and digested by something unknown that longed for his destruction.

Something told him not to lose consciousness, but what reason was there to fight against his sleep? Had that command been given before he became paralyzed? He couldn't remember.

His last command had been to resist the queen; thus, he could not succumb to unconsciousness. After all, losing consciousness while synchronizing with a creature that wished to control his body by force was a terrible idea.

And so began his struggle to maintain sanity. His mind seemed to agitate the liquid surrounding him, producing muffled sounds and images that distorted the moment they were formed.

Buck no longer remembered who he had once been, but these images were drawn from his painful past, aiming to mentally break him.

The situations he most feared had either happened or were about to happen, projected into his mind with horrendous and distorted images of what he had once loved or perhaps had loved at some point.

Even unfamiliar with all the situations appearing in his head, the mere act of resisting an insane amount of information was slowly driving him mad, with memories being flung simultaneously in groups, lingering in his mind for hours before being replaced by the next batch.

In panic, as if pleading for help, he unconsciously imagined the outstretched hand of the soldier who had saved him from the Abyss, but it twisted until its mouth revealed a maw full of sharp, malformed fangs. What had once been an antenna on his ear, a device meant to receive radio signals, had morphed into horns sprawling in all directions, greedily claiming everything for itself.

After what felt like hours of psychologically crushing experience, he found himself kneeling and gasping, staring at the low ceiling of a cavern made of raw marble. The darkness didn't scare him, as all could see within it, but it wasn't exactly pleasant for his eyes after so long in a room filled with blinding yellow sodium lights. Moreover, everything was still a bit blurry, as there was no light nearby, making it difficult to distinguish shapes and colors.

Writhing on the ground, suffering from a headache that would make anyone double over, he realized he could now move, and the mattress felt harder than the gurney he had been sleeping on and the hospital gown he used had disappeared, leaving him completely naked.

Before he could fully process the complex layers of pain coursing through his body — and more importantly, where he was — something hidden before him startled him, so terrifying it made him forget all the pain he had just endured.

In front of him, just a few steps away, the exit of that narrow cavern seemed to glow, not in a mystical way, but with a literal, blinding warm yellow light.

Any sane person would fear such a bright light within a cavern, especially one so strong and intense. Lights of that caliber were produced by gigantic oceans of magma or even by insane creatures that used light to lure their prey. A light at this level could mean that the nest from which Buck came belonged to them, with hundreds, perhaps thousands of those monsters waiting to tear him apart the moment he exited the small cavern, before he even had a chance to see the queen and curse her with his last breath.

Before he could run deeper into the narrow raw marble cavern where he was, trying to save himself from those lurking creatures, or from magma explosions that could sear his flesh, or even from something he didn't even know existed — after all, the Abyss had never been fully documented — a cold breeze gently embraced his skin. It came from the blinding light that terrified him so much, bringing with it delicate objects he had never seen before.

They were extremely light, floating in the air as if dancing to a calm, dramatic tune. Their shape vaguely resembled a star, as he had seen in a fairy tale book, though it was obviously not one. Their serrated geometry bore a yellow-orange hue, reminiscent of gold, yet opaque, with a certain transparency allowing light to pass through.

Buck froze, wondering what such a creature from the Abyss could be — so delicate, yet capable of surviving in such a deadly food chain. He couldn't help but compare himself to that being. After all, if something that appeared so weak could survive there, perhaps he could as well.

Slowly, he approached and quickly grabbed one, reasoning that perhaps the creature would be swift and try to escape. But that was not the case. The thing remained still, moving slightly as the gentle gusts of wind brushed against it.

Upon touching its exterior, Buck felt a sense of surprise. It was both firm and smooth, and somehow, it brought him comfort. The mere existence of something so beautiful made him come back to himself, reminding him that he had come to this place precisely to fight or die trying. And if fate had placed him in a precarious situation, he would make the impossible possible. For his survival would not only save him from disconcerting torture but also those in the police department, anxious to combat a possible Abyss Spawn controlled by a bloodthirsty queen.

— Well, I think I owe you one now. I will give you a name, of course. It would be rude to keep calling you "creature", and confusing.

An idea shone in his mind and lingered, as if it were an immutable name, unable to be replaced by any other.

— I know! Your name will be Sol. In reference to the greatest star of the fairy tale!