I gasped when all my muddled senses came drifting back to me. The cave and everyone else in my party were nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was almost nothing here.

Shit, where is ‘here?’ Where the hell am I?

Wait, this must be…! Yes, it worked! That weird potion actually worked!

The memories felt all fuzzy to me, but according to what Viela had told me, I should be in the astral plane right about now. Although for some reason, to me it looked more like I was somewhere in outer space.

My body—or whatever ‘I’ was right now—was surrounded by a million, billion tiny stars in an endless, infinitely dark expanse. I tried looking all around and upward to get my bearings, but a wave of nausea made me close my eyes and gasp for breath.

Wherever I was, the concept of ‘up and down’ didn’t exist… and it almost made me want to puke!

My body wasn’t standing on anything, either. I really was floating in what felt like empty space. Slowly, I opened my eyes again, struggling to adjust. In the back of my mind, I could almost sense a supply of energy trickling away, like I was scuba diving on a limited oxygen tank.

I couldn’t stay ‘here’ for long, or… I might not make it back.

Anyways, I wasn’t standing, or swimming, or floating. It was almost like I was just… existing in this particular point in space. After a minute of experimenting, I discovered I could move around by willing myself in one direction or another as if I were shifting my consciousness in a dream. I still kind of felt like I was stuck in a fuzzy dream, but this was good enough for now.

Turning around, I noticed a shimmering portal of light, almost like a blurry doorway in the starry expanse around me. That must have been where I came through to get ‘here.’ Focusing closely, I could make out incoherent voices from the other side that sounded like people talking loudly or shouting. The noise quickly became irritating like a buzzing in the back of my mind I couldn’t turn down, so I tried not to focus on it and started ‘flying’ away from the portal instead.

Immediately, I spotted two celestial spheres that grabbed my attention. The first: something that looked like a giant, blazing star much closer than any other around me, although its shape appeared weirdly hazy and not perfectly spherical. By process of elimination, I had to imagine that entity represented my very own soul.

The second celestial body I noticed was a much smaller, fiery red sphere that came hurtling dangerously close to me, just like a blazing comet. When I focused closer on it, I felt a distinct impression of a fox spirit from another world that I had grown so close to.

It felt like… Viela.

Of course! That must be ‘my’ part our soul bond!

It all came rushing back to me. I had two goals in this strange, cosmic place: I needed to figure out how to shift back and forth between my human and foxy forms, and I needed to learn how to control the Divine Gift around my soul.

I didn’t waste any time willing my ‘body’ toward the comet orbiting my soul. While it was moving inhumanly fast, I could make myself ‘fly’ even faster. As I drew closer and closer, I could feel the heat emanating from it, yet it wasn’t blinding or burning me. When my consciousness was finally within range, I reached out to the comet. A whirlwind of memories and emotions that weren’t my own threatened to overwhelm me, except, I didn’t really feel any different.

There had to be something I could do! If this thing was related to magic, then…

I sent a surge of my mana into the soul bond ‘comet,’ and a sudden jolt of electricity nearly made me scream. This whole time, I had still felt attached to those dark furry ears and fox tail on my body, but now… they were gone? I rubbed my hands over my head and felt nothing except my full head of long, black hair.

They’re actually gone! I’m a freaking human again!

When I was about to celebrate my victory, I heard a louder clamoring of muddled voices buzzing out of the shimmering portal I entered from.

Damn it, that’s really getting annoying! Where is the ‘volume off’ button when you need it?

A memory from a distant place and time came wandering back to my mind. Viela had said the potion I drank was dangerous, but she also implied I would have to wait another year before trying again. I was halfway done here; I couldn’t give up and let the rest of this opportunity go to waste!

I shook my head to clear the distraction and focused on my second objective, willing myself toward what appeared to be the giant celestial sphere of my soul. The closer I got to it, the more I began realizing why it looked so strange to me. The burning ‘star’ was surrounded by a gleaming, amorphous barrier that vaguely reflected the surrounding cosmos.

Mirror of Soul… That had to be it.

I reached out to the barrier, and it reacted to my will. For the first time, I could start to ‘feel’ my Divine Gift and shape a tiny part of it how I wanted.

Yes, I can do this! I can actually control it, even just a little!

I tried to shout another victory cheer, but no sound came out. A pang of fear struck me when I noticed the suddenly dead silence around me, then another when I turned around.

The shimmering portal of light was nowhere to be found. That was my only way out of here… Where the hell did that thing go?

All at once, my consciousness shook and swayed at the sensation of breathlessness—just like my ‘oxygen tank’ finally ran out. I ‘flew’ back in the direction I thought I came from as fast as I could.

A muffled, distorted cacophony reached my ears, like I was stuck at the bottom of a filled well of water and someone was shouting down with all their might. I turned at the noise and spotted a dim sliver of light.

The portal… oh, fuck. When did it get so far away?

My vision blurred a little more with each panicked moment I drew closer. But it felt like I was submerged halfway under the ocean, and the surface air I needed was impossibly out of reach.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! I have to make it, I have to!

I willed myself forward faster and faster, trying not to think of the obvious. I reached for the portal with everything I had—until the very last moment. My consciousness violently trembled one more time, everything faded to black… and I died.

***

In the beginning, there was darkness. Then… there was nothing.

I could feel myself standing on something, but I couldn’t see what it was. Wherever I was, whatever I was, the only thing surrounding me was a starless, pitch-black void.

“Hello?” I called out into the darkness.

Nothing answered.

There was absolutely nothing else around me except an unsettling silence. I couldn’t tell whether the cold I felt was from the ‘air’ around me, or the chilling fear of realizing I might be stuck here—wherever this new ‘here’ was—forever.

God damn it, is this the end? Think! What happened before?

I remembered drinking that weird potion, and the astral plane, and dying, and… wait, the potion!

I was in the cave with the others when Alice asked Viela if she gave me too much of that Soul Seeker thing. Shit, she really did, didn’t she?

So it wasn’t really my fault I was in this other weird place! I didn’t feel hungry, or thirsty, or tired, which was a bit frightening at first. But looking at it another way, that meant I could be basically immortal here with all the time in the universe at my disposal!

“I might as well make use of this,” I said to myself. “Yeah, this is perfect! If I get reincarnated again, I could even write a light novel about this! I’ll call it, ‘My Foxy Wife Accidentally Gave me an Overdose, so I’ll Spend my Afterlife in an Endless Void!’ Perfect. Okay, chapter one: time for some experimentation… oh! I can still cast magic here! With Light Flare, I can actually see myself again! But everything else around me is still pitch-black, even the ‘floor’ I’m standing on… Oh God, this actually kind of sucks. Like, a lot. Fuck, this is creeping me out! What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

I stopped channeling my light spell, barely fending off the fear creeping its way back to mind. Just as I was about to lose it, I turned around and gasped.

Far off in the distance, there was something out in the void, like a tiny beam of light shining down from the middle of nowhere. I could have sworn I had already spun around and checked in every direction before, so that must have been new. That had to mean…!

There must be something or someone else here, and maybe they saw my spell!

I started running toward that far-off trickle of light as fast as I could. Fortunately, I didn’t seem to get fatigued or run out of breath ‘here,’ either. Each step brought the tiny beam of light closer into focus until I could finally make out something it was illuminating in front of me.

That single column of light shined on an unusually bright table that was flanked by a pair of similarly bright chairs. And seated in one chair appeared to be a very well-dressed man that looked… kind of like…

“John?”