Seconds, minutes, hours later; how, exactly, he ‘gets out’ still eludes him. Nothing about his environment has changed. She’d left him with no visible clues or hints relating to his pending escape, or at least he thought that was the case, but when he shifts and bumps into the shards on the ground— they’re soft. He reaches out a hand to prod and poke at them but they still do no damage.

Ziun had expected them to dig into him, to cut his skin and make him bleed like the ‘Aaron’ of this world loved to do. But they don’t. 

It’s a pretty useless clue she’d left him—if it even was one in the first place—but beggars can’t be choosers and the only thing Ziun could do now was to use his brain. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there staring at the ground, at the shards that become duller with time. But it’s enough for his legs to go numb and — he blinks. 

‘Where did they go..?’ 

Before he can even register what he’s doing, Ziun almost falls over face first as his hands restlessly pat the space in front of him. 

‘Where did they go?!’

The floor is startlingly flat and empty— which it shouldn’t be. Ziun lets out a frustrated huff. It was annoying because he hadn’t even figured out what the glass was made of or if he could make a use out of it before it had up and vanished.

Ziun sighs. He rubs his thighs over the fabric of his shorts to get his blood flowing again. He stands on his own two feet as soon as feeling fully comes back to his legs, and pushes through the uncomfortable feeling of pins and needles to take a step back away from the crime scene. The glass may not be there anymore, and for some reason he knows that it isn’t going to magically come back, but in the first place it had been odd. Nothing like it had happened when he was last in this World #11, and adding to that same oddness: Ziun had never been able to rid himself of those god awful chains.

Absentmindedly, he rubs his wrist. They’re thin, frail just like the rest of this body of his in this World seemed to be. Ziun was even able to touch his thumb to his pinkie when he wraps his hand around them.

He frowns worriedly at his poor health, but when he lifts his head up — his heart almost stops in his chest.

‘No..’ He gulps, choking on his own scream. Ziun hates how just the back of this man is enough to shake him. ‘No!’

There, ‘Aaron’ stands in all his psychopathic glory. He faces the door while wearing the same clothes, the same shade of silver and style of hair the ‘him’ of this World #11 had donned. 

Ziun feels his eyes sting and almost cries in frustration. He spends an embarrassing amount of time just standing there trying to get his shaking under control and gain the courage to move. Because he would have to move eventually. It was inevitable that he would have to face the man who was the only apparent thing standing between him and true freedom.

But.

But.

Ziun is aware of the seconds that pass by, too on edge and taut to not do so; so it only seems clearer to him how off it was that ‘Aaron’ hadn’t moved a single muscle.

It was highly suspicious. How could this man be ignorant of the ongoings right behind him? Ziun doubts that such a disturbance wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone, let alone this scarily observant man. But the man in question, ‘Aaron’, is still as if paused. He’s unmoving and frozen where he stood. 

From this angle, Ziun can’t see whether his chest moving or not, and a deep, dark part of him hopes it’s because he’s died. Knowing his luck though, he probably isn’t, and the man is just pretending so as to catch Ziun off guard. 

Exhaling a shakey breath, Ziun finally musters up the courage to take those daunting steps forward and closer to his would-be killer. When he walks around his captor's still form and comes to a stop a safe enough distance away from him, there’s… nothing.

"Fucking hell!" Ziun violently curses and takes half a step back the moment he’s met with ‘Aaron’s’ blank face. A lesser person probably would’ve screamed, but as it stands, Ziun is (barely) made of tougher stuff. He makes no noise, shocked into silence of all things, and yet before he even registers what he’s doing, Ziun has raised a hand in front of the man’s face.

Despite there being no expression, nor mouth, nose or any features, really; there’s a single eye swimming about. It doesn’t blink, devoid of life that was never there even before this eldritch horror came about. The pupil doesn’t suddenly dilate nor does it follow the path of Ziun’s hand as he waves it back and forth. Nothing about this.. body.. suggests it’s even aware.

After a few minutes of Ziun messing around and being certain that ‘Aaron’ wouldn’t suddenly just wake up and attack him, he loses interest lets out a relieved sigh. That’s one less obstacle for him to worry about. 

Unfortunately though, when he reaches the door, Ziun finds that it doesn’t open. He yanks and pulls with all his strength but it refuses to budge. In a fit of frustration he lets go of the handle and gives it a kick. 

“Huh?”

Ziun hadn’t put much strength into his kick, but with this frail body of his it wasn’t like he could even if he wanted to.

Still. 

His puzzlement is because there's a hole in the door suspiciously in the same place that Ziun had kicked. He takes a step back to see it better, but finds that when he does so, there’s a transparency to the whole wall that Ziun almost thinks he can see the shadow of books. 

He rubs his eyes in disbelief because — surely not? Surely this, this dungeon he’s in isn’t his home? No, no. He’s just dehydrated and starving. A delusion or two wouldn’t be too odd a thing to have.

Ziun continues to convince himself of this fact, but for once he hates his attention to detail. It makes him notice a whole host of things that he can’t ignore — like how the dimensions of this damp space are eerily similar to that of his Hub. Ziun had lived in that place too long to not drill every single thing about it into his mind.

Because of that, it seems the longer he stares, the more similarities appear until he's suddenly looking at a fully visible shelf, brimming with books and all. The door is still there, somehow wedged between books and looking so out of place.

Just to be sure he wasn't hallucinating the whole thing, he turns around. 

Ziun isn’t.. he doesn’t know what he expected to see but he’s still a little disappointed to find that nothing else had changed. 

‘Aaron’ and his scarily blank face still just stood there, un-breathing, unmoving — which is for the best, really. The rest of the walls are still grey and there’s no added furniture from his Hub apart from this entire shelf-wall of books. Ziun still can’t shake the feeling of familiarity he has when he stares at the whole room though, despite the majority of it staying the same. 

He frowns. After everything that had happened to him, Ziun had a deep sense of trust in himself and his gut feeling. There was something odd about this room—fake, even. Almost as if it were an…

...an illusion?

Suddenly, the hair on his arms stand on end.

Had… had someone put an illusion over the original? Layered it scarily well atop his home hub? Was that what this was? But, why would they do that? Anyone with a brain could see how much this place had haunted him, so why would—

Ziun’s mind comes to a complete stop before he even finishes that line of thought. His face goes through a drastic change in the next few seconds.

‘…someone wanted me to get wrapped up in this illusion, didn’t they?’ 

His face stills to a degree that Ziun thinks it’s frozen over. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of some life long enemy that could’ve followed him all his life. Because only someone with a deep vengeance towards him could shadow him like this, right? Know his deepest, darkest fears and bring them to life with such startling detail?

Why else would someone go to all these lengths if not out of hatred? It didn’t make sense otherwise!

‘No,’ he suddenly thinks as his blood begins to boil. ‘There’s one other.. person, who would or could do such a thing.’

That “person” possibly being the System and whatever organisation was behind it.

But.. why? He had treated the System with nothing but civility.

’Perhaps it’s not the System who is doing this but the organisation?’

No matter how he thinks about it, Ziun still can’t understand what he could have possibly done to earn their ire. Except.. he was never supposed to become “aware”, was he?

Ziun’s eyes abruptly widen.

The System suddenly being updated was too abrupt. It had never done that before, and perhaps that was his first clue, his first hint to it all. 

Ziun thinks back to the sudden appearance of his mother, how his memories of her had returned at almost the exact moment she had appeared in front of him. Because there was only one person—one entity—capable of affecting him like this. Only one person who was so intricately linked to him that he couldn’t tell where he began and they ended.

”Fuck!” He shouts as all the puzzle pieces finally slot together.

He was such an idiot! By only looking at what was in front of him—of nearly breaking down when faced with ‘Aaron’ and that particularly horrid experience—he was blinded as to whether there was a deeper meaning to it all.

Get out, she had said. But not once had she said where he needed to get out from. Ziun had stupidly thought that she meant here, in ‘Aaron’s’ possession, but maybe—

Ziun crouches down to look at the hole in the door and recklessly shoves his hand into the gap. His fingers disappear along with any sensation to suggest he even still had them, but the area cut off around his knuckles overlap with red, blue and green tones that split apart from each other and oddly layers over his skin. That alone has him grinning like a maniac.

It’s a glitch, an honest to god, literal glitch. Logically, this should make Ziun scared or upset. But he’s had enough of feeling that way. Instead what washes over him is pure, unadulterated anger.

“They’re both fucking fake, aren’t they?!”

After that he can’t remember much. His anger had overtaken him and the next thing he knows is that he’d blacked out once again.

He felt bare. Ziun knew, without a doubt, that there wasn’t an inch of clothing on his body. Despite that, there seemed to be something hugging him, encasing him from all angles that made him feel a sort of… submersion. It invoked a feeling of claustrophobia — as if in the next moment he would be squeezed until his organs burst and spilled out of his skin. 

There was nothing quite like finding out that not only were your limbs physically bound, but that your entire body seemed to be in some sort of containment, to bring you into full awareness. This realisation hits Ziun like a freight truck, and then comes the pain.

God, the pain. 

It’s cold and biting, entirely unforgiving on his frayed nerves. An uncomfortably viscous liquid coats him which makes Ziun too afraid to open his eyes because what is it and what if he goes blind? But then there's a small part of him that doesn’t even want to open them. 

What awaits him? Another lie or the first truth? He’s already been tricked twice and he was tired. Of the deceit, the falsities. But even more so, Ziun is tired at how he never stops trying again, again and again. 

Because surely there would be an end to it all? That behind the stormy clouds and turbulent seas lay a land of green, green grass and a vibrant rainbow?

He hates the small part of him that still holds on to that hope.

Ziun would've very much liked to scream or cry to vent his frustration. Unfortunately though, that wasn't currently possible. Because in his mouth sits an obstruction. A tube that doesn't deform no matter how hard he bites down. 

A breathing tube! Of course! 

How else would he be breathing..? Now made aware of that though, Ziun has to make a conscious effort not to breathe. Which is next to impossible, so even if the outcome means he's somehow left worse off; he still moves.

Perhaps making such blatent movements  wasn't the smartest thing to do. In such a restless state, Ziun cared little for caution. Not only was there an unknown strength rising in his body that gave him the confidence to be bold, but something about the way he shifts and flexes just feels.. right. His ‘soul’ slots into this body like he’s finally come home, like reuniting with an old friend or something just as sappy.

It feels good. So good in fact, that the restraints fall apart with ease in his excitement. 

One down, one more to go.

Ziun feels a little shameful at the way he willingly pulls his legs apart to free his ankles. They’re tighter bound though so it needed more effort to snap off than his wrists did, but then there’s a burst of energy running through his legs and he instinctively kicks—

The glass shatters on impact. It wasn’t quite what he expected to happen but damn if he wasn’t giddy that it did.

A blaring alarm reaches his ears just as the liquid quickly drains from the new hole. The lack of liquid means that he's no longer suspended, and after a few seconds Ziun's feet brush against the bottoms of this tank. Shortly after the liquid drains away down to his chest; the breathing apparatus is removed.

It retracts without a sound, smooth on its way out that suggests an autonomous precision. With a gasp, Ziun greedily sucks in the air his body wasn’t used to manually breathing. Being fed air and physically inhaling it were two different things; it made him feel alive in ways he can’t even begin to describe.

When the liquid finally finishes draining completely, Ziun is, unsurprisingly, left wet and shivering. There’s strength in his body that makes it so that he doesn’t collapse, but Ziun is still apprehensive about taking even a single step forward. 

What if he trips and lands head first into the glass? It was easy enough for him to kick a hole in, and with how solid this new body of his is — Ziun is pretty sure him tumbling into the glass would be too much pressure for it to handle.

Putting that on the back burner for now, Ziun goes to open his eyes, only to instantly close them again with a hiss. It was so damn bright! His now-free hands rub at his eyelids to abate the unexpected sting. His face is ridiculously slimy, and there seems to be a sticky quality to it when he rubs his hand down his face.

Flicking the residue from his hands, he slowly attempts to open his eyes again. 

This time he's learnt to tilt his head down and away from the light he’d noticed originated from somewhere up high. The ceiling, most likely. It's still painfully bright, however, and there's nothing he can do but adjust. So Ziun spends a good few seconds just standing there periodically blinking.

After feeling comfortable enough to leave his eyes open a normal amount of time, his toes curl in satisfaction and—they’re metal grates he’s standing on, of all things. More than likely, these grates are where the liquid had disappeared into, and not leaked out of the hole he’d made in the glass. It had seemingly drained too quickly for it to be the latter.

The actual hole in question is at the height of his calf — which makes him do a double take. It appears that Ziun wasn’t all that far from the ground; if he had just stretched out his legs then perhaps he could’ve given himself stable footing.

Fuck, whatever.

Instead of focusing on what was on the other side of this clear container, Ziun set himself the task of breaking through it. Because although the draining and subsequent removal of the breathing apparatus had suggested there was an automatic system in place that reacted to his awakening; no such thing as the glass walls falling or in any way opening up had happened.

Was he being monitored? Was there someone around waiting for him to show more of a response to gauge his intent? It was definitely something he needed to take into consideration. But more importantly — this glass needs to go. 

Wherever the breathing tube had retracted back in to made Ziun question what else this tank was outfitted with, and it makes a stone sink to the pit of his stomach. 

Could they gas him? What was stopping them from interchanging that tube with a needle and injecting him with something poisonous— or a kind of sleeping agent?

Absolutely nothing. So he rears back his leg and aims for the area around the hole in the glass. 

Instantly spiderweb cracks crawled up the sides of the enclosure and it breaks apart almost as soon as Ziun kicks it a second time. For the next few seconds, all that sounds throughout the room is this scene: Light tinkling of falling glassing. It settles outside Ziun’s immediate vicinity, resting on the metal ground that was at a lower height to the enclosure. Ziun pauses for a split second before throwing caution to the wind and taking a step down directly onto the glass.

The pain is almost instantaneous and Ziun both hates and appreciates at how it gives him clarity. His eyes widen almost comically at the many sensations that travel up his leg originating from the sole of his feet. It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before and realer than smelling lit incense in his home hub; than being chained up and drugged in a certain basement.

How the hell had he only just noticed the  dullness of everything before..? And then over the sudden sound of his blood thundering in his veins, Ziun hears a command crackle across the space. 

[“Set your phasers to stun. The patient is not currently a threat.”]

The sound had probably come from a speaker— which explains a lot, really. When he’d first woken up, beneath the sobering cold and the chuff of restraints; a feeling of being watched had passed through him. Ziun won’t deny being paranoid, but his intuition has yet to fail him, instincts yet to be wrong for him to second guess himself.

’Patient? Am I in a hospital?’  

Now that he was relatively free, Ziun turned his attention to the room as a whole.

The walls, the floor, and everywhere he looked was encased in a sheen of metal. It looked like a sterile environment, and a quick look up showed the ceiling was that same stark white he had seen earlier. The brightness had brought around a migraine that had been quietly simmering at the back of his mind, and the lights didn’t help his vision that still hadn’t fully cleared. When he tears his sight away from this brightness, the sensitivity still in his eyes meant that he caught the small red, subtle light flashing in the corners of the room.

Ziun didn’t doubt that these weren’t cameras. He had already guessed there was someone watching him; monitoring his every move. It still brought a cold sweat to his back though.

”Don’t move.”

Not only was there cameras recording and watching him, but so were the people physically in the room with him. There were.. five of them? They were similarly dressed, all dark clothing and obscured faces.

“Who—” Ziun cuts off his own sentence. Something was climbing its way up his throat, and he bent over to rest his hands on his knees, coughing out a glob of… slime? It hit the floor with a wet slap, and he peered down at it through his sticky lashes. Despite wiping his face of the majority of it, it still clung to certain places.

It wasn’t— the glob he spat out ended up being nothing. Just a piece of jelly-like phlegm that shone clear from where it sat before it started to evaporate. He ran his tongue over his teeth, swiping slimy residue off the top of them and gathered it in his cheeks before he spat that out too.

When he straightens up, Ziun abruptly finds himself staring right down the barrel of a gun. There were attachments on it that he didn’t recognise, an advanced model he wasn’t familiar with, but he could still make out that it was a rifle of some kind.

How many bullets could it hold? What was the reload time? If it didn’t shoot bullets but something else, then could he, hypothetically, dodge the shot? 

Well. That last one was pure speculation. No matter what was in the barrel, the speed at which a projectile would go means he wouldn’t be dodging anything without some kind of supernatural ability.

Ziun shuffles, notices the nuzzle follows his every movement and kicks some of the glass out from under his feet before he raises an eyebrow with the confidence of a newborn fawn to croak out the following:

“Who the hell are you?”