After pondering for a bit longer, she decided to first attempt the idea of “feeling outwards,” even if she had no idea how that would be accomplished.

If this fails, then I’ll try “feeling the fog” next. If that fails too, then, hopefully by then, I’ll have uncovered enough new information to come up with something new, because if not… Chara didn’t finish her thought. There was no negativity allowed.

After putting an end to her musings, she re-entered a state of meditation. This time, rather than focusing on her senses, she redirected her efforts towards trying to feel “outwards”, as unusual and superstitious as that sounded.

As if responding to her intention, her awareness started to expand in every direction. Soon, a chaotic tempest of distinct hues and impressions had materialized within her purview. Although she wasn’t sure how, she found that she could now perceive everything around her.

I— I can see~!! exclaimed Chara, full of delight.

This delight was short-lived, however, as she soon realized that “everything around her” wasn’t very far. For some reason, anything beyond a certain radius just gradually faded away until it disappeared, as if it were being concealed by a blanket of darkness. Moreover, even the little she could sense, was only an unintelligible mess of “colors” that she couldn’t make any sense of.

To say she was utterly disillusioned—would be a complete understatement.

Lamentably, the greatly sought after, simple-to-understand, state of the art, auto-updating, enemy highlight, magical 3D map of her surroundings that she had hoped for, did not materialize. What she got instead was more akin to an impressionist painting from the fourth dimension. Except, instead of using color, her surroundings were expressed using an ethereal dream-like fog.

That was to say… it was really blurry.

This…! This is completely useless!! I literally can’t see anything! If my senses look like this, then I won’t be able to tell a cat from a dog!

Haahh… No! calm down me…!

Chara took a moment to collect herself before continuing.

The vision of babies is very different from that of adults. I don’t remember the specifics, but there is a reason baby toys are designed the way they look…

Technically, what I did just now, is similar to a baby opening their eyes for the first time. In other words, as long as I wait patiently, everything will gradually clear up over time!

Having come up with a suitable excuse, Chara found some room to relax. Alas, during her escape from reality, she forgot to consider that babies don’t grow up in a day, or even a week. At least, human ones that is.

As she waited for the wave of new sensations to burn in, the myriad of colors and sensations slowly started to become more coherent. Even if the scene in front of her was far from comprehensible, it was still clear enough for her to start making some basic observations.

For example, things did not flicker in and out of existence. Everything was extremely continuous and stable. If she felt so inclined, she could even track a specific trail of mist, and watch as it traveled across her perception until it disappeared on the other side.

Additionally, although the way the colors moved around was seemingly chaotic and random, when she zoomed out, it was also extremely uniform. Even if she was unaware of its underlying mechanics, there was undoubtedly a method to the madness!

Although she didn’t quite understand the scene in front of her, it did help her clarify that she probably wasn’t in a dream. Chara thought very highly of herself, but even she wasn’t shameless enough to believe her brain was big enough to produce something so intricate and detailed, this consistently. She would probably have a stroke.

Oh! I think I’m getting somewhere. I think I might have turned out to be a peerless genius after all. Uwehehe~! Chara laughed.

Feeling reinvigorated by the quick results, she quickly increased her momentum. Little by little, she started to understand more about the strange and mysterious fog. But the more she gleaned, the more confused she got over time!

She had no idea how to interpret the new stream of information. It was like she could feel everything around her simultaneously, like gusts of wind brushing against her skin. Except unlike wind where all she could feel was air pressure, what she was feeling now was exponentially more complex and sophisticated. And to her dismay, the additional detail didn’t manifest in the form of something easy to comprehend like higher sensitivity. Instead, she was given its complete opposite, a broader spectrum!

It could clearly be seen that her new form of perception had taken a vastly different shape from anything like her previous senses. Right now, she felt like someone had taken her sense of vision, removed her blind spots; making it 360-degree, made it more tactile… And then removed all the colors! Instead, replacing them with something akin to smell, giving her the ability to infer the “scents” of anything that entered her eyesight, or more accurately, area of detection.

The influx of sensations and impressions she experienced felt overwhelming. For Chara, this was completely unbearable!

Actually, in her current situation where she’s essentially blind, having a robust new form of perception with a diverse palette was extremely beneficial. She was just too inexperienced to take advantage of all its benefits. With only her current level of understanding, all the additional detail did was confuse her.

In fact, it was no different from handing her a giant spreadsheet filled with tens of thousands of data points, and then asking her to make a detailed map visualizing the forecast for tomorrow’s weather. It was absolutely impossible!

In this moment of vulnerability, Chara could clearly picture a bunch of Chibi versions of herself, running around inside her head like a flock of headless chickens. The scene felt very amusing, but once she realized the scene was a mockery of herself, she quickly imagined a Ch*in Ch*mp chasing around the little girls and eating them one by one. It was very refreshing.

After procrastinating for about one more minute, Chara finally got bored and gave in to her fate.

 

***

 

Chara continued to focus on her newfound “vision” to see if she could uncover any insights.

After spending ages just staring into space, Chara figured out that the “mist” that populates her perception could be divided into several fundamental “colors.” These hues were not truly colors, at least not like any she had encountered before. She simply thought of them as “colors” for the sake of convenience.

However, what intrigued her the most was the fact that each “color” gave her a distinct impression, making her unable to mistake one for the other.

The first color felt very free and unrestrained.

The second color seemed very solid and stable.

The third color was very calm and chilly.

And the fourth color felt slightly dark and gloomy.

The reason she found this intriguing was because she obviously didn’t have any prior impressions of any of these “colors”, as she had never seen them before. This was important because it meant that either she had new instincts, or the impressions were an innate characteristic of whatever it was she was sensing.

Additionally, Chara could intuitively guess that there were probably more “colors” than only the ones around her.

I mean, if there’s a cold color, then doesn’t that mean there’s a hot color? And if there’s a dark color, then shouldn’t there be a light color?

Umm… I guess it’s also possible that separate hot and light colors don’t exist. Instead, they could just be different shades of the cold and dark colors…

Although she had made remarkable progress, Chara still ended up being left with more questions than answers. Her current understanding was that there are several different hues of mist, with each color giving her a distinct “impression”.

These differently colored mists displayed a tendency to want to converge towards other mists of the same color. However, once this actually took place, they would then be separated by mist of a different color. She didn’t really know what to make of this. Either way, she was confident she would figure it out once she started looking around.

Still in meditation, Chara tried to shift her focus from “feeling” around her in every direction, to trying to “feel” only in one direction. Her surroundings quietly dimmed, and a couple of seconds later, all she could perceive was a cone in front of her, just much farther and much more detailed.

Whoa…

She had no clue how she did that, but she wasn’t complaining. Very few things had been convenient for her since waking up.

Once she was done marveling at how amazing and talented she was, she tried molding her cone of perception into different shapes just to get an idea of how it worked.

To her surprise, it just kind of worked, albeit clumsily. It was a bit finicky, but when she willed it, her area of perception would morph into a sphere, a cone, a cube, and any other conceivable shape. Unfortunately, her control was a bit clumsy, so all of her shapes could be found with fuzzy edges.

While she was fooling around, one of the things she noticed, is that what she calls her “perception,” appears to have a limit. She can move around and displace her awareness in any way she wishes, but the amount of things she can perceive at once is always fixed.

This means, that if she inflates the volume of her perception past a certain limit, it will cause her surroundings to become fuzzy and indistinct, like she doesn’t have enough sensors to fill the entire area.

In a similar way, if she crams all of her perception into a smaller area, everything will look clear and precise, like she’s looking through a microscope.

That said, these are things she has to go out of her way to do intentionally.

Although she doesn’t quite understand how it works, her perceptive pressure seems to have a kind of equilibrium. So, if she doesn’t consciously direct her senses to focus on a smaller area, or expand them past their limit, they will always retain roughly the same volume.

The only exception to this is when she retracts her senses completely, returning the world to darkness, like when she first woke up.

Wait, if I can retract my senses completely, then where are they going? Shouldn’t they originate from “me”? wondered Chara, slightly perplexed.

With her curiosity sparked, she quickly thought of a quick experiment to confirm her theory. First, she retracted ninety percent of her perception. Then, by relaxing the remaining ten percent, due to its equilibrium, it naturally settled into the form of a sphere, like a bubble trying to overcome surface tension.

There, at the center of the sphere, rested an iridescent vortex full of life and energy, both brighter and denser than anything she had seen since waking up. Iridescent particles swirled in and out of her form, some of them wisping off her lost to the greater unknown, while others rejoined her like she was a nascent cloud.

Holy crap! Is that me?!