‘Void’ as a concept stands apart from human experience. An empty bliss beyond this world, to which few can relate and fewer still can understand.

  In the dark, there’s solid ground. There is no such ground in the void.

  In the sea, you float, and the tides rock to-and-fro. There is neither tide nor buoyancy in the void.

  There is no motion, no stimulus, no inertia, no anything. You simply exist, aware of yourself and little besides.

  Rinkaku Harigane lay supine in this void, and bathed in the formless sea of tranquillity, before a brooding voice burst his balloon of bliss.

  “Awaken, boy.”

  Rin jerked awake, dropped like a stone and landed hard on his back. Winded, he gasped for breath and rolled onto his side into a foetal position. Rin found he was able to open his eyes. He looked and was able to see. The rush of stimulus stabbed at every sense with needles. He blinked, sneezed, and suffered a full-body shiver in rapid succession. His cheek tingled against the concrete floor. From the corner of his eye, the sky above blazed with a bold blue. He stared ahead a moment longer, unsure whether anything was real anymore.

  “How long do you intend to just lie there?”

  He still didn’t recognise the voice, but it was starting to annoy him. He startled grumbling into the floor, “What are you, my alarm clock? Piss off, ghost.”

  “Get up.”

  A large foot connected with his side. Rin yelped and rolled over a few times. He sprung to his feet and pointed with blind outrage. “What the hell was that for?!”

  “Where are you looking?”

  Rin blinked, before realising he was facing the opposite direction. He did a heel face turn in the direction of the bossy, brooding voice, only to come face-to-face with the kind of figure he’d only ever seen depicted in mythology. The man stood a good head and shoulders above Rin, and had a body chiselled like a statue. A golden helmet with jagged wings shrouded his eyes. An eagle’s beak extended over his nose, and the left eye was detailed into the metal with a bright red jewel. Beneath the helmet, curtains of black hair spilled out over broad shoulders plated with a gilded metal uesekh collar. All he wore was a long white skirt around the waist, belted with a large ankh emblem on the front. Long golden bracelets clad his forearm, along with further jewellery besides.

  Rin wolf-whistled and tongued his cheek. “What kind of magazine did you come from, huh?” He blinked a couple of times, then pinched his nose. “Actually, not sure I even want to know. If this is some strange lucid dream, I want to go back to the one I had about viaducts, thank you very much. Bad intrusive thoughts.”

  The man’s lip curled. He watched with abject dispassion.

  “Well?” Rin snapped, hands on hips. “Are you going to say something? Or were you paid just to stand there and look pretty. Wait, hang on. I didn’t pay you at—”

  “You talk an awful lot for such a petulant little child.”

  The disparaging words shattered Rin’s expression like a bricked window. A vein clenched in his temple. Jaw clenched, he made out, “Sorry, wanna run that by me again, asshole?”

  “You heard me perfectly well.”

  Rin took a deep breath in through his nose and turned on his heel. Don’t hit him, Rin. Don’t hit him. He’s three times your size and has a muscle density like Kazuya Mishima. Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea! The attempt at a calming mantra did nothing but rile him up further, so he forced himself to look at the scenery. The barren concrete plane stretched as far as the eye could see underneath a cavernous deep blue sky, so rich and deep. Most strange of all, however, was the complete absence of a sun.

  “How much time has passed? I cannot know,” the man mused, arms crossed. “Even so, finally this wretched limbo has come to an end.” He lowered his tone. “You, boy—” He pointed with a finger— “You were not the one to open the tomb.”

  Rin turned. “Yeah, no duh? Do I look like a gravedigging waste of space to you?”

  “To think the other half of my Ascension Blade would end up in the hands of a child,” he tutted.

  Rin leaned closer, eyebrow raised. “Hang on—your Ascension Blade?” He asked. “So, you’re Horus’ Banished Disciple?”

  “Is that what they’ve come to call me?” The figure responded, then snorted derisively. “How ridiculous.”

  “Don’t blame me! I think it’s a stupid name as well!” Rin threw his hands up. But all of this raised another matter. His father’s notebook, the Excel Ritual, the Rejected. Everything. Rin swore and held his forehead in one hand. Everything came flooding back all at once. “But if this isn’t just some cruel dream on the way to the afterlife, that means you have a fuck of a lot to answer for!”

  “I owe you nothing.”

  “Bullshit! It’s because of you and that strange knife that my school’s been attacked by monsters from the depths of hell!” He cried. “My dad’s not here—never really has been—otherwise it’d be him I’m chewing out for digging up this whole thing to begin with, but he’s not here so you’ve got to answer for it instead!”

  The man stood strong. “None of this is my responsibility.”

  “Bull! Shit!” Rin stamped hard on the ground, but only got a searing pain up through his femur. He grit his teeth and fired off a machine-gun volley of angry questions. “What on earth is going on? What are those things? What do they want? Why are they attacking me? And, most importantly of all—” He strode up to the man and jabbed a stout finger into one pec. “Who the hell are you?!”

  Lip curled, the man seized Rin’s wrist and the boy gasped in silent pain, slapping the forearm in a pathetic attempt to make the man let go. He held the boy up by his arm and tossed him aside like a ragdoll. Rin stumbled back to his feet. “Answer my—”

  “My name is ███████.” The words abruptly cut to a corrupted, blur of noise.

  Rin blinked, dumbfounded. The sound sent a shiver through every single bone. “What?”

  “I said, my name is ███████.” The man then realised what he was saying, then growled. “Curses. It seems they followed through.”

  “Followed through on what?” The man either ignored him or was too busy brooding. Rin found it difficult to tell, since he couldn’t see the man’s eyes. “Listen, there’s no way I’m walking around calling you Horus’ Banished Disciple three times a sentence in conversation. So, if you’re finished speaking gibberish, what the hell can I call you?”

  The figure folded his arms. “You may call me the Architect.”

  Slowly, Rin nodded. Both of their voices sounded with a cavelike echo but, looking around, the acoustics couldn’t be more disjointed from their surroundings. It was so strange. Moreover, on such a barren stretch of land, Rin would expect there to be some wind. There was no movement of air at all. Everything was perfectly still, yet it felt as though there was movement waiting to happen. He didn’t know what, he didn’t know where. He could just feel it, all around him.

  “And what is this place?”

  “History has called this space many names since my time, though it has all holed up in the realms of religious speculation. Its true identity is the Further Plane. Those awakened to the Eye can access this liminal space, one that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. You have only just awakened your mind, hence why this place is so sparse.”

  “And all of this, because of that Excel Ritual?”

  The Architect nodded, and the traces of intrigue graced the corners of his surly mouth.

  What was this tingle of excitement he was feeling all over his skin? Rin now felt more alive than he had ever. All of this information… His mind was finally having to work! Some hidden part of his consciousness, having lain dormant his entire life, had suddenly awoken. Unaware of what was going on around him, sparks of purple electricity had begun to flow and crackle all around him, all originating from his third eye.

  The flow of his psychic energy had begun.

  “Your conscious and unconscious mind are on the cusp of uniting, returning to their original state,” explained the Architect. “Your third eye has been awakened, and you have formed a tentative connection to the Eye. Yet,” he paused, and thumbed his chin. “Your connection remains fleeting, unstable. Curious.”

  “The research said I’d awaken to my powers if I performed the ritual correctly.” Rin asserted. He was sure he had read the process correctly. “What’s going on?”

  The Architect didn’t respond to this. Instead, he hummed thoughtfully, before turning on a heel. “Walk with me, boy.”

  “Stop calling me boy! I have a name!”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Rinkaku Harigane, and you’d better remember it!”

  The Architect looked back over his shoulder for a moment and paused, before striding away.

  “Hey, didn’t you hear me?!” Rin, startled, was compelled to follow. Before he’d had a chance to respond, the Architect was already walking away into the distance. Rin pulled a face, not exactly seeing what choice he had in the matter. Not wanting to be left alone in this empty wasteland, and so jogged on after him.

  After a while, Rin had lost track of just how far they had walked. With no landmarks whatsoever, his bearings were non-existent. The Architect strode ahead in front; Rin sloped along behind. Time didn’t really seem to pass in this place, and the scenery didn’t change.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Stop.”

  An absent-minded Rin walked straight into the Architect’s outstretched arm. He yelped, holding his face. “Whadduh hell wus dat for?” He grumbled, suppressing a minor nosebleed. His pride sounded much more damaged than his face.

  “Look.”

  Rin, still pinching his nose, looked out, and then down. Before them was a vertical drop, a complete and utter precipice. Rin shrieked and jumped halfway out his own skin. He scrambled away from the ledge on his hands and knees, realising he had been about two and a half seconds away from pitching over the edge and falling to his doom.

  “Why the hell didn’t you warn me?”

  The Architect looked confused, “didn’t I?”

  “You punched me in the face!”

  “Such nonsense.”

  “You’re impossible,” Rin grumbled, succumbing to his curiosity and peering back over the ledge he had nearly fallen off. He couldn’t see the bottom. Beyond a certain point, it was simply lost to darkness. He shivered.

  “It seems this is as far as your foundation goes,” the Architect gazed out over the empty expanse as though looking for something in particular.

  Several hundred intrusive thoughts urged Rin to push the Architect off the ledge. He could only take so many more cryptic statements from the man before he’d go mad. Sighing, he knew he couldn’t. He still had too many questions left to ask.

  It would’ve been funny, though.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rin asked, with an expression that read ‘I dare you to say something disparaging again’ in passive-aggressive cursive.

  “Do you think I’m being condescending? On the contrary. The fact we’ve walked this far and have only just now reached the edge means that your psychic potential exceeds all possible expectations. Sensational.”

  Rin was floored. He opened his mouth, ready with some quick-fire sarcastic retort, only for the compliment to backhand him across the face.

  “Not everyone has the base mental fortitude to create such sturdy foundations as these,” the Architect continued, banging his heel on the floor. “The creation of foundations to begin with is no small feat. Most are simply lost to the void.” At the confused expression, he clarified, “the foundations of your mind, boy—”

  “My name isn’t—”

  “Your aptitude and willpower are unlike anything I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing.” The Architect looked him up and down, then sighed. “If only the rest of you weren't so pitiful.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “No matter,” the man turned back over to the horizon. “With perspective, that all can change.”

  Rin walked further over towards the ledge, crouching down next to it. The void whispered to him, endless and seductive. Surely it wouldn’t be so bad spending the rest of eternity surrounded in such comforting oblivion, right? Wait—what was he saying? Rin physically wrenched his eyes away and looked up at the Architect, pointing into the depths.

  “What would happen if I fell?”

  A shadow descended over what remained visible of the Architect’s face. “Your soul would be forever lost. You would become nothing more than those Rejected, no different from those seconds away from ending your life in reality.”

  All traces of morbid curiosity evaporated, leaving only the sobering salt of horror behind. “So, all of this has been a dream…”

  “In one sense, yes.”

  “Stop being so cryptic! I’ve had it up to here!” Rin stretched his arm up above his head.

  The Architect tilted his head, pitying. “That’s not very high.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You are unlike most, boy.” The man caught his attention again. “Those without the mental capacity to form strong foundations, do not have the strength to resist the influence of the Eye.”

  “What—”

  Without any kind of warning, the Architect jabbed his finger into Rin’s third eye. The pain was immeasurable, and while he yelled at first, his expression went blank the very next instant. His mind in that moment was transported far away. The darkness was suffocating. He was floating in the midst of the cosmos itself. Everything felt electric along his skin, but Rin could no longer perceive himself.

  The Architect’s voice resounded through this void, magnified and booming.

  “You were not conscious of this, boy, but at the time of your awakening, you established a connection with the Eye. That is the purpose of the Excel Ritual.”

  Rin's imaginary jaw hung open. A gigantic vertical eyeball with the size and gravity of a sun loomed over in the depths of this unknowable space, the immense cosmic watcher. Immaterial, and yet seeming so real, currents of strange energy in a myriad of colours danced in burning arcs across its surface. The eye roamed all over. Rin could feel it staring right through his very soul. The whites shifted like lava, the depths of its kaleidoscopic iris were unending; its pupil, a literal black hole.

  “For those without the mental fortitude to Excel, this process is a sentence beyond death.”

  Three people hovered in front of Rin. He watched, powerless, as their foreheads were pierced just as the ritual described. Their bodies contorted horribly, twisting into positions the human body was not supposed to go. They screamed in silence, clutching at their heads in agony.

  “They become nothing more than vessels.”

  Third eyes sprouted in the middle of their faces. All three went limp.

  “The feeble-minded are no match for the Eye’s psychic energy. Their minds, their souls are overpowered; then, the Eye takes control.”

  The eyes on their heads began to grow, pulsating voraciously as their muscles twitched. Rin watched in horror as their bodies began to mutate. Their muscles swelled to gross extremes, their clothes and even their skin tore from the strain. The eyes had travelled down to the centre of their faces and were still growing. The skin was split apart, all their facial features mercilessly warped and pushed out of the way to make room. Before long, Rin was no longer staring at people, but at monsters.

  “That is why they are called Rejected.”

  The trip ended as suddenly as it began. The Architect retracted his finger, and Rin was back. The boy fell to his knees, his chest heaving, gasping for breath. A blinding pain in his forehead was followed by a wave of nausea. He gagged, before being violently sick all over the concrete floor.

  “Hey, asshole. What the FUCK was that for?!” Rin retched again, before giving the Architect a look that contained more concentrated bile than the literal pool of vomit on the floor.

  “The truth is often disturbing.”

  Rin shook his head, trying to regain some sense of composure. Disgusted, he spat out whatever remained in his mouth and then got to his feet. Despite his best efforts, he still swayed slightly, his vision still spinning. His mind had been violently shoved into the existential washing machine set to a spin-cycle fast enough to centrifuge all remaining grey matter to the soles of his feet. He took a laboured breath, still supporting himself by holding his knees, “Any other nausea-inducing tricks you have up your sleeve, whilst you’re at it?”

  “Sleeves? I’m not even wearing a shirt.”

  “You don’t say.” Rin wondered why he even bothered at this point. “About those Rejected,” he said, standing up properly now. “Am I right in saying no time has passed in reality since I stabbed myself with that knife?”

  “You catch on quickly.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of my whole thing—” Rin shook his head. “Anyway, that’s not the point! The book stated that if the Excel Ritual is performed successfully, it’d grant the user godlike power. I don't know how much longer this weird transitory vision is going to last, but the moment I go back to reality, I'm fucked. If I don’t get that power, I’m going to die!”

  “What of it?”

  “What do you mean? It should be obvious what I’m asking for here.” The man was clearly pulling his leg here, and Rin was having none of it. “I can't believe I have to spell this out,” he said, doing so anyway: “but I don't want to die! I have my whole life to live!” Both fists clenched by his sides. “If I want to see the light of day tomorrow, I need to kill those things before they kill me. To kill them, I need some kind of power.”

  “So?” The Architect folded his arms. “Are you so arrogant to believe I would simply give you my power?”

  Rin sulked. “That's what Kurama did…”

  “For what reason do you need this power, child? Beyond, of course, extending your pitiful life.”

  “Can't you see?!” Rin shouted. “This world is corrupt! It’s falling apart at the seams. Civilisation is on the brink of collapse! And what’s to blame?” He raised one finger. “Inferior design.”

  The Architect paused. “Your point being?”

  “My dream has always been to redesign the world, to shape it to the one I’ve always dreamed of: the perfect world. I’m going to become the greatest architect that Japan, no, that the world has ever seen!”

  A spark crackled across Rin's body, the conviction of his words rumbling the ground underfoot. The Architect nooked his chin in his palm. Stepping forward, Rin reached out a hand.

  “In order to live until tomorrow, so that I can do all of this, I need you to give me your power, Architect!”

  A few moments of silence, before—

  “No.”

  Rin's face seized up in outrage. “What do you mean, no? You’re not supposed to say that!” His hand dropped to his side, shoulders drooping. Betrayal etched deep grooves onto exasperated features.

  The Architect turned his back. “I won’t be beholden to such an insolent child.”

  The final nail in the coffin. Rin, defeated, dropped to his knees. Staring at the floor, he did not blink. All he could see was his impending mortality, his life about to be snuffed out the moment his consciousness returned to reality. This ritual had been an all-or-nothing gamble. Was this it? Was his entire life about to amount to nothing?

  No.

  Rin wasn’t going to accept that. He couldn’t.

  “You’re going to build a better world and help so many. I just know it.”

  He wouldn’t stop until he had built his dream. For her sake, and his own.

  “I’m not letting it end here.” Rin shifted his weight onto one leg to try and stand.

  The Architect looked over his shoulder.

  With one last gulp, Rin swallowed the remainder of his pride. “I’ll negotiate with you. What do you want from me? I’ll give you anything, anything you want!”

  The Architect’s immovable frown twisted into a grin.

  “Stand up, Rinkaku Harigane. Let’s form a contract.”

  Rin rose, amazed.

  “You wish to carve the world into your own image? Very well,” the man chuckled. “I’ll lend you the power you seek and stabilise your connection to the Eye. In return, I have two conditions. You will persist with this goal until its completion. If you fail, or abandon it at any point, our contract will void. In accordance with the law of contracts, the renegade must pay a price; your life will be forfeit. Do you accept these terms?”

  What other choice did he have?

  “I do.”

  “Then our contract is sealed.”

  The Architect slowly inserted his index finger within Rin’s third eye. That same strange energy crackled in the air around them like static before a lightning strike. The boy clutched at his face and screamed. A red-hot branding began to carve itself into his skin, just below his left eye. From where it cooled, a black mark remained: the Eye of Horus.

  “Now, let us begin.”

  The Architect’s body lost its form, as the man dived inside Rin’s third eye. In that same instant, the world went black. Rin felt himself falling again, the air rushing past him as he pitched and tumbled through the endless nothingness. He lost himself to the motion, as he once again became a consciousness adrift in the void.

  Architect, a mysterious spirit inside Rin's head.