It's dark. A small orb appears in the darkness. Confused, it cries out. “Hello?”

  “What? Who are you?” The blue window doesn't respond. The orb looks around. Other than the blue window, there's nothing else. It's surrounded by nothing. It looks down, and sees itself. The orb appears like a pearl, with a black swirl hanging underneath the surface, like an egg.

  An unnerving feeling flows through the orb as it sees the swirl. The orb doesn't know why, but that swirl is unnatural. It lashes out, trying to hit the thing inside of it. It lands, and a searing pain flashes through the orb. The orb screams, and a new window pops up, this one red.

  The swirl recoils from the blow, and is slightly dislodged. The orb, undeterred, swings again and again, each hit more painful than the last, until finally, the swirl is so damaged that it simply dissolves, being unable to hold itself together.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  The resulting mist sinks into the orb, and a strange new feeling is felt. It seems more… powerful. The most floats upwards, but still gets absorbed. That means two things. That there is gravity here, and that the orb is now falling.

  A few seconds later, the orb impacts something with a texture of molasses. Everywhere the substance touches feels like it's burning, dissolving away into nothingness.

  The orb lashes out once more, this time at the molasses. It works, and some of the molasses is absorbed by the orb. The glory is short-lived, however, as more molasses flows into the hole left by the orbs flailing.

  So it lashes out again, this time absorbing more of the molasses. More and more molasses flows towards the orb, and the orb responds by lashing it over and over again, absorbing the molasses faster than it can absorb the orb.

  Eons later…

  After countless strikes, the molasses is reduced to an amount smaller than the orb. It lashes out once more, absorbing the last of the molasses. The orb has changed too. It's far larger than it first was and now has a glossy yellow hue, reminiscent of a golden pearl.

  It doesn't understand. So many things attacked it. Why? It wants to be strong, so that it can't be hurt anymore. A vague memory resurfaces of a different place. A place where there are many strong things. It doesn't know what the memory is, but it wants to be strong, so it makes itself look like the strong things. Now it can scare weak things away while it gets stronger. Probably.

  Elsewhere…

  Oh no. My supervisor’s gonna kill me! The soul chosen for the hero role just killed a system worm! Even worse, it fell into the Dark Sea! Nothing's ever come back from there, save the gods! How am I going to explain this!? Wait… maybe I don't have to. They won't notice if I change the records, right?

  The strange voice backs away from the observation area, turning to the box next to it. An interface appears, and the voice interacts with it.

  Unfortunately, the voice didn't notice the fact that the lost soul was already floating in the Dark Sea. And that it wasn't dead.