Blackbloods

1. Prelude

It was dark. Dark and cold.

The figure couldn't see where he was if he was anywhere. He tried to move around, yet he couldn't somehow. Toward the darkness, he shouted, but nothing. All his senses were robbed as his mind only slowly and painfully succumbed to this eternal silence.

He slowly reassured himself and took a mental breath. While he struggled, he felt something - a blockage or an obstruction, but it felt like it was within him. However, he didn't panic at all.

Some part of the man realized this strange predicament for what it was - a direct threat to his life - but that base, primal need to defend wasn't there. It was replaced with a different feeling. One that he hadn't had for a long time.

He was calm, way too quiet than expected or should be. He felt like he was at peace. Home, he thought to himself. Finally, he stopped fighting and gave in, letting the thing run its course.

Nothing happened at all.

Confused, but he didn't care much either. He then tried and remembered what had happened before.

He was in a war - the final curtain, the grand scene of his play. Big or small, he had absolutely no idea, but one thing was for sure: he did feel as if it went forever and very personal for some reason.

An image of a woman - someone he recognized. Someone he had a particular, no, extreme affinity for. 'What the hell?' he asked himself. A ball of mixed feelings. Admiration, desire, fear, and hatred too. Yet deep down, that mess was a deep-seated want for things to go how he wanted for once: a long talk. Rival to another?

Then, a sudden shock, as if something had surprised the man, followed by voices - the voice of those he trusted. Or... he still. What had happened wasn't their fault. He remembered them saying his name and running to try and catch you, to help you, but it was too late. And he pushed them back. He did not know what led to that, but one thing was for sure: a sense of relief. He didn't force them to their death, right? They said the name 'Boss .' That was him. He was Boss.

But... what was he? What was Boss?

The man instinctively tried to flex his fingers in the darkness again but couldn't. It was not that something was chaining him down, but he didn't have fingers to turn. His body was amorphous, lacking clearly defined outlines, structures, and limits. He wasn't aren't in a dark void - he was the void.

Not yet, anyway. Other images flashed by. Lots of things were cut off or blurred like a scratch cassette. It was his origin, his lineage. He was a...Magician? Mechanic? Living weapon? So many faces, from ordinary people to incomprehensible abominations. All were him. It made no sense to him, yet the memories it was real, too real. The man could wield the world's ambient magic between his fingers while possessing the radical, otherworldly knowledge of machine and flesh. Remaking himself would be the most straightforward task he had ever performed, for he had done it before.

Despite his hazy, muddied memories and probably no form, his wits have never felt sharper. He felt high in tune with the unknown space around him. It almost feels like you could do anything. They were his tools, ready at his proposal to alter reality to be whatever he wanted.

He then focused on his memories, putting his focus into what he once was and reconstructing himself, piece by piece, atom to atom, in his mind's eye. Fingers, toes, arms, and legs. He did not need a detailed one, just simple enough to feel. Soon, his body was complete. He stood up and laid his eyes upon the endless black sea. Recalling his sensation, the man took a breath and closed his eyes, focusing on one sentence.

'Let there be light.'

Upon opening his eyes, the once-boundless black void transformed into a blinding expanse of white, a mere shift in color but a stark change nonetheless. Confusion set in briefly before a new sensation emerged - the presence of a figure right before him. How he failed to notice it earlier remained a mystery.