Oren was sitting cross-legged in a room, his hands trembling faintly as they rested in the space between his legs.
His golden eyes slowly opened, a sudden darkness obscuring his vision.
From what he could see, he could just about make out the faint shapes surrounding him.
An old wooden bed. A chest of drawers. And... walls.
He couldn't see much beyond their vague silhouettes, but it reminded him of a prison cell, not the academy hall where his Trial had started.
Compared to back then, he felt solace in his new state of mind.
He didn't push away the concept of being something else.
He welcomed it, if anything.
As much as he welcomed everything else within the Trial. But the one thing he couldn't wrap his mind around was the Immortal Demon.
It was still beyond him.
He still couldn't understand the facets of what made that being him, and yet he knew he was him. It both made sense and didn't.
So he tucked it away inside his mind and left it there to marinate until the next time it became relevant to him.
What was important at the moment was why.
His gaze landed on the neatly laid bed. Only then did he notice how everything felt incredibly numb, his buttocks especially.
'Why didn't they put me in the bed? It's right there. Now my body aches because they were too lazy to put me there.
Or perhaps they just couldn't pick me up in such an awkward position.'
A small, bemused smile tugged at his lips.
At least, he was still wearing the same old academy robes.
So... they hadn't undressed him.
'But they did move me.' Oren didn't know why they had. Perhaps something happened whilst he was out of it.
He shifted unevenly, a tingling sensation stretching across his lower body.
And for some reason, an unusually ferocious hunger fell over him, one which could not be domesticated.
'How long have I not eaten for? A few days? Was I really gone for that long? It must've been longer than that. They moved me because they thought I would fail.'
'But... I really did it.'
A smile slowly appeared on his face.
'I beat the Trial of Longing.'
He had escaped those abhorrent puppets, too.
'Ah, what a blessing it is to be alive.'
But success had never been guaranteed for him.
Oren sighed. 'Death is cruel, and the people here are young and naive. The deaths of fellow candidates would traumatise their pure souls.
Steering them away from the path of enlightenment.'
That's probably what the elders thought.
But even Oren found it unpleasant.
Inhaling, a breath abruptly caught in his throat. His face scrunched as he noticed the stale odour in the air and sneezed.
'Disgusting, disgusting,' Oren snarled, covering his sensitive nose.
But he could barely lift his hands before they dropped to the floor.
'When did it get so cold...'
The wooden floorboards were freezing against his skin through the fabric.
Then came the silence.
His gaze jumped from left to right as he searched for an answer.
But there was none.
Eventually, his gaze landed on the window.
Beyond it was the outside world, dark, dull, and gloomy, as if the entire world had been consumed by the shadow of decay.
'The Sunwane?' Oren wondered, staring forward before asking himself.
The Trial had been an almost perfect representation of the real world.
The people, the places, the sensations.
Oren faltered for a moment, for simultaneously, he knew that he had not overcome his longing.
He hadn't even understood what he had faced, what he had been fighting, or what he was meant to overcome.
He had stood outside the social systems, watching mortals through a window forged by his own hubris.
That hadn't really changed.
Even if it had slightly, he still didn't know anything.
'So what is the Trial of Longing? What I longed for was not simply connection, nor was it the humans who had once roamed my home.'
It had to be something else. Completely different from what he had suspected.
If it truly was what its name implied, "the Trial of Longing," then it should have confronted him with something he desired.
Not the artificial centuries of condemnation. Not the years of being ostracised by humans, nor the false memories.
And certainly not the death of his only friend.
He had never even visited Everdream before. So how could he long for something he didn't even know existed?
None of it made any sense.
The elders must have been wrong, and if not them, the person who permitted the Trial to take place.
Then a thought slowly came to him.
'Longing... Long for?' He rubbed his eyes.
'The Trial of Longing pits a person against the reason for their longing.'
Oren's eyes widened in the darkness.
That was the only explanation that made sense.
However, even if that was the truth, he lacked the knowledge to understand the whole of it.
And so, helplessly, Oren slowly dismissed the thoughts.
After a while, he chose to leave the room.
Extending his arms and legs, Oren stretched his body before standing, then hastily pushed himself upward.
The sudden movement sent a rush through his head.
His vision blurred before quickly steadying.
Oren waited a moment longer before moving again, yet nausea had already filled his head.
His body swayed before falling back down to the floor, bringing with it a loud thud.
'WHAT!'
He shrieked, glancing down at his hands as they pressed against the floorboards.
Oren lay half-reclined against the wall, feeling every minuscule detail touching him.
In the next moment, there was no feeling.
He was numb to that sense, but almost instantly the numbness fled and eventually came back.
Again and again, the cycle continued, the peculiar sensitivity travelling through his body like waves tearing through a great river.
For a split second, it felt like Oren could feel both the atoms filling the world and the dust rising from the floor.
He breathed heavily. His ears rang like a striking bell of contorted frequencies as Oren stumbled into the nearest wall.
A terrible odour filled his nostrils, stealing his mind away from the abundance of noise.
The smell was pungent and despicable, smelling like wet grass and faeces, whilst at the same time it was as though he couldn't smell anything.
He wanted to block his nose, to stuff his nostrils, to never inhale toxicity again, but was compelled to do nothing.
Shaking himself from the daze, Oren's eyes trembled violently, his head buzzing as he roared.
"Ah!"
He fell into the chest of drawers, temporarily using it to support himself.
Opening his mouth, Oren let out a terrific, wailing scream as the agony overwhelmed his senses.
He felt the cold embrace of another wall as he flailed, suppressing screams.
The unbearable sensations shot through his nervous system, his vision drowning in an endless torrent of suffering, making it impossible for him to focus on anything else.
Oren reached for his eyes, clawing at his golden irises, but before he could reach into their luminous depths, his hands dropped to his waist, repulsed by the sensation of touch.
Driven insane by vast sensations and feelings, merciless waves of pain rippled across his mind, drowning out every other thought beneath his tormented screams.
He felt himself picking up the few random items in the room, breaking them, smashing them, ripping everything he could apart.
Somewhere under it all, Oren heard a knock, before his body was thrown near the window.
The pain intensified, a sensation of upheaval invading his mind and sending his body into a frenzy as it felt like something had forced its way through his senses.