Eternal emptiness, with no feelings of pain or emotion.
That was the feeling of the first thing that had reached him.
This emptiness felt familiar, yet ultimately hollowing. Neither darkness nor cold came.
Not even the feeling of pain comforted him in this unknown he was left with. Just a sensation of tension, a moment that pulled at your lungs with nothing to inhale.
The sensation of drowning without water.
For a while, there were no thoughts. As time felt like it went on continuously, without any true acknowledgment.
But then, slowly, a longing warmth rose from somewhere, one that felt unknown even as it floated up to his chest, finally giving him a place of existing.
'Sere..'
The thought surfaced, and a longing warmth poured through him, easing the hollowness.
But with the return of the warmth, the tragedy of her end returned with it.
The moment her hand slipped from his.
The red that trailed through the water from her punctured leg.
And the loving, tearful gaze she returned to him before her eyes closed shut and her grip loosened.
He felt hurt. He wanted this warm, suffocating, fluid feeling to stop.
And the immense guilt of failing her, of failing to save her, sitting inside his chest.
This guilt, its expectations, and the suffocating pressure were all he could feel. He wished they would disappear right this moment.
Suddenly, at some unmarked point, the weight seemed to shift.
The feeling of floating and splitting like torn fabric faded, and something grounded him again.
It felt like he was standing.
His feet touched something that was not quite the floor, but his mind decided it should be. That was enough in a strange way. The sense of "down" finally returned.
He drew a breath out of habit. There was nothing there to inhale, the feeling of pulled air did not exist and neither did the feeling of his chest moving.
This felt extremely bizarre. So did how everything looked when he opened his eyes.
The world around him was completely empty.
Nothing around him could be seen, just a vast, endless darkness in every direction.
At least, that was what it looked like at first.
A flicker of light appeared in his peripheral vision as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness.
Very slowly.
At the edge of his vision, many more tiny flickers appeared. Weak, almost nonexistent, like the afterimage of colors you see when you close your eyes too hard, but they were still there. They still existed somehow.
He focused on them.
The more he stared, the more those faint glows sharpened. Tiny threads of light hung suspended in the air, drifting lazily like dust caught in a ray of sun.
But here there was no sun.
Interestingly, they were not just one color either.
They shimmered.
Soft light bled into each other, shades of blue, green, violet, gold, folding and twisting into literal threads of multiple rainbows.
He looked down, illuminated by these rainbow colors.
His hands were there.
Or something that looked like hands.
Such a bizarre sight appeared to him. His hands looked see-through, a slight fog outlining his fingers. If he concentrated, he could make out the faint suggestion of skin, bone, nails, but every part of it was slightly wrong, as if they were not really there.
He looked at his body. He seemed to have a type of fabric on himself, clearly the same "clothes" from before.
His pants held pockets, yet everything looked see-through and foggy.
The ground under his feet was the same. Not entirely visible, nor entirely invisible. It had just enough texture to convince his mind it was not nonexistent.
Before he could finish admiring his constitution a sudden scream called out.
"HELP ME!"
The voice echoed in every direction all at once.
Another scream followed.
"I am going to drown. I am going to drown, I am going to..."
The words broke into raw sound, swallowed by a chorus that rose up around them.
"Mom!"
"Please, please, I do not want to die!"
"My leg, my leg, it still hurts, it hurts!"
"Where are we? Somebody, anyone, answer me! I can't see anything!"
A continuous bombardment of voices begged for help and tried to discern where they were. The tranquility of the emptiness filled instantly and was left in chaos.
'If all these voices are from people who just died, then that means it's not just me, but probably all 300 of the high school student body, that boarded the cruise, and even the teachers, but if they were here why haven't they come out to at least try and stabilize the fear of the students?'
Iskael thought to himself, observing his surroundings.
'If everyone is here then that means...' His thoughts floated to the warmth of what he was about to say.
"That means Sere is here too," he spoke out loud under his breath.
His throat tightened, but as he fought against that feeling he opened his mouth again to shout her name.
"Sere!"
Before her name could fully leave his lips, another voice crashed over the chaos.
"Silence."
It pressed down on every soul present, squeezing the screams back into their chests. Sudden silence swallowed the space in a way the emptiness before had failed to.
Even those who had been in the middle of crying found their mouths clamped shut, forced against their will.
Iskael knew that voice. Everyone else did too.
The Student Council President.
The title surfaced in his mind before the name did.
Third year, general president over all four grades. Someone ridiculous who somehow achieved his title since the first day he entered the academy at 13.
Designated worldwide as the child with the most potential. The student the teachers trusted everything with. And someone the students listened to even when they did not want to.
Though his influence remained the same, as this serious pressure emitting from him in the void made it hard to think or speak back against him, let alone ignore him.
Iskael noticed something...
A unique phenomenon that had occurred during this pressure.
It was the movement of those flickers of color in the air that seemed to have been pulled tight and concentrated into a single net that settled over everyone.
Iskael felt deeply curious. He continued to observe the way his own thoughts tried to flatten under the weight and filed it away.
'So this is not the effect of a basic shout?'
'Interesting...'
"Everyone," the president spoke again.
The sound came from one direction now, clearer and more focused.
"Listen carefully."
Boot steps followed. Firm, measured, walking across that almost-floor with the same composed rhythm he used at assemblies.
"For now," he continued, "do not move too much. You are confused. I understand that. I am as well."
A pause.
"But screaming will not help us. So I ask that you hold yourselves together. You are the students of Sanctum Imperialis. A prestigious academy with no equal. So it is necessary you act like it."
The naming of the school settled over them like a familiar uniform.
Sanctum Imperialis.
Right.
This was not some random group of teenagers.
These were the best, chosen from all over the world, each student dragged through absurd exams and pressure until their minds adapted to something close to military efficiency, for the most optimal creation of the high working class.
A school that guaranteed the passing class entry into noblehood, creating leaders in careers in politics, science, business, and other high-profile fields.
So even if their bodies had been ripped apart a few minutes ago. And even if they quite literally died. Even if some of these children were still stuck remembering the feeling of their bones snapping.
They were already conditioned. And they understood fundamentally what the tone desired from them and the clear logic of it.
The noise eased, tremendously.
Still, some noise stayed. Small chokes and coughing and grunts, typical responses from those struggling against the immense pressure the president had exhibited.
Now that the screaming had quieted, it was easier to pay attention to them.
The scattered threads of color that had drifted lazily at the edge of his vision earlier were stronger now. They clustered around certain points, pooled in the air like soft, luminous fog.
He watched them move.
They curved around the shapes of people.
Some students were barely visible. Just vague outlines of shoulders and heads, but they seemed to react to the world as if they were blind.
Iskael lifted his hand toward this visible phenomenon in an attempt to tilt it.
Some of the nearest lights shifted along with the motion, as if an invisible current was attached to his fingertips.
"...Interesting."
He stared down at his own body.
He was just as see-through as everyone else, but the colors that hung around him were denser than most. Thin ribbons of light drifted lazily around his arms and chest, sinking slightly into his outline before rising again.
He flexed his fingers once.
The colors trembled.
Before he could experiment further, the president's voice cut through again.
"I am going to give instructions," he said.
"First, class leaders. If you can hear me, answer in order. We will gather our classmates by voice. Year 1, Class 9A, report, name and class number."
"Reina Hayashi, class leader of Class 9A."
A girl answered enthusiastically from somewhere to Iskael's left. Her voice sounded tiny in the wide space, though her accent seemed clear as the echo pronounced it properly.
Iskael couldn't have cared less about this roll call, as something else was far more important on his mind.
Taking a step, the almost-floor accepted the weight easily.
If the president wanted him to stand still, then that could be a plan. For everyone else.
He had another priority.
Those colors were clearly something he could use as a guide.
They were brightest in the direction he had seen that Class C boy fall earlier, the one who had flipped over the railing near them just before the world turned vertical.
'I'm unsure but...'
'If everyone woke up in the orientation and probable position of their immediate death, then people who had died close together should be close here as well.'
'And given that I was still conscious while I watched her pass out and I slipped further away, our starting parts may have been farther apart. Explaining the situation of her not being right around me, after the moment I woke up.'
'So finding the boy from Class C within a few steps would prove it right. If not, I have to think of another way to find Sere.'
'Still, it's logical enough for an immediate hypothesis,' he thought.
He walked toward the thicker haze of light, keeping his movements quiet.
It took only a few steps, and the shapes of the rainbow threads sharpened as he moved.
A hunched figure appeared ahead, shoulders shaking slightly, hands pressed to his head.
Iskael recognized his face.
Class 10C.
He had seen him on the ship, laughing with his friends near the bar, not far from where Iskael had been holding Serene.
He watched him now.
The boy's whole body was made of soft glass, edges blurred, but his features were still there, just transparent. A tight ring of color floated around his chest, threads of light coiling like smoke.
He died right in front of us, yet he is this close.
The conclusion settled more firmly. We are arranged by the moment of death, and not where our bodies had fallen or slipped to.
Where we were when our lives came to an end.
His throat worked.
'If that was true...'
'Sere should be nearby.'
He turned his head, scanning the darkness. Half-formed silhouettes stood and sat in scattered clusters, some reaching out blindly to others and left with only empty nothingness.
None of them reacted to Iskael unless he directly touched one of them.
Iskael kept moving, following instinct more than thought.
Two more steps...
Another...
And then another...
At last he saw her.
At first, it was just a familiar outline. Someone standing, one hand pressed to her chest, the other stretched out while the unique lights hugged to her like a child to his mother.
Her body was just as translucent as his, washed in pale gray, but where others looked like rough sketches, her form was drawn with care.
Even here in this place...
like this...
She looked breathtaking to him...
Her hair fell to her shoulders in a soft curtain, its color nearly white, the tips shimmering faintly more than the rest.
Her eyes, though colorless, still held that familiar shape he knew. They were focused.
Colored light clung to her like restless butterflies.
Thin strands of red and gold floated around her head, blue and green traces coiling closer to her chest.
Her fingers passed through them gently, parting the threads. Her gaze followed the colors, then fixed on him.
"Iska...?" she whispered, voice small.
He did not remember making the last step.
One moment he was looking at her from a distance, the next he was right in front of her.
Her outstretched hand hit his chest.
She froze.
Then her fingers tightened in his shirt, if you could call this soul cloth a shirt. The texture felt wrong, neither fabric nor skin, yet the grasp made his whole being jolt.
"...Sere."
The name left him softly.
Her head snapped up.
Her lips trembled, eyes widening, and for a second her composure shattered completely.
"Iska," she spoke in softness.
This time it was not a question.
She moved without thinking, as her body collided with his.
Her arms wrapped around him with a strength that did not match how thin she looked. She pressed her face into his chest, or where his chest should have been, clinging like the ocean might rush back in at any second and steal him away.
And with this hug the same warmth from the ship returned.
A familiarity that sank into both of them like shimmering light through a water filled glass cup.
Though this time the warmth felt heavier than before.