Chapter Text
Slowly, so slowly, a shaky hand reaches up and makes contact. Gently, it traces, line after line. The world around him shudders. Everything squeezes.
"Hello to you too."
The voice surrounds him completely, his sense completely consumed by it. Everything but the voice seems so distant, even the white noise of his aching body seems dulled by it.
"Hmm~ are you being nice to me today, my dear?"
His hand shakes. His mind feels so empty. He draws a Y against the quivering wall. And the pleased sound he's given in return brings him endless comfort.
"Oh wonderful!" It coos, the pressure around him letting up like the end of a warm embrace. "I'm so glad to hear from you."
He'd speak if he could. He tried before but no sound ever came. But he doesn't need to, does he? He doesn't need words or light or sound, so protected and loved and free in this void the voice so dearly allows him to drift in. There are no walls. There is no ground. Just him and the voice that holds him.
"Do you need something?"
The questions sounds so smooth and swirls in his brain in such an intoxicating way.
"I still can't let you leave, my love."
Leave? And go where? Abandon this all and become what? He doesn't even know what he is, does he have his own body? Is he nothing but a concept in the palm of this god that attempts to ease the torment of his essence? How long has he been in this world...does any other world even exist? Is it just him and the voice forever in the ether? Is he an unborn entity being shaped by a mother?
He feels ill.
He draws an X.
The voice hitches, the universe holds him tighter.
"Aren't you a sweetheart..." The voice shakes, an edge of pain. His non-existent body is beautifully constricted. "You understand. Aren't you happy?"
Yes. The only word that comes to him. He has purpose, he is given form and meaning and life through the voice. Through the guidance and assurance and will of the voice. He is given pain and death and sorrow. He is given all and nothing. He exists because the voice deems it so.
"I'm happy."
The whisper is so loud. He'd let it crawl inside him if only he had a mouth.
"I love you so much. You're mine."
He is deemed worthy of belonging. Worthy of care. His hand falls, it no longer exists. He loves and is loved and that's all that truly matters. He doesn't need light or air. He doesn't need time or sound or life.
The voice is his to embrace. To feel throughout his being. The voice manipulates his very existence to keep him safe. Mutters comfort him as much as smothering compression. His only desire is to stay here and continue to be whatever it is he has been created to be.
This god keeps him close and he thanks it every day for allowing him the privilege of service. He is nothing. Not a man nor a beast, a consciousness admired and wanted by a being he can not understand. He's praised and he prays that the silent devotion inside him can be heard. In life and death and life again, the desire of that which is more powerful than he is all that matters. There is nothing beyond this. There was nothing before this.
The only sound that exists is the voice.
And it is the most beautiful thing he has ever been allowed to hear.