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Zero wakes up. It is a normal day in her life. A stretch, a small leap out of bed, and a quick check at the mirror start her day off as usual. She meets with her roommates, an illustrious band of three. She wears no clothes, but her blank body serves as a form of self-censorship that is clean to the eye.
The shark lays her head upon that of the eel, their usual banter filling the room in the tones of their shared harmony. The ray sits beside them, smiling simply as he listens in to their lives. Zero wants to ask them a question, but a quick beckon to join them for entertainment quickly waives all thought from her mind.
The shark says something more. It is muffled, so Zero cannot hear it.
The eel begins to talk. Zero cannot hear her either. She clears out her ears, but that only induces a high ringing. She frowns, cleaning her ear out even more.
Her hand disappears into her ear. Frightened, she immediately pulls it out. When she does, her hand is no longer full. It is pure bone, blood dripping down her skinned digits. She nearly faints, the pain searing throughout her entire body.
She tries to beg her roommates for help, but they do not seem to listen. They laugh at a joke she could not hear, simply lost in their own world.
Zero stands up, and goes to join her roommates in the fun. As she steps on the carpet, however, she can feel a strange clicking. The sound of a click, felt yet not heard.
The floor gives out beneath her, all color draining from her surroundings as she plummets into the abyss. colors swirl above her, all combining into a truly ugly grey. The same grey that lays upon her head.
She wakes up, but instantly feels a sharp pain in her hands. They are full of skin and muscle, but they are burnt to a horrible degree. Her fingers are black as she seethes in pain, until it all just stops.
She looks up to see a pale girl with black tentacles draped over her eyes. The girl's mouth was wracked with worry, and her voice was cracked as she spoke.
"Sis? W-What is it?"
Zero tries to speak, but a clamp forms around her throat. She screams, struggling to pull the metal piece off as her surroundings burst into flame. A large silhouette is seen in the flames, a large man with a crown at the peak of his head. He beckons for them, a sinister sharp smile gleaming through the black smoke.
The girl rushes into the flames as Zero continues to struggle, completely unable to move. She tries to stop the girl, but they are all too quickly engulfed by the flames.
The flames go out. Smoke lingers in the stagnant air, but nothing can be seen.
There is no sound.
Then, a flash of blinding light.
Zero awakes yet again, the pain now in her abdomen. She groans as she rolls on the ground, only catching a glimpse of the purple bruise on her belly. A figure stands above her, a pale woman with black tentacles draped over her eyes.
The woman mouths something that cannot be heard. Blood rushes out of Zero's ears. No ink, no other fluid, but human blood.
The cold metal of a barrel is pressed to her head, and she can only sob in silence as she accepts her fate.
*BLAM!*
Green ink flies everywhere, the sickly tone of mint ice cream. The man's head has been blown off, the guilty weapon in Zero's own hands. She tries to drop the weapon, but it is stuck to her hand. Her skin bonds with the metal, and she panics as she tries to rip it off. Her eyesight turns the same mint green that covers the floor, a sudden cold overtaking her entire body.
The road to the Promised Land is paved in ink blood.
She wakes up yet again, but this time not in a place she recognizes. She sighs, but soon realizes that she cannot catch a single breath. The sky is an eternal night, and the ground is a ruinous grey. A large object can be seen off in the distance.
Earth.
She sees the planet, much greener and vibrant than she ever assumed. She spots a small burst of white light emanating from a spot, staring at it in awe as it expands.
Another white light forms, but now Zero can begin to hear again.
The screams of over eight billion souls instantly flood into her ears, knocking her off of her feet and into the cruel clutches of space. She reaches out as she floats away, but can only see more and more lights bombard the Earth. They expand until they can expand no more, and then dissipate in a quick flash of toxic green.
Zero is blasted through a hole in space, her vision warping as all of reality seems to do the same. She sees more colors, but instead of converging, they diverge. A beautiful spectrum of color is formed around her, a tunnel of light for her to travel through.
She wakes up again, this time actually on her planet. She is in a grassy field, and cries tears of joy as she rolls around in the grass. The air is crisp, her voice is unimpeded, and her mind is finally free. Perhaps this was all just a nightmare that she had, upon falling asleep in this very spot-
A man sits beside her, a brown book in his hands. He does not seem to notice her, but that is not what bothers her. He is human, fully and completely, with a skin tone much like the book he holds, only a bit lighter.
"Excuse-" Zero coughs, not used to speaking, "Excuse me, sir?"
The man does not look up from his book. A strange energy seems to come from him as he reads, a strangely familiar energy. Before she can ask what his deal is, another man comes into sight.
He wears a full suit, most likely used for combat. He doesn't seem to be fond of speaking, and simply stands beside her with a bright blue blade by his side. She looks to where he appears to be staring, but there is nothing there.
"Guys?" Zero asks nervously, "I don't want to be rude but-"
"Two," the man with the book says.
"Huh?"
"Three," he continues, "Five. Seven. Eleven..."
"Mister, I-"
"Zero," the other man says, his voice warbled to sound like that of a robot.
"Yes?"
"The name is Zero," he says, kneeling down and bowing. Not to her, but to some figure that she cannot see.
"Yes, my name is-"
"As long as you have what I need, I will kill as many bandits as it takes. I am no stranger to their kind."
"N-No..." Zero says quickly, "I don't have anybody who I want dead, I just need-"
"Your husband's killer?" he stands up, sheathing his blade on his back, "Consider it done."
"Rhinoceros beetle," the man with the book says, not even looking up as the man with the blade leaves, "Singularity point..."
"I don't understand!" Zero shouts, but is still unable to grab his attention, "What are you-"
"Secret emperor."
A flash of white light comes from the book in his hands, completely drowning Zero in its heat before she can even say anything more. She tries to claw her way out of the rapidly rising heat and pressure, but she cannot.
More colors begin to swirl as she descends further into Hell. Nothing more can be done, nothing can ever fix this. She has died, and this is her punishment. What can only be described as a horrific screeching of souls can be heard as she falls down, down, down...
"Hey! HEY!"
"Huh?"
"Oh my cod! I thought you were dead!"
"What happened?"
"I don't know, you just blacked out all of the sudden!"
"That's..."
"Oh, are you still tired?"
"No, I'm- I'm not."
"Okay, sweetie, take your time."
Zero looked up at the woman above her. It was a tall inkling, tentacles hanging over her shoulders and a pair of cubic glasses fastened on her nose. She had a kind smile, under her punk tone and revealing clothing.
"That was a pretty sick party, huh?" Callie asked, helping lift Zero out of bed, "Never seen Octarians get that turnt!"
"I-" Zero looked at her again. This was surely Callie she was talking to. "Where am I?"
"My place, penthouse since I'm clubbin' with the DJ himself! Don't be too jealous."
"I'm not, no worries," Zero shook her head, but the woman in front of her was still Callie, "We are in the domes?"
"Of course we are, silly," the idol chuckled, "What, you think just because I'm with wasabi sticks that I get to go above ground? You are a riot, I swear!"
"I'm not a riot!" Zero insisted, "I would never-"
"PFFFT!" Callie giggled hysterically, "Holy carp you are funny! It's just an expression, squiddo!"
"Oh..."
"Yeah..." Callie wiped a tear from her eye, "It's just a lil' saying you know? Dumbass."
"Huh?"
"You heard me..." Callie's eyes lifted her hands up to her glasses, slowly pulling them off as her smile became unrealistically wide. Zero nearly puked when she saw Callie's eyes, or more accurately, lack thereof.
All that was left was a pair of empty sockets, blood slowly beginning to ooze out of them. Callie's mouth widened to her ears, seemingly infinite rows of teeth now visible inside.
"Silly girl..." her voice became more mechanized, with an eerily calm tone to it, "The Promised Land doesn't exist. Not for you at least."
Zero tried to speak up, or maybe at least scream, but she was unable to even open her mouth. She began to suffocate as Callie loomed over her, glistening teeth coming down around her head. She closed her eyes, just wishing that she could actually die this time. Anything would be better than this eternal torment.
Then again, maybe she was already dead.
Zero woke up, finally in her own bed. She looked around, touching herself all over just to make absolutely sure that what she felt was actually real. It was, to her knowledge. Not that her knowledge was anything to go off of.
She clutched her blankets in her hands, a small pink octoling plushie floating above her head as she cried into her pillow. A being powerful enough to stop space and time itself, reduced to a shivering mess by a simple dream. Only one thought could be left the swirl around in her mind, a completely indisputable truth.
I should not be alive.