Ringing. Incessant, piercing ringing. A sound that didn't just linger but clawed its way into Amrite’s brain as relentlessly as a ticking clock in a silent room. The ringing didn’t linger alone, it dragged him back into memories that he wanted to push out, a life he couldn’t untangle from his own. The music rose and fell in his mind, a grotesque symphony looping endlessly, each note dragging him back to its depths, back to that demonic smile forged in hell itself. The memories spun like a cracked record, each revolution digging deeper, every jagged scratch sharper, unstoppable.

  “Amrite? Amrite? Amrite!”

  Amrite blinked. Dr. Mendez’s worried gaze swam into focus. Her voice was calm but firm, as though each syllable were a gentle hand pressed against his shoulder. Hue stood nearby, hovering uncertainly in the corridor.

  “Are you all right, Amrite?” Dr. Mendez asked, her tone low and measured. “You look quite pale. Has something unsettled you?”

  Still, the ringing dominated, sharp and impassable. He heard her, yet her words struggled to pierce the thick haze shrouding his mind.

  “Hue came earlier to fetch you for our session,” she continued, “but when you didn’t respond, he asked me to check on you. You seemed distant as if you were somewhere else entirely. Would you like to tell me what’s on your mind? It might help to speak about what you’re feeling.”

  Amrite understood just enough to grasp that she wanted some explanation for his current state. How could he put this into words?

  As he tried to form some words for his muddied thoughts, he looked up again. Dr. Mendez was gone, the space she had occupied now empty. Had she truly been there, or had his mind played tricks on him?

  His thoughts were too crowded to answer. In that instant, the truth, whatever it might be, slipped through his grasp and into the relentless hum of that dreadful ringing. Time quickly slipped by in that timeless place, unnoticed until the familiar words manifested before him once again.

  “No,” Amrite said, weary resignation threading through the single syllable. He had rehearsed this moment countless times in his mind, yet it made no difference.

  Without any means to refuse, he collapsed inward, dropping once more into oblivion. Emptiness. Void. Silence. The darkness enveloped him entirely, a cocoon of nothingness from which he could not escape. Slowly, his mind began to reassemble, thought by fragile thought. There was no light, no warmth, no sound - only the sluggish reformation of a consciousness forced back into existence.

  He drifted, powerless, within the void’s suffocating embrace. No energy, no will, not even the strength to push away the intrusive memories that came as soft whispers or harsh shouts.

  Amrite felt hollow as if his soul had stretched too thin. Time trickled by, until a haunting sense of déjà vu settled upon him. He remembered a childhood memory: floating in a salt bath, his mother’s gentle smile somewhere beyond the soundproof walls. He recalled that sensation of weightlessness as if his body had become insubstantial, free from all burdens of pain. Now, as then, he floated senseless, formless, and strangely a sense of calm perforated through his bodiless body. He knew what was coming next. The lights would appear soon enough.

  And appear they did. Letters assembled, almost indifferently, at the centre of his vision.

  Once again, he felt himself drawn through the darkness, powerless as a spider washed down a drain. He had no more ability to resist than a leaf in a storm. The lights rushed towards him, a host of faint specks the first he noticed was a pale, wavering blue, barely discernible at all. He fixed his gaze upon it, straining to will himself into its glow.

  The journey through the void had given him a lot of time to think. He couldn’t face the kaleidoscope of lights again, nor endure the torrent of emotions they unleashed. He needed an escape, a way to break free earlier.

  If he guessed right it was his focus that determined if the light would shoot towards him or not. Amrite used his whole focus, on that one point of the dot, doing his best to keep it directly in the centre of whatever was giving him sight. Just as he readied himself to dismiss his theory entirely, the pale blue spec suddenly streaked towards him, enveloping him completely.

  He blinked and found himself beneath a soft, heavy blanket in a dimly lit room. The air was warm and still, and as he fought down the urge to vomit, he reminded himself to move slowly and that he was living again. He concentrated on the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, calming his unsteady breathing. Gradually, the swirling confusion in his mind quietened, and he braced himself for whatever life he had stepped into this time.

  Beneath the same cover, only a breath away, he noticed a woman, perhaps in her early thirties, lost in a deep and untroubled sleep. Long, dark hair fanned out across the pillow, framing a peaceful face that showed no signs of waking. He studied her for a moment, relieved that his abrupt arrival had not disturbed her slumber.

  Bracing himself, Amrite slowly raised his arms and took in his new form. This time he wore the body of a man. His hands were broad and calloused, marked with the quiet evidence of labour. He flexed his fingers experimentally, each joint and muscle a testament to a life he had not chosen, yet now found himself inhabiting.

  Amrite noticed that the relentless ringing had finally subsided, leaving only a faint hush in its wake. He had lost all measure of how long he had drifted through that shapeless darkness, yet now a certainty took root within him. In the silent void between worlds, he had forged a plan, and now he would steel himself to carry it out.

  He surveyed the modest surroundings by the glow of faint moonlight that slipped in through the slightly ajar door. The cabin was spare: wooden walls and a simple straw mattress, with a few farming tools neatly arranged beside the threshold as if their owner took quiet pride in keeping order. The air carried the faint scent of timber mingled with a trace of cold ash, hinting at a fire long extinguished."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  With careful movements, he eased himself out of the warm covers. The hay-filled mattress dipped silently, and the wooden floor felt cool beneath his bare feet. He moved towards the door, each step deliberately quiet. Beyond it lay another small chamber, leading straight outside.

  There, under the open sky, his breath caught. The cold night air bit sharply into Amrite’s lungs, making him want to jump back into the warm bed that he had just vacated. Amrite took a moment to steel himself once more for what was to come. This was another moment he had rehearsed in his mind again and again both in the void and in the asylum, and he knew he couldn’t take too long if he didn’t want to stop himself.

  Stepping into the night, he found himself in a crude farmyard. An axe rested plunged into a stump, freshly split logs scattered at its base. In nearby pens, sheep huddled close together, their muffled shuffling stirring the dark. They could have been goats or some other animal as Amrite has never been on a farm, but he didn’t stay long enough to find out.

  He ignored the small details, pressing on until he spotted a length of cord coiled near a pile of kindling. He grasped the cord and ventured into the shadows, each step careful, muffled, and purposeful. He advanced until he found a suitable tree - an old, knotted thing. He climbed with a grim sort of familiarity, wedging his foot into rough bark and pulling himself up into the boughs. His hands began trembling, the cold starting to make them shake. Or maybe it was the fear of hanging once again? Amrite genuinely wasn’t sure as he didn’t allow himself to linger. He played this moment too many times in his head while in the void to allow himself any respite from his motions.

  With shaking hands, he formed another noose. The second that he had fashioned for this purpose. He put it around his neck and stared down at the hard ground once more.

  “I won't let myself get caught here. I won’t pretend to be someone I’m not” Amrite whispered to himself, hot tears beginning to form in his eyes.

  He dropped, weight and gravity doing their grim work in an instant.

  No sooner had he felt the desperate pull around his neck than the world was snatched away. The icy air, the sheep, and the coarse bark under his fingertips, all just vanished.

  He blinked, and in that blink, he was back, the stinging pain of his joints undeniably welcoming him back home. . Amrite grimaced at the thought. How could this wretched, relentless ache, etched into his bones for as long as memory served, feel anything but loathsome? The notion stirred a distant memory of his grandmother, her voice heavy with wisdom and weariness, as she sat hunched over in her chair. “Pain,” she’d said, her words carrying the weight of shared affliction, “is how we know we’re alive. It’s cruel, yes, but there’s something far worse, the silence that comes when it’s gone.”

  The words of his grandmother were etched deep, and even now the meaning landed like a whisper from the past cutting through the fog. Pain was a tether, and now it was the familiarity that gripped him to his normal life. The thought unsettled him as the artificial light blazed in his eyes, drawing him wholly back into the embrace of reality.

  Amrite rubbed his neck, remembering, and tried to steady his heart. He had escaped that world again, but it had cost him another suicide. Another inch of his sanity.

  “I’ll do it every time if I have to, I don’t care.” Amrite murmured into the silence, his voice reaching no ears but his own.

  “I won’t be put through that torture when they find out I’m not of that world.”

  …

  “Do not start voyage!” Amrite roared.

  …

  …

  “STOP!” Amrite commanded.

  …

  “Cease. False. Disable voyage. Please don't start another one!!!” Amrite ordered.

  …

  Again and again, the pattern repeated itself. It was not always so straightforward; sometimes he found himself improvising, sometimes barely scraping through. Yet Amrite always discovered a way. In the void, he would regain some semblance of control, resisting the desperate urge to struggle. He would drift, letting his mind align itself with the grim task that lay ahead, mustering the determination to face what came next.

  When the lights appeared, he would fix his gaze on the first one, never allowing himself to wander deeper into their dazzling labyrinth. Venturing further only meant more confusion, more chaos, and more fragments of life that would cling to him undesirably. By keeping his focus tight, he could land in a new world quickly, maintaining just enough control of himself to stay in control.

  Once he arrived, he took care to behave as unsuspiciously as possible. He would play his part, whatever it happened to be: a labourer, a scholar, a farmer. He still couldn’t communicate but he found ways to get through it. Feigning sickness, or fainting if he was ever backed into a corner.

  Then, in the dead of night, while all others slept soundly, he would make his exit, slipping away to end his life. He allowed himself no lingering attachments, no doubts. It was his only purpose, time after time. Some grew wary of his strange manner, but their suspicions remained too vague, too unfocused, to entrap him. He worked against the clock, knowing that the longer he tarried, the closer he drifted to capture. Always, on that very same night, he would steal off into the darkness and finish his grim business at hand.

  This time would be no different.

  As Amrite woke after another long journey in the void, he wondered, was this truly another world? A familiar ache radiated through his joints, seizing him like an old adversary. He recognised its weight immediately, the stinging of sore joints radiating through his body.

  As Amrite gathered himself yet again, he raised his newly acquired hands and studied them. A habit he had picked up ever since the second voyage where he had inhabited the farmer. His hands were broad, knotted with raised blue veins with skin marked by time - thin, wrinkled, and flecked with liver spots. His joints felt stiff, and as he flexed his fingers, he realised he inhabited an elderly man’s body this time.

  With a quiet sigh, he turned his head, taking in the room. It was small but comfortable, lit by the soft glow of morning light seeping through cracks in the door. Wooden beams crossed the ceiling, and a simple woven rug covered the floor. Amrite, mind racing with the plan he needed to enact, considered how he might leave this world just as quickly as he had entered it. But before he could settle on a method, the sound of light footsteps reached his ears.

  “Bapa!” A child’s voice sliced through his thoughts. Spinning around, he saw a little girl dart into the room. She wore a simple homespun dress, faded linen dyed a pale earthy green. Its edges were frayed, suggesting it had been handed down or worn for many seasons. Her hair, a warm chestnut brown, fell in soft waves around her shoulders, tied loosely at the back with a thin strip of cloth. She was around five years old, with wide, curious eyes that shone like polished hazelnuts and cheeks flushed from running, either in play or from excitement at seeing him awake.

  Without pause, she leapt into his arms, her small, calloused feet leaving the floor as she pressed herself against him with the complete trust and love only a child could offer. Her laughter tinkled like a tiny bell, and her scent - a mixture of fresh hay, warm bread, and the faint sweetness of a child’s innocent world enveloped him.

  “Bapa! Bapa!” the girl repeated, her voice bright and earnest. She gazed up at him with unguarded affection, as if his presence were the sole reason her morning had begun so joyously.

  Amrite froze, the word echoing in his mind. “Bapa?” he echoed softly, his voice rough with confusion. He stared down at the girl, his borrowed arms still cradling her slight weight. Here, in this medieval hush, he was someone’s grandfather? For now, that single truth hung over him like a distant bell, leaving him uncertain, unsettled, and utterly unprepared.