[right][img]https://i.imgur.com/XfzeLgs.png[/img][/right][hr][hr]
[right][b][color=black]Smooth Caravan, Carry Me Away…
Let It Be, Just Maybe, The Final Time I Stray From the Path…
Silently, Let Me Fade...
Carry Me Into Entropy…
Into The Void...
Into Emptiness…[/color][/b][/right]

[color=black][b]"The Girl Who Lost Herself in the Emptiness..."[/b][/color] [i]Is that what they would call her?[/i] She thought so... Maybe. She was never quite sure. [i]That was part of Zen, right?[/i] It was a fitting time for it all to go down—straying from the Way, a shell, a husk, an entity endlessly enraptured by her own emptiness but never quite achieving that blank state of immortality or whatever the hell it was. It was a fitting place for it, too. She was huddled up against herself, knees-to-chest, blanketed in the darkness but old yellow streetlights illuminated her from below. The skyscraper was in the center of downtown, just adjacent to the city hall building actually, but that didn't prevent its vacancy. She was invisible from below, a silhouette against the dark sky. It didn't matter. No one wandered the streets in the quiet night.

She sat in front of one of those tan and green tournament travel chess sets, having taken the time to set up the board completely before going back through her earlier game. It was just him and her in an empty corner of the deserted school library. "Outcast Club", they called themselves, but the university only saw [i]Philosophy Club[/i] mentioned between the misfits. She stared at the board's final position. [i]Open Sicillian, Accelerated Dragon, Exchange Variation.[/i] She sat in front of the black pieces. It was a game that weaved in and out of aggression and defense for both sides, but eventually, having castled opposite sides with pawns completely locked, they had to shatter the tension. It was move twenty-three. He played Knight F6 and she captured without calculating. She dropped a rook and the final bell rang, signifying the building's close right before she resigned. 

It seemed petty, didn't it? Embracing the void over something so small. [i]Was that what they would think of her? Was that what she'd be remembered for?[/i] She pushed the thoughts aside. Those truly following the Path won't let their heads be clouded by past actions, but damn, it was such a simple mistake. In the darkness, up above, all alone, she [i]did[/i] calculate the best line with strained eyes. Seven moves ahead. It really was an impressive mental effort, at least for an amateur like her, but when she went to move her rook, the city's winds resigned for her. Her king toppled, slid from the board, and rolled along the rooftop to teeter at its edge. She just watched the little plastic piece rock, didn't scramble to reach it. She'd already lost interest in the board. It was a fitting way to finish up. 

She reached for the ornate and long pipe just next to the board. It looked like it was liberated right out of some old ethnic antique store, and considering her locale, it probably was. It even came pre-locked and pre-loaded, though that was her doing. She knocked the top off, gazed into the glaze of the choice nectar of the Ancient Mariner, and flicked a match across the roof’s tarmac. [i]Perhaps,[/i] she thought[i], she’d see visions in the ice beyond too, come back with stories to tell and all that.[/i] There was no ice there, though. Only wind. 

It was a perfectly fitting place, a perfectly fitting night, a perfectly fitting way. 

[center][color=black][b][i][indent]The Way of Walking Alone
[indent][indent]►2, Do not scheme for physical pleasure.

►3, Do not intend to rely on anything.
[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent]| | | | |[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]
►17, While on the Way, do not begrudge death.[/indent][/indent][/indent]
[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent]—Shinmen Musashi, one week before he perished.[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/i][/b][/color][/center]

She held a third breath of searing smoke in her lungs and forced herself to stand despite the feeling that her body and her senses were beginning to betray her. It only got worse when she was on her feet. Exhale, like a dragon’s breath. Then, she took another breath of pestilence. Her vision began to leave her, but she saw the edge. She dropped the pipe. Things went black. She heard the doppler wail of sirens, and she wasn’t sure if she was falling forwards, backwards, or into the [color=black][b]emptiness...[/b][/color][hr][hr]

[right][b][color=black]It was the doppler that brought her back. 
Not an ambulance, but a familiar sound. 
The blackness retracted. Damn.
One more bout. 
It doesn’t have to last.
Get your knives out,
And get up off the ground.[/color][/b][/right]

Turns out death wasn’t an endless black void. It was white, and cold. The wind sliced through her and made her shiver. She didn’t want to open her eyes, but once the gusts grabbed hold of her black cap, she shot after it. From her prone, aching position, the tips of her fingers barely grasped it in time as she nearly sent herself over the building’s edge. Her opposite hand felt the lip of the brick building cracking and she pulled back. 

This wasn’t quite in the forecast. Perhaps it was the lack of light that assaulted her eyes, but her city didn’t look quite right. The derelict, it appeared, had transformed into a well-kept cityscape. She was still at the heart of the urban jungle, but there was no sign of its struggling beat. It was…

[b][color=black]Empty…[/color][/b]

The doppler caught her again. It carried shouts from far below, but their message was distorted by the monoliths off which it echoed and resonated. She looked around, the chess set was gone, but pressed into her palm was the wicked device that gave her lost time. She figured that this must have been what death was like. The city was nice. The Emptiness was satisfying. 

The girl did her best to find her way down. It was strange, that place. She knew she shouldn’t have been so [i]serene[/i], but no matter what happened, she knew she wouldn’t turn back. The high rise—[i]just like the last one,[/i] she supposed—was empty. It was a different kind of empty. No exposed wires on the ceiling, no worries of asbestos, no musty smell of water droplets forming puddles that hadn’t evaporated in years. Each floor was pristine, with its own array of shops or restaurants. With each stairwell she took, the whole place just felt more foreign. She started to hesitate about her plans.

She diverted herself on the second floor, stepping out onto a lower terrace to see if she could catch sight of the street-level wanderer. In a world of mystery, it was best to take things at a nice, cautious, slow pace. She stepped to the roof’s edge and tried to post herself up in a seated position. What she hadn’t accounted for was the overnight blizzard, or teleportation, or death, or whatever. Both of her arms shot back, and she barely caught herself from slipping off the building entirely. She dragged herself back into a cold seat, only hoping that the nearby wanderer, who had since been joined by another. The new one looked equally as confused, which eased the girl’s panic. 

In her awkward position, she figured that silence was an admirable option. She certainly wasn’t hiding—not after that near-fall—but the two down below approached one another. They were going to talk, or fight, or something. Whatever it was, the girl could go from there. Any glances cast her way were met with her best attempt to keep cool in the confusion. She tapped the ridge of her open hand to her forehead in some sort of half-assed salute. When she did finally offer her own utterance, she spoke no louder than a normal conversation, almost muttering.

[color=black][b] “A bit [i]desolate[/i] today… Isn’t it?”

"Empty..."[/b][/color]