THE MOMENT
In seconds, Turbo felt like he'd been there for centuries. He kept himself calm and level-headed as he tried to quantify the experience of nothing. He was surrounded by complete darkness, and he'd taken for granted how important light was to the rest of his senses. The void seemed to dull all sensations and despite trying to open and close his eyes several times, he couldn't tell if they were opened or closed.
He didn't feel any weight or pull in any direction, and he had no real sense of 'up'. He floated in an unknown position, unable to determine the boundaries of his body. He only existed as an awareness, the black was so consuming that the last time he saw light felt like a lifetime ago.
Turbo started counting. He wondered if he could track the passage of time at all. The longer he floated there, the more it felt like he was the space. His consciousness expanded to fill the void. He couldn't feel his body because he was everything there was.
1000 seconds went by as he counted. He wiggled fingers and toes trying to establish himself, but he still couldn't feel them. Two thousand, and three thousand came and went as he continued to add numbers.
At five thousand seconds he felt the first twinges of panic. Turbo was there intentionally. He was confident that things were fine, but he let the anxiety wash over him. He wasn't normally the type to lose his cool, and it was interesting to watch it happen. Negativity seemed to bloom pretty easily as he worked through his emotions. He wanted to scream in anger and give up then and there. But, that wasn't like him at all.
Seven thousand seconds went by and he continued to count as he basked in the emptiness. Once he realized he was more prone to negative thoughts, he worked on keeping his mind relatively empty. He was learning a lot just by being there.
Ten thousand seconds had gone by. Turbo fell into a meditative state as counted. He might have fallen asleep, but he wasn't sure about that. He was confident he'd kept counting, but he reached twenty thousand shortly after 10 thousand. Had he actually counted all the numbers in between, or did he lose track?
Suddenly, he counted Thirty-five thousand, and then, there was light. It was sudden, and not at all what he expected. His eyes didn't need to adjust to the light at all, he could just 'see' instantly. He expected to have to suffer through the sunlight as if he'd walked out of a movie theater and he was surprised when his eyes worked fine.
He was back where he started. He stood in the center of an endless wheat field under a purple sky, with a tall, pale horned woman with long black hair.
"Thank you...," it was important to be polite to Ballisea first. "...but, did you have to leave me in there for 10 hours?"
"You wished to learn what it was to exist within the void...," Ballisea laughed.
"Wait...," Turbo checked the 'control' timer and compared it to his own that he wore into the void. Both were still in perfect sync. "That was only two seconds??" he asked.
"That would be the time it took you to check it again," Ballisea smiled. "For your safety, you were only in the void for about a millisecond."