NEW: Nathaniel and the void.

 

The room emptied - people, furniture, walls - everything sucked away in an instant. He was left alone on an empty dark plain, rolling endlessly towards the distance, an empty dead moon above him the only point of reference.

Nathaniel knew where he was, he didn't need to guess, make assumptions, he had been here before - more times than he wished to remember. It was the void, the darkness, the realm of the dead and of the dying.

He breathed in deeply, expanding his lungs, but it was a mere physical reaction. There was nothing here, nothing to breath in, nothing to expel. The void paid service to no one and to no thing, nature included.

He raised his head and stared unblinkingly at the moon above him. No stars in the inky blackness, just a moon. He had often wondered why, in a void of nothing, the moon always seemed to stand fixed in the sky whenever he visited. Was it only here when he was present, or was it permanent? Was the moon part of the void, or was it in both spheres at the same time, a reminder to the living of what was to come? Questions. Always so many questions, and not a damned answer worth anything.

He looked across at the empty horizon. He closed his eyes and turned on his heel - three sixty degrees. It mattered little which way he chose, there was no compass here, no horizon, no direction. He stopped his spin, opened his eyes, and started to walk - walking, watching and waiting all the while. Although, for all intents and purposes, the void was an empty space, a non-space even, the dead and dying would soon come flocking. He was a living pulse, an anomaly within the void, a prize, a jewel that no shade or near shade could resist, and he - and the void, knew that. The dead and dying yearned for life, any life, and he had it in plenty. They would bargain anything for just a morsel, and Nathaniel was willing to play.