There's a kind of silence you don't hear in the real world.
It's not peaceful. It's not quiet. It's empty.
That's where I was.
Not falling. Not floating. Just… there.
Surrounded by white. No walls. No ground. No sky. Just a blank void that stretched in every direction, like I was trapped inside an idea that hadn't been drawn yet.
I looked down. My feet weren't touching anything. But I wasn't falling either.
I wasn't sure if I was breathing. Or if I even had a body.
"Expelled."
Her word echoed again. The silver-haired girl. Her eyes. That robe. Like she had stepped out of someone's mythology.
"What does that even mean?" I muttered, voice thin in the nothingness.
No answer. Not from her. Not from anyone.
My hands trembled. At least… I thought they did. It's hard to be sure when even shadows don't exist.
I took a deep breath, pretending it mattered, and shouted, "HEY! HELLO?!"
My voice rang out — and bounced back.
Echoes. In a place with no walls.
Then something stirred.
A ripple, like a drop of ink in milk, pulsed through the white. It spread quickly, twisting and folding space. And from the center of that ripple…
A door appeared.
Wooden. Old. Slightly cracked. The kind of door you'd see in a shrine, not in a modern high school hallucination.
I hesitated. Naturally. Who wouldn't?
But standing in endless white does weird things to your instincts. After a few seconds, curiosity pushed fear aside.
I reached for the handle.
It was warm.
And just before I turned it, I heard her voice again — faint, like it was caught between two radio stations.
"You weren't supposed to exist, Kaito."
I froze.
She knew my name.
The door opened.
Blinding light poured through — and then—
THUD.
I landed hard. On something solid, uneven, and very, very real.
My back hit cold stone. My elbow scraped against something gritty. I groaned.
The light faded.
Above me: a dark sky filled with stars. Way more stars than I'd ever seen in the city. Constellations that didn't match anything I knew. And two moons.
Yeah. Two.
I sat up.
Stone steps curved up a hill behind me. Massive trees loomed in the distance, their leaves glowing faintly. In the far background, floating landmasses drifted through the sky like lazy clouds.
Wherever I was… it definitely wasn't Earth.
My stomach dropped.
And that's when I heard a voice — not hers this time. A different one.
Young. Breathless. Alarmed.
"Are you… are you the one the gate dropped?!"
I turned, still dizzy.
A girl with short red hair and a long spear strapped to her back stood a few feet away, staring at me like I'd fallen out of the sky.
Which, I guess… I kind of had.
She took a cautious step forward.
"…Are you human?"
I opened my mouth.
Paused.
Then said the dumbest thing possible:
"…Define human?"