The last thing Jack remembered were the howling whispers at the edge of hearing, the vibrating cracks in his vision. He'd tried opening his eyes, and was instantly confused. He blinked once, twice. Can't see. What the hell...? and then cautiously poked himself in the eye. He flinched, but the physical discomfort he felt was overwhelmed in knowing that the creeping suspicion he had became a horrific reality.

He was blind. What was more than that, Jack had trouble feeling the clothes against his skin or the breaths he took. He could hear himself breathing, but it was as if he was listening to himself from underwater. Everything was muffled and distorted, as if his body was just so much static on the radio, desperately hoping to find a stable signal.

The truth of his situation was simple and cruel.There was nothing, and that was what horrified Jack. There was no sound, no light, no warmth, no sign that anything had ever been in this place, or that this place existed at all.

The Abyss.

He closed in on himself and tried to shut out the dark. It crept, tendrils of the void reaching into his soul, the madness searching slowly, surely, for cracks in his mind. Jack wasn't a fool - if he stayed in the Abyss too long, it would end him and all that he had ever been. No songs would be sung, no funeral held, no memories kept, just oblivion

As the man's essence slipped further and further from him, he murmured a short prayer. Jack slipped a silent plea to the universe.

I'm not done yet, damn it.

Jack took several deep breaths in. It's fine. You're a mage, you can find a way out of this. You just have to stay calm. He brought his breath down into himself, trying to center his being. Other mages had returned from the Abyss in one piece, claiming it took focus and peace. There had to be a way out of the Abyss, he just needed a way to find it.

It was about then that Jack realized he couldn't feel his clothes against his skin. "No." The word was quiet and slightly panicked. "No. Oh shit, no." Jack was familiar with the theory of the affects the Abyss on the human body. The senses are stripped away slowly, along with any belongings. Then goes the body; skin and fat, then the gooey bits, followed lastly by bone.

What's echo's is human sentience and the soul, laid bare and naked, clinging together like a pair of lost children. The soul is apparently more vulnerable to The Abyss than the mind, and ceases to exist mere moments after the body has vanished completely. The mind, unable to reconcile the loss of the soul, begins a self-destructive attempt to cease the pain, ultimately grateful for the numbing oblivion the Abyss promises.

The worst part was that if Jack had remained calm, had kept his composure and steeled his resolve to continue existing, he could have found his own way out, back to Earth, back to the remnants of his life. His panic damned him, and Jack raged as the dark stripped him away, howling to ears that could no longer hear. There was no trace of the man who howled into the dark, no footsteps back from whence he came.

In the Abyss, there is only nothing.

Author's Note

EDIT: If you read this fic long ago, There have been some changes in syntax, grammar and content since December. Thank you.