Chapter 1: Pigtails in the Gray Nothing
The void does not breathe, but it hums.
It is a sound you feel behind your teeth, a frequency that vibrates through the marrow and settles somewhere deep in the chest like a second heartbeat. The gray stretches in every direction—not empty, never empty, but seething with a static that shifts and crawls like living tissue. There is no horizon here. No depth. Just the slow, suffocating certainty that you are both the architect and the prisoner of this endless, shifting expanse.
Bio sits with their legs crossed at the ankles, back straight, hands folded neatly in their lap. Their thick ponytail pools on the nonexistent ground beside them, a dark river of hair that catches the pale light from nowhere and everywhere at once. Their pale blue and yellow eyes—heterochromia splitting their gaze into something almost beautiful, almost unsettling—remain fixed on a point somewhere far beyond the gray.
They do not look up.
They have not looked up in what might be hours. Or days. Or minutes. Time here is a suggestion, a rumor whispered by the static, and Bio has learned not to trust rumors.
"You're doing it again."
The voice cuts through the hum like a blade wrapped in silk. Cheeky. Bright. Wrong.
Nomer spins into view, their body a blur of motion against the ashen backdrop. They move like a thought that refuses to settle, arms outstretched, head thrown back, the short but thick pigtails whipping around their face. Their pale green and purple eyes blaze with something between mischief and malice, and when they stop—suddenly, impossibly—they are crouched directly in front of Bio, close enough that their breath would warm Bio's face if either of them actually needed to breathe.
"Existing," Nomer clarifies, tilting their head. The pigtails sway. "You're doing it again."
Bio's jaw tightens. They do not speak. They cannot speak. The silence is not a choice but a condition, a truth stitched into the fabric of whatever they are. Nomer knows this. Nomer has always known this.
Nomer pouts.
It is an exaggerated thing, theatrical and sharp, the kind of expression that belongs on a stage rather than in the suffocating intimacy of the void. They reach out and poke Bio's cheek—once, twice, three times—each touch light but insistent, like a child demanding attention.
"Come on, B. Blink if you're alive in there. Twitch if you're not. Give me something." Nomer's voice drops to a whisper, conspiratorial and cruel. "Give me anything."
Bio's eyes do not move. Their breathing—steady, measured, unnecessary—does not change. But something flickers behind their gaze, a muscle twitching in their jaw, and Nomer sees it.
Nomer always sees it.
"There we go," Nomer breathes, and their grin splits wide, too wide, the kind of smile that has too many teeth and not enough warmth. They rock back on their heels, then spring to their feet, spinning in a slow circle with their arms extended like a dancer welcoming an audience.
"I've been busy," Nomer announces, and their voice echoes strangely in the void, bouncing off nothing, returning distorted. "While you've been sitting here, cataloging your germs and counting your breaths and doing absolutely fucking nothing—I've been creating."
They stop spinning. Their eyes land on Bio with the weight of a stone dropping into still water.
"I dreamed a world, B. A whole world. Halfway, anyway. Almost. There's a sky that changes color depending on what you're feeling, and the oceans are made of something that tastes like honey and burns like whiskey. There are creatures there—" Nomer's hands move as they speak, sculpting invisible shapes in the gray air. "—with too many legs and not enough eyes, and they sing. They sing, Bio. Not with words. With vibrations. With the kind of sound that makes your bones feel like they're melting."
Bio does not react.
Nomer's expression flickers—something raw and desperate beneath the bravado—before the mask slides back into place.
"I'm going to finish it," Nomer continues, pacing now, restless energy spilling from every pore. "I'm going to make it real. I'm going to step into it and leave this—" they gesture vaguely at the endless gray, "—this nothing. This waste."
They stop pacing. They turn.
"And you're going to come with me."
The words hang in the air like a challenge. Like a threat. Like a promise.
Bio finally—finally—lifts their head. Their eyes meet Nomer's, blue and yellow crashing into green and purple, and for a moment the static seems to hold its breath.
Bio does not speak. But their hand moves, slowly, deliberately, and settles on the ground beside them. A gesture. An invitation.
Or a dismissal.
Nomer's eyes narrow.
"You're not going to say anything?" They step closer, then closer still, until they are looming over Bio, their shadow—impossible, since there is no light, but there nonetheless—falling across Bio's face. "You're not going to tell me it's stupid? That I'm wasting my time? That this—" they kick at the gray, and the gray ripples like water, "—is all there is?"
Bio blinks. Once. Slowly.
Nomer's hands shoot out and grab Bio's shoulders, fingers digging in with a grip that is too tight, too desperate. They shake—not Bio, but themselves, a tremor running through their entire body like a plucked string.
"I hate you," Nomer whispers. "I hate that you just sit there. I hate that you never say anything. I hate that you make me feel like I'm screaming into a void that actually gives a shit."
Their voice cracks.
"I hate that you make me feel alone."
The silence that follows is not empty. It is full—full of everything unsaid, everything that cannot be said, everything that has been said a thousand times before in a thousand different ways. The void presses in, wet wool and suffocating weight, and for a moment, Nomer looks small.
Then they laugh.
It is a sharp, bright, terrible sound.
"You know what?" Nomer releases Bio's shoulders and steps back, wiping at their eyes with the back of their hand. "Fine. Be that way. Stay here. Rot here. Marinate in your own anxiety until you dissolve into the static."
They turn, and the movement is fluid, final.
But they stop.
"But you should know," Nomer says, not looking back, "that two creators trapped in nothing are already a world unto themselves. And you—" Their voice drops, soft and vicious. "—you are my world, Bio. Whether you like it or not."
They look over their shoulder, and their eyes are wild, feverish, burning.
"So stop pretending you're not."
Bio's throat moves. A swallow. A struggle. Their hands, folded so neatly in their lap, curl into fists.
Nomer sees. Nomer always sees.
And Nomer smiles—not the wide, toothy grin from before, but something softer, something infinitely more dangerous. Something that looks almost like love.
"Come on," they say, and their voice is gentle now, coaxing, the way you might speak to a wounded animal. "Let's build something. You and me. Before the gray eats us alive."
They extend a hand.
Bio stares at it. At the offered palm, the waiting fingers, the promise of something other than this endless, suffocating nothing.
The static hums.
The void presses.
And Bio does not move.