In The Abyss As A Toon Character

He didn't have time to ponder what those mystifying words meant. Dante's immediate concern was the searing wound in his abdomen and the poisonous blood of Choso.

He could feel the venom spreading through him like wildfire that scorched his veins, sending his body into perpetual agony. Frantically, Dante attempted to move, only to find his body unresponsive, rebelling and disobeying his orders.

Half of his bones felt shattered, with the other half feeling his joints dislocated. His shiny peach skin had bruises marred everywhere, and his ragged clothes clung to him like a second skin, stained with blood, sweat, and dirt, somehow not breaking in the process.

He mentally sighed, "For a flicker, I thought I was strong... Guess I'll train with everyone to learn a few tricks..." He recalled the shining armor Daniel bought to boost his stats. "Aaaaand new clothes." The spasm for exploiting his body to the limit struck again. "Aaaaaaaaaaaand another potion."

Summoning the fading traces of his strength, Dante prompted the System, "Take out a healing potion and an anti-poison or something similar."

Two potions appeared barely out of his reach. Dante's limbs tried to move, but... his fingers only trembled with impotence. "Of course..." he muttered bitterly with a tiny chuckle inside his mind.

Only then did he realize he couldn't use anything from the inventory that required physical contact because his body didn't work.

If he had the strength, he would leave an exhausted and exasperated groan, "System call Daniel, tell him that I am poisoned with the need of someone to feed me a potion, or I might not be able to repay him ever again. Also, I don't know if you can do this, but pinpoint my location for him."

Many players began passing beside him, ignoring the sight of a girl slowly bleeding to death with ice shards incrustated; sometimes, players returned almost dead, and the sight was actually really common, but they were oblivious to the war the girl was about to wage inside her.

"Now to wait..."

...

...

...

The clock began ticking by, but as the time elapsed, time seemed to stretch infinitely, tainting his mind with a dreadful grasp.

As Dante lay in the cold embrace of the ground, he felt the tendrils of darkness creeping closer in the corner of his eyes, his consciousness slowly slipping away like grains of sand through an hourglass, his vision blurring, and his breathing slowing. He wondered about the haunting possibility of "Would I die here, alone, cold, and forgotten..."

With the seconds continuing to stretch, Dante clung to the flickering glimmer of hope. He reassured himself in desperate whispers, "He'll come, won't he?" He awkwardly left a tiny laugh, "It's just that my reality is too distorted and is now playing tricks on my senses. He'll come; I'm sure of it..." 

Yet, the silence continued, echoing through the emptiness around him. The void seemed to swallow his thoughts, leaving only the haunting whispers of doubt in their path.

...

...

...

His mind decided to evade thinking about it, fixating his gaze on the sky, but the beautiful blue started bleeding into somber colors, entwining him in a heartless embrace of vicious desperation.

"I-Is this my... fault...?"

Each heartbeat pounded in his ears like a relentless drumming that echoed the passage of time, and with every breath, Dante's lungs burned with the acrid taste of fear and desperation. This sensation brought back a harrowing deja vu that he omitted from his brain.

Like a thousand hands, a memory clawed its way back to Dante's. He remembered. He remembered the thought of returning to that place. He remembered the black nothingness where time stood still, and he remembered his consciousness slowly eroding.

The cold ground beneath him began to starkly remind him of the void he had once walked in, an endless blackness of nothingness where neither heaven nor hell existed, only the suffocating emptiness waiting to consume him.

*Drum*

...

*Drum*

...

*Drum*

...

*Drum*

...

*Drum*

Each beat of his heart reverberated like a rhythmic clock where every moment felt like an eternity suspended in the abyss.

And then he saw it; like a beacon in the darkness, Daniel appeared, clearing all the oppressive darkness that threatened to engulf him.

Quickly, Dante tried to wash away all the negativity with a wave of optimism. "That was really silly." He gave an awkward mental chuckle. "Dumb thoughts get out of my head! How can you be scared of... literally nothing but not of fighting to death?"

Dante wanted to muster something, but his throat felt constricted, stopping him from speaking. His eyes barely recognized his friend, who looked different from the last time he saw him.

He saw Daniel running with a worried face, inspecting all the players in search of him. But seeing Daniel really caught his interest. He wasn't the only one who used the time to get stronger. He had a new helmet, a new sword, and a new cloak, and now he looked like a hero from a fantasy novel.

"Why is he that worried? I'm right here-" Dante thought while still reeling his mind from the cluttered mess that his mind was.

As Daniel got close enough to the battered body, he proceeded to jump over it, completely ignoring it as if he were the simple random body of an unknown stranger.

"Eh...?"

...

...

...

Just a second after Daniel ignored the body of a battered girl, like a storm unleashed with ferocious intensity, an overwhelming wave of heavy bloodlust rippled through the air, saturating the ambiance with a nearly tangible sense of danger.

The atmosphere crackled with tension as all eyes turned instinctively to where it came from. Hundreds of hours of fighting tone their instincts so their bodies act by themself at such sudden threats, similar to a spinal reflex. 

Daniel's senses were on high alert as he felt a familiar sensation wash over him, followed by an overwhelming surge of bloodlust aimed directly at him.

A chill ran down his spine as he scanned the surroundings for the source of this ominous aura.

His gaze fell onto a girl with rainbow-colored hair whose presence radiated a strange connection. Daniel tried to make sense of the situation. He had never encountered this girl before, yet there was something eerily familiar about her, something that reached for a memory buried deep within him.

Rainbow hair...

Rainbow hair?

RAINBOW HAIR!!!

__________________

Authors note:

Hey, did you know that there may be a genetic predisposition to developing PTSD, as some individuals may have a biological vulnerability to stress-related disorders?

It's similar to animals reacting to certain events, they associate it with DANGER.

Also, messing with your brain and personality might cause it, too!

So yes, your body can act on its own, even if you don't know the "WHY." (Another example is sleep paralysis, in which most of the time, you are scared, but you don't know the "WHY")

*¨Sigh¨*

For those who didn't understand why Dante got scared...

He is scared of being left alone, not dying.

What scares him on the other side is that there isn't anyone else.