"Sorry, Ran! You go on ahead. I'll catch up later."

Those words…are the last ones I ever said to her. Pretty lame, huh?

But how could I have known then that I'd be knocked near unconscious and fed an experimental drug? How was I to know that my world would be forever altered in a single moment?

God, I was so arrogant then, so confident in my own deductive abilities. Kudo Shinichi, famous high school detective. Pride before the fall, eh?

How far have I fallen? Am I in Heaven? Or am I in Hell? Or worse yet, maybe I'm somewhere in between?

Where is this, this empty wasteland? It's as if someone forgot to paint the scenery on the canvas and left it white. There are no objects, no contours, no colors, just an endless expanse.

Logic doesn't work here. Left is up and down is right. But no matter where I go, I'm always wrong. I can walk and walk, and walk some more. But I always end up right where I start, right below that blood-stained moon. I swear, sometimes I see it dripping red, as if crying, as if mourning.

And do I mourn? Sometimes I try, but I can't. I can't bring myself to do it. It's too easy, to break down and given up. As hopeless as the situation seems, I know there must be a solution. There must be. There's always a solution, always only one truth.

But time is the trier of the soul. Time wears all down, outlasts all. Can I outlast time itself? In this wasteland where logic doesn't apply? For all my deductive prowess, for all my observational skill, what use is it if there is nothing to observe, nothing to deduce.

Is this what death feels like? An endless drifting in an endless space? How long will I wander? How long have I wandered?

The worst of all is the silence. The maddening silence. Sometimes, I yell, just to hear my own voice, just to know that I can still talk, that I am still sane. But how long can I persist?

As long as I can.

"I wonder if I can reach it," I say, looking at the red moon. I lift my arm up, fingers extending as far as they can go. I even jump, just to get a few inches closer. But it's still up there, far, far away.

Ran, what are you doing now?

If only there was something to punch in this god-forsaken place, but God had even forsaken me that. If only there was something to vent my frustration on!

"Argh!" I scream, throwing myself on the ground. But even that is pointless; there is no pain, no sensation from smashing my body against the ground. Exhausted, more mentally than physically, I lie on my back and look up, not that there's much to see. There isn't even a sky.

"Let's go over what I know," I say aloud, just to hear my own voice. "This definitely isn't the normal world. There's nothing here except that bloody red moon. And it appears there's no way to reach it. Also, I'm not sure how much time has passed, but I don't seem to get tired or hungry. And I don't feel any pain. And..." My voice drifts off.

All my efforts and this is the measly conclusion I draw. I just sigh, closing my eyes, trying to think.

That's when something extra-ordinary happens, something that sends chills to my spine. It's a voice.

"I've finally found you-" the voice says, echoing across the vast expanse, "Pandora."