Ai-chan read the first chapter (not the joke chapter) and to Ai-chan, it feels weird, indeed.
Ai-chan doesn't know how you write before, but this composition feels distant. You were using first person, but you were narrating as if it's in third person. You did not make use of the character's inner voice.
By inner voice, Ai-chan doesn't mean monologue, it's the feelings and sensations described by you, the protagonist. It feels like you, the character, is not in that body, but floating outside the body just looking at yourself. You lack the tingles on the skin, the prickles of sharp sensation on your fingers, the beating of the heart. Basically, your narration lacks the things that make you human, that 1st person excels at.
If Ai-chan were to write it, Ai-chan would change the following:
I was embraced in darkness; a strange warmth wrapped around me. A rending light occupied the entirety of my vision, yet it did not hurt. Why this happened, or what was the source, I did not know.
My thoughts were muddled, only able to ponder about the present.
I felt like I was falling, not through the air, but through something… purer? Feels like I was high, very high.
It was hard to breathe. But even that felt like an illusion, a pleasant illusion. It was a beautiful illusion. I was falling, floating yet I was soaring.
Into
It was dark. Pure, black, darkness. One that consumed light, consumed my senses. But it was not cold, it was not scary. There was a strange warmth, wrapping itself around me like the embrace of a mother.
A sudden rending light expelled the darkness, like a switch that turned on and off. The light occupied the entirety of my vision, yet it did not hurt. It was like the darkness. It was not blinding, it was not scary. It felt gentle. It felt like the soft caress of a lover.
What was this light? Where did it come from? Where was my shadow? Who am I?
My thoughts flitted from one point to another. One idea, forgotten, to be replaced by another. Then that was also forgotten, as quickly as the blink of an eye. Only for it to be replaced by another idea.
Then, a strange sensation. As if I was falling. Falling, falling and falling. No start, no end, no control over anything. But it did not feel as if I was falling through the air. There was no sensation of wind coursing through my face, against my arms or rustling my hair. There was no feeling of resistance. It felt gentle, pure, perhaps even, exhilarating.
I felt myself unable to breathe, but it did not seem to matter. Even this felt illusory, as if I was dreaming it up, but I wasn't. I was experiencing it. This gentle feeling of continuously falling without end, for minutes, hours, perhaps even days. As I fell, I started feeling as if I was soaring instead, but I was still falling. It was a contradicting motion, a confusing sensation, but it was real. It felt real. I felt this!
