By Diva Malviya
I
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
“What is fear?” the article asked, its words unspoken yet somehow smothering the air with a suffocating weight. "Is it the cold shiver that seizes you when an event unknown and sudden rushes forth from the depths of the unseen? Or is it the slow, deliberate agony that arises when one becomes painfully aware of their own condition, hopeless and inescapable?” The question echoed in my mind as I stood at the threshold of some nameless understanding, but I felt neither drawn nor repelled. There was something about the question that seemed irrelevant, something which I could not explain but which demanded no further engagement. I turned the page with a mechanical, almost indifferent motion, as though the words no longer belonged to me. A sip of tea followed—nothing more than a reflex, a gesture that filled the void of silence, only to leave it once more unfulfilled. The windows trembled as if in fear, their glass panes rattling against the relentless assault of wind and rain. The storm outside carried on, its force indifferent to any pleas. Through the darkening haze of the world outside, the shapes of trees or houses or whatever they might be barely held their form, as though even the landscape had no identity of its own, only that of a fleeting shadow. The lanterns hung precariously, struggling to retain their flicker of light, while the thunder, like some vengeful god, struck with furious insistence, demanding that the air itself tremble in response. And yet, in the midst of all this, I could not bring myself to care.
Fear, it seemed, was something other, something beyond what either this article or I could ever hope to grasp. An instant later, a set of footsteps grew nearer, each one seeming to assert itself more firmly than the last, as though the very air had been quietly admonishing them to approach. I had been lost in thought, but now, as the sound of them drew closer, I felt an uncomfortable clarity return to me, an awareness that I was not alone. The presence in the room—or was it simply the sound itself?—had a way of reminding me, forcefully, of my own existence. I tried to think again, but the steps insisted upon my attention, as if to mock my pretense of solitude. I fixed my gaze on the door, waiting for the inevitable appearance of the person with those hollow, indistinct eyes, the kind that suggested nothing at all yet seemed to contain everything. As expected, the door groaned open, as though reluctant to reveal what lay beyond, and there he stood—Sebastian Silvesto, the household butler, who had always been more of a shadow than a man, his presence as oddly unavoidable as it was insignificant. He approached, his steps muffled by the carpet, each one dragging with a peculiar slowness, as though reluctant to make contact with the floor. The carpet, in turn, seemed to shift slightly beneath him, as though it too were disturbed by the weight of his movement. I watched, fixated, waiting for something to emerge in his eyes—a sign of what he might bring, what he might say. But when our gazes met, there was nothing in his eyes but a hollow respect, the kind one might offer to a stranger whom one is obligated to acknowledge. My own eyes, in contrast, were without life, as if to acknowledge nothing at all, as though what I saw and what I felt were disconnected by some invisible barrier that I could neither cross nor understand. He opened his mouth, though it seemed more a reflex than an intention, and placed the stack of mail onto the table in front of me, the motion devoid of any particular meaning.
“Good evening, Sir,” he said, his voice flat, as if repeating an instruction he had been given rather than offering a greeting. “I have brought today’s mail. Say, When would you like dinner to be served?” His words hung in the air, without urgency, as though they were neither a request nor an observation but simply something one says in passing. I did not respond immediately; the question, in its absurdity, felt more like a formality I was expected to acknowledge, though it seemed as though neither of us truly cared whether I did. Before answering, I hesitated, sinking into an uncertain stillness. An invisible weight pressed upon me, dull yet inescapable, as if my body were signaling, though its messages were distant and unclear, like shadows at the far end of a long corridor. Aware of my stomach's faint protest but equally aware of some inner barrier, I replied, almost mutely, "No... I do not believe I’ll require dinner tonight. I will, instead, sort through the mail. Afterward, I’ll go to bed."
The butler nodded. But his nod—yes, his nod—felt disquietingly definitive, as if it carried the seal of authority over even my trivial choices. He exited, shutting the door with such finality that the click of the latch echoed longer than it should have, lingering unpleasantly in the air. Alone once more, I turned toward the window, losing myself in the bleak landscape. The storm had moved closer; the land was shadowed beneath its wild fury, the lightning strikes like blows in some grim struggle, the earth itself at war with the forces of nature. I could not escape the impression that the battle was somehow mine as well. With a strange detachment, I took up the mail, the neatly stacked envelopes cold and indifferent to my touch. As I spread them on the desk, a single black envelope caught my eye. It lay there, alien among the ordinary whites and browns, its edges lined with delicate embroidery in red and gold roses woven across its surface. An invitation or a warning? Perhaps an official letter or a summons? My hand hesitated above it, the faintest tremor revealing an indecision that I dared not let myself explore. The roses seemed to glare up at me, their threads taut and accusing, as though they knew something I did not. The envelope lay before me, unassuming in its shape yet imbued with a peculiar gravity that seemed to distort the air around it. I could not say whether the weight I felt was truly emanating from the envelope itself or merely a projection of my own apprehension. My hand hovered above it, suspended in indecision, my fingers flexing as if testing the possibility of contact. But the moment stretched unbearably, and my resolve crumbled. I withdrew my hand, retreating from the task as if from an unseen menace.
It was not cowardice, I told myself, but strategy—a prudent deferral. The envelope could wait; after all, there were others. I turned my attention to the less significant pile, their banalities offering the illusion of productivity. Hours slipped by in a haze of routine: reading, replying, signing, sealing. Each document seemed more absurd than the last, yet I moved through the motions with mechanical precision, as if an unseen supervisor stood behind me, recording each stroke of my pen. When at last the final letter was completed and the wax seal hardened beneath my hand, I allowed myself a moment of reprieve. My eyes drifted to the corner of the table, where the black envelope lay as it had before, untouched but not unnoticed. Its presence was not passive; it seemed to exude a quiet authority, as though it had been patiently watching me the entire time. The room felt smaller now, the walls pressing inward, though I could not discern whether this sensation was real or imagined.
I reached for the envelope at last, my hand closing around it with a force that betrayed my unease. The paper felt colder than I expected, unnaturally so, and my grip tightened instinctively, as if to draw warmth from it. I did not open it—not yet. Instead, I lingered in the moment, my eyes fixed on the matte black surface, which seemed to drink in the light. The longer I stared, the less it resembled an envelope at all; it became something inscrutable, something other. A part of me wondered if I had ever truly intended to open it, or if my role was simply to hold it, to acknowledge it, to bear witness to its silent command. My fingers brushed the surface of the envelope, the texture smooth but strangely resistant, as if reluctant to yield to my touch. I traced the gold seal pressed firmly into the flap—a rose, its petals intricate, almost lifelike. There was something disconcerting about the pattern, as though the rose were mocking my hesitance with its quiet perfection. Slowly, deliberately, I lifted the flap. It resisted at first, but then tore free with a sound sharper than I expected, like a sigh escaping from somewhere unseen.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, its beige surface mottled with burn marks along the edges. The scorch marks curled inward, as though the paper had only narrowly escaped destruction. It was crumpled, the folds etched deep, as though it had been crushed repeatedly and then painstakingly smoothed out by an indifferent hand. The writing was faint, the ink faded, the letters disjointed, as if the words themselves were reluctant to fully materialize. I held it closer to my face, scanning the jagged script with increasing effort.
Via Noctis
The company of The Duke of Old Hampshire, Sir. Michael Kaiser
is requested at an assembly.
A carriage will promptly escort you to the location, at your comfort.
When it pleaseth thee to be ready.
Regards, Sephiroth.
An invitation—though to what I could not say. There was no address, no date, no time, but a singular name. Only the barest suggestion of a summons, its tone both impersonal and intimate, as if the paper knew me better than I knew myself. My first instinct was to laugh, to dismiss it as some strange and elaborate prank. But the laugh did not come. The paper refused such levity. It seemed to grow heavier in my hands the longer I held it; its presence was impossible to ignore. There was no explanation, yet the invitation seemed to demand acknowledgment; its silence was louder than any written words. It exuded a strange authority, not overtly threatening but undeniable, like the shadow of a mountain looming over a solitary traveler. And though it offered nothing—no clear direction, no purpose—its absence of detail felt calculated, deliberate. A faint unease stirred within me, curling tightly around my thoughts. I considered setting it aside, dismissing it as a meaningless oddity, but I could not. Something in its incompleteness was luring, almost intimate in its ambiguity. I stared at the burnt edges, imagining the flames that had once licked at its corners and wondering why it had survived at all.
The words on the page seemed to shift under my gaze, not literally but with a peculiar weight, as though they knew more than I did. I had the distinct impression that the paper was watching me as much as I was reading it, waiting for something—perhaps my understanding, perhaps my compliance. I sat with the paper in my hands, its burnt edges crumbling slightly under my grip, and stared at the words once more. The absence of detail was maddening—a destination implied but not named, a time suggested but not fixed. The only certainty was the promise of a carriage, though even this felt fragile, as if it might dissolve the moment I attempted to verify it. Could it be now, I wondered? If I stood ready at this moment, would it appear? Or was readiness itself a condition I had yet to understand? The question lingered, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts, but no answer came. I felt absurd even considering the possibility, yet something about the invitation compelled me, as though it had already made a decision for me that I had yet to realize. I resolved to test its promise—not out of belief but out of a quiet defiance. It was nonsense, surely. And yet. Rising from the chair, I moved to my bedroom in a series of motions that felt both deliberate and automatic, as if I were performing a ritual dictated by an unseen script. I stepped into the shower, the water’s heat doing little to dispel the chill of uncertainty that clung to me. In the closet, my hand hesitated briefly before selecting a black trench coat, its weight familiar and oddly reassuring. Under it, I chose a simple white shirt, unassuming, though it seemed to fit the occasion in a way I could not name. My boots followed, sturdy and weathered, suited for any terrain—a choice that felt both practical and strangely prescient. The act of dressing took on a significance I could not articulate; each article of clothing added with a deliberation that bordered on compulsion. The trench coat, the boots, even the dagger I slid into the side of my boot—all felt like pieces of armor for a journey I had not chosen but could no longer avoid. The dagger, though hidden, weighed heavier than it should have, a silent accusation against my naivety. I grabbed an umbrella and a lantern before descending the stairs, the mansion’s walls pressing inward as if urging me forward.
At the door, I paused, the brass handle cold beneath my fingers. I had no idea where I was going or what awaited me, yet the invitation’s pull was undeniable. The silence of the house seemed to amplify my hesitation, each second stretching into an eternity. Finally, I pushed the door open and stepped out into the night, the lantern’s faint glow casting shadows that stretched unnaturally long across the ground. The air was cold and unforgiving, yet it carried an expectation, as if it, too, was waiting. And somewhere, beyond the edges of my vision, I felt the promise of the carriage drawing closer. And there it stood—a carriage, uncanny in its likeness to the envelope fringed with gold, drawn by two gleaming, obsidian horses whose eyes seemed to harbor a nameless dread. The coachman, a gaunt figure, wore a wide-brimmed hat that obscured his face, leaving only a thin line of lips that appeared to be fixed in an unnatural stillness, as though sewn shut by some silent decree. He descended, mechanical and deliberate, to open the door. The air around him hummed with an ineffable expectation, pressing on my chest as I faltered. I felt a compulsion, an invisible thread tugging me toward inquiry, and so I spoke, each syllable barely escaping my tightening throat: “Where is this going?” The question fell into the cold space between us and was met with a silence so resolute it resonated like an unspoken command. The coachman’s stillness became accusatory; his absence of response was an iron-clad rule. For a moment, I hovered at the threshold, aware of the absurdity of hesitation and the futility of defiance, before surrendering to the pull. I stepped inside, settling by the window where the view outside seemed to dissolve into a smudge of indistinct shadows, and the carriage, as if obeying an unnameable force, lurched into motion.
With an even, mechanical pace, the carriage began its silent motion, exuding an air of silent authority that made my nerves prickle with apprehension. The weight of anticipation bore down on me; an indeterminate expectation gnawed at my mind. Perhaps it was nothing more than an ordinary assembly—one marred by the banal oversight of some indifferent clerk, who, with an error as slight as a missing line, had omitted the essential details from the invitation. Yet this explanation did not settle the uncanny way the carriage had appeared, unbidden and incongruous, from the misty void of night. As I pondered these fractured thoughts, fatigue seeped into my limbs, and, despite my resistance, consciousness fled, yielding me to an uneasy oblivion. When I awoke, a heavy fog of disorientation clung to my mind, shrouding reason like a distant, unreachable light. I found myself lying on a bed of crimson silk sheets, their touch cool, indifferent, almost reproachful. The bed itself, an island of luxury amid uncertainty, seemed less like a place of rest and more like a vessel that had been placed there as part of an inscrutable plan. The satin covers mirrored the deep red of the sheets, whispering a silent, conspiratorial message. The room was suffused with a peculiar, suffocating warmth; its vermillion walls whispered secrets through the delicate veins of gold roses interwoven across the surface. These roses, infinite and repeating, seemed to pulsate with a silent, mocking life that pressed against the boundaries of comprehension. Yet I did not allow my mind to linger on them—perhaps for fear of what realization might bloom. My eyes roved across the room, taking in its haunting splendor. On the right, a grand window framed by translucent black drapes stirred as if sighing with some secret it longed to reveal. The drapes, weightless and shadowy, moved with a rhythm that mocked the oppressive stillness. The walls, suffused with an eerie, almost accusatory life, bore countless photo frames. Each frame held portraits of figures, their gazes unsettlingly vivid, alive with the paradox of being both animate and bereft of breath. Their eyes, fixed in intense communion with mine, seemed to search, to probe, as if seeking to pluck answers from the murky recesses of my memory. The unsettling sensation that I was known for here intimately crept up my spine. The bed shivered under me as I shifted, the silk murmuring inaudible words that felt like echoes of forgotten confessions. My feet found the floor, cold and unyielding, grounding me with a cruel certainty that seemed to mock my own tenuous grasp on reality. The air, thick with an anticipation I could not name, pressed against me like an unseen weight. I moved toward the bathroom—a space whose door loomed like a sentinel, indifferent yet watchful. Inside, laid upon the sterile, gleaming sink, a set of clothes awaited: unwrinkled, precise, and foreign in their calm assurance. They were there for me, silent and expectant, as though this moment had been prepared long before I had woken into it, as though the simple act of dressing would tether me deeper into an unfathomable, preordained script. I dressed myself in the garments that lay before me, their fabric holding a peculiar familiarity, an absurd familiarity that both embraced and suffocated, as if binding me to an unremembered past. Each fold of cloth seemed weighted with unseen eyes, scrutinizing, judging. As I moved, a sudden gleam snagged the corner of my vision—a flicker of steel, cold and resolute. My dagger, absurdly out of place yet undeniably present, sat atop the porcelain basin, polished to an unnatural sheen that seemed to pierce through the stagnant air. Had I placed it there? The question tangled in my mind like a trapped insect, fluttering without escape. The room—indeterminate, half-lit, its corners fading into shadow—offered no answers, only the stifling assurance that something vital was being withheld.
I stood suspended between suspicion and resignation, an equilibrium of unease. The comfort I felt was treacherous, like a memory that turns to ash when grasped. How could I, surrounded by the formless, feel such a profound peace? The notion scraped at my thoughts, but my body, stubborn and unwilling, bent to the tyranny of routine. A knock shattered the silence—sharp, precise, breaking the room’s oppressive stillness into splinters. I flinched, my pulse a frantic staccato, eyes fixed on the wooden door that now loomed as a barrier more than an entryway. The knock resounded once more, no longer a simple request but an imperious demand, a verdict sealed in the dark. My steps, tentative and weighted, carried me forward as if dragged by an unseen chain. The floor beneath me felt unreal, shifting, as though protesting my approach. My hand, trembling and disobedient, stretched toward the handle, fingers spread wide as if trying to grasp the intangible.
I opened the door.
II
As light rain falls without reason
There he stood—a figure of impossible elegance, a man whose silver hair cascaded to his hips like a pale shroud. His eyes, a colorless expanse of blue that seemed to carry within them the cold indifference of deep waters, met mine with an unreadable expression. He bore an aura of obligation, a duty so profound that it felt as though he were manifested by God himself, yet marred by incompleteness—a single ebony wing draped from his side, the other severed and absent as if forgotten by creation itself. His lips parted, revealing the words that carried neither warmth nor threat, only an inscrutable inevitability. "Ah, Mr. Michael, you’re awake," the man said, his voice smooth but unsettling, as though he were rehearsing lines from a script meant for someone else. "Permit me to apologise for the... limitations of your accommodations. We’ve endeavoured to make your stay tolerable under the circumstances. My name is Sephiroth, the house butler. I am at your service." He inclined his head slightly, his movement deliberate, mechanical. I could not suppress his irritation. The words floated around me, vaguely meaningful but offering nothing concrete, as if they were spoken in a language almost understood. This man—if he could be called a man—was a stranger to me. Yet, stranger didn’t seem adequate to describe him. The wing protruding from his shoulder defied comprehension, as did the sheen of his unnaturally radiant hair. It seemed to reject the dim light of the room, blazing with its own inexplicable brightness. "I know you must have questions," Sephiroth continued, his tone calm, measured, and entirely devoid of any urgency that I felt. "But I must confess, I am not the one to provide answers. My role is that of a messenger, nothing more. Think of me as Hermes, if you like, here to lead you to Zeus. I recoiled inwardly at the comparison. Zeus? Was that a metaphor, or had the world shifted into some incomprehensible mythological terrain? Sephiroth stood there, motionless, as if awaiting an acknowledgment I couldn’t summon. The absurdity of the situation weighed on him. I didn’t want to follow this man—this creature—anywhere, yet the room seemed to constrict around me, the walls pressing inward, leaving me with no choice. "Take me to this ‘Zeus’ then," I said, though the words felt hollow the moment they left my mouth, as if they had been stripped of their authority in the act of speaking.
"As you wish," the butler replied, his voice devoid of inflection, more like the creak of a mechanism than a man’s response. He turned and began to walk without another word, his movements precise, almost mechanical, as though he were driven by some unseen force.
The hallway we entered was vast yet stifling, its oppressive dimness broken only by the flickering glow of countless candles, their flames dancing shadows onto the towering stone walls. A red carpet stretched endlessly beneath our feet, absorbing sound yet amplifying the weight of each step. Above us, heavy chandeliers dangled precariously, their abundant candles dripping wax that seemed to congeal midair, as though even time here hesitated to flow naturally. The air was heavy, carrying the faint, choking scent of burnt tallow. The silence between us was suffocating, broken only by the echo of our footsteps—a sound that reverberated unnaturally, as if the hallway itself were alive and listening. I was aware of the space around me but could not shake the feeling that the walls were moving closer with every step, narrowing the path in ways my eyes refused to confirm. Finally, we arrived before a door. It loomed over us, dark oak polished to an unnatural sheen, its surface marred only by a strange golden carving: a pentagon encircling a ram’s head, its horns twisting into grotesque spirals. The brass knocker, shaped like an extension of the ram’s protruding muzzle, gleamed faintly, though the light in the hallway was insufficient to explain how. I couldn’t bring myself to meet Sephiroth’s gaze, but I could feel his presence beside me, unnervingly still. "This is the place," he said simply, his hand gesturing to the door without enthusiasm or reluctance. The knocker swayed slightly, as though moved by an unseen hand, its metallic clink reverberating through the silence. My mouth was dry, my thoughts churning with questions I couldn’t articulate. Yet, despite my misgivings, I felt the inevitability of what came next. The door, as if sensing my hesitation, seemed almost to lean toward me. Just as I raised my hand to knock, Sephiroth caught my wrist. His grip was light but unyielding, like that of a ghost demanding attention. Slowly, he turned to face me, his gaze piercing, as if he were appraising not just my appearance but my very intentions. "I apologize, but before you proceed..." he began, his voice low and deliberate, each word spaced as though it carried a significance I could not yet grasp. Then, without warning, he began adjusting my collar, brushing lint from my shoulders with meticulous precision. The intimacy of the act was disconcerting, mechanical yet oddly reverent, as if I were being prepared for some ritual I neither understood nor consented to.
"There is something you should know," he continued, his tone softening slightly, though his hands remained busy, straightening folds and smoothing creases I hadn’t noticed. "Every question you ask will be answered, yes—but at a price. For each answer, another question will take its place. And for each question you pose, he will ask one of his own. But you mustn't answer it directly." He paused, his hands falling still, and for a moment, I thought he might leave it at that. But then he resumed, his voice slipping into something almost conspiratorial. "There is much to reveal," he said, "and much to be revealed. Don’t talk too long, you might accidentally reveal your fear." His hands withdrew, and he stood back, tilting his head slightly as if to examine his handiwork. Then his expression softened, and he gave me a smile—a pale, fleeting thing that seemed to evaporate the moment it appeared. "Never show fear," he said, "but never show courage, either. I can only hope you find what you seek." He bowed—a small, formal gesture—before turning away. His footsteps faded quickly into the vastness of the hallway, leaving me alone before the door. I found myself staring at the brass knocker, its surface gleaming faintly in the flickering candlelight, and for a moment, I hesitated. Sephiroth’s words echoed in my mind, dense with meanings I couldn’t untangle. The door seemed larger now, heavier, as if it had absorbed the weight of the butler’s warning. As I stood before the door, my hand hovering near the brass knocker, a faint murmur reached my ears. Voices—two, perhaps more—drifted through the thick oak, indistinct at first but gradually sharpening, though their tones carried a weight that seemed to press against me more than the words themselves. "We’ve reached out to multiple regions," a calm, measured voice was saying. "They should arrive promptly." There was something unsettling about the cadence, the way each word seemed chosen for precision yet hollowed of true intent. "Very well," another voice responded, this one deeper, firmer, its resonance carrying an air of authority that bordered on oppressive. "When do you think we’ll be able to return?" continued the calm voice. "We had this conversation yesterday," came the reply, though it sounded more like an appeasement than an answer. There was a pause, brief but heavy, and then the calmer voice spoke again, this time tinged with curiosity—or was it unease? "But we’ve been waiting for so long, it should be about time?"
"I’m aware" the deeper voice answered, matter-of-fact, as if such tasks were routine. "I’ll speak to him again"
"Very well" the calmer voice said after a moment, its tone now carrying a faint undercurrent of satisfaction. "And this time—how will you proceed?"
"The same as usual." the deeper voice replied. The finality of the words struck me like the closing of a heavy book, their meaning as impenetrable as the dark wood of the door before me. I stood frozen, my breath shallow, straining to hear more, but the conversation paused into an indistinct hum—or as though the air itself had conspired to keep their secrets. A cold unease crept over me. The words I’d caught felt significant, yet they unraveled the more I tried to piece them together, leaving only the faint, nagging impression that I was a subject of discussion rather than a participant. The brass knocker gleamed before me, an object so solid and real that it seemed to mock my hesitation. My hand trembled as I reached for it, the weight of what lay beyond the door growing heavier with every second. I opened the door.
III
In a duel of connecting blades
The man sat immobile, his presence consuming the room in a quiet, oppressive brilliance, as though the very air had rearranged itself to accommodate his being. He was hunched over the desk, its surface crowded with objects whose purposes were unknowable to me, their chaotic arrangement suggesting a logic I was not privy to. I hesitated at the threshold, aware that my intrusion was unwelcome yet inevitable. At the sound of my step, he raised his head, his expression one of vague amusement, though his lips betrayed no smile. His eyes, dark and red like wine left too long in the cask, his hair a dark red reflecting no light resembling the void, parallel to his tan skin reminiscent of bourbon, fixed on me with an unsettling familiarity, as though they anticipated the thoughts I dared not think. I sought solace in his gaze and found none; instead, it seemed to reflect back the discomfort I carried within me, magnified. With a slow, deliberate motion, he gestured toward the chair opposite him. The gesture was neither welcoming nor dismissive—it was simply an instruction, as though my compliance was a foregone conclusion. The chair itself looked unremarkable, yet the act of sitting in it felt momentous, as though I were being called to account for an offense I could not name.
"Michael, how nice to see you again," he said, his voice calm and measured, as though the words were etched into the air long before they were spoken. I stared at him, uncomprehending. The name sounded like my own, but the familiarity in his tone was alien, as though he were addressing a version of myself that had eluded me. "I… I don’t believe we’ve met," I began, but my voice faltered. The room, so meticulously arranged, suddenly seemed to pulse with an energy I could not place. The man’s face was sharp and serene, yet something in his presence felt unbearably heavy, as though it pressed against my very thoughts. "Good morn—" I started to greet him out of reflex, but my eyes drifted to the enormous window behind him, and my words fell away. The sky outside was not as it should be. A deep crimson stretched across the horizon, violent and unbroken, while the clouds hung low, black as ink, their motion languid and foreboding. The light filtering in was surreal, more like the glow of embers than daylight. I could make no sense of it. The sight was absurd and terrifying, a silent rebuke to any attempt at reason. My confusion must have been evident, for the man released a low, measured chuckle, though his lips barely moved. It was not a sound of amusement but of certainty, as though he found humor in the very idea of my bewilderment. “The weather,” he said, his voice curling like smoke into the room, “isn’t it familiar to you? Mighty fine, isn’t it?” He smiled, though the expression seemed borrowed, a gesture he had seen performed and was attempting to replicate. I stood stiffly, the weight of his words pressing down on my patience. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, my tone firmer than I’d intended. “I’ve never been here before. And as for you... " I paused, searching his face for any recognition, but it yielded nothing. “I don’t know you.” He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to some far-off sound. “Never been here before? Truly?” His persistence was like a hand on my shoulder, though no hand was there. “That’s a strange thing to say. Do you mean you’ve forgotten? Or is it that you refuse to remember?” My frustration swelled, but something in his calm unnerved me. There was a precision to his choice of words, as if he were testing me, though I could not discern the purpose. “I’ve told you already,” I said, my voice faltering against the firmness of his gaze. “I don’t know you, and I don’t know this place.” His smile widened, but it was hollow, revealing a darkness that lingered just behind his teeth. “Ah, yes,” he said softly, as if to himself. “That’s how it always begins.” The room seemed to grow smaller, though I was certain I hadn’t moved. For the first time, I wondered if he were mocking me—or if I was being studied, dissected, prepared for some purpose I couldn’t yet comprehend.
“You must have many questions,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of certainty, as though my confusion were a foregone conclusion. I nodded, a simple affirmation, though I felt as if I had already betrayed some unspoken expectation. Without hesitation, I asked, “Why do you keep insisting that I’m familiar with this place?” His reaction was immediate and unsettling. A smile spread across his face, broad and almost mechanical, his crimson eyes gleaming with a light that seemed less amusement than predation. Then came the laugh—a harsh, unrelenting sound that filled the room, ricocheting off the walls in a manner both overwhelming and incongruous. He doubled over, clutching his stomach as though the very act of laughter might consume him. “I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out between gasps, his voice thin and ragged. “Give me a moment.” I sat there in silence, bewildered, my disquiet mounting with each passing second. His laughter persisted, a bizarre performance whose purpose I could not discern. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, a question surfaced—was the laughter directed at me, or at some unseen absurdity I had failed to grasp? Yet the very act of wondering felt futile, as though I were grappling with an answer that would never come. The room seemed to shrink around me. His laughter became a presence, a force, pressing down, filling every crevice of space and thought. And yet, amidst the oppressive cacophony, I found myself sitting perfectly still, frozen not in fear but in some strange resignation, as though I were no longer a participant in my own story but a subject to be examined, a puzzle to be unraveled. In that moment, I felt the faintest whisper of recognition. Perhaps I was familiar with this place after all. Or perhaps I had only convinced myself that familiarity would offer some solace against the inexplicable. He stopped laughing abruptly, the silence almost more jarring than the sound. Leaning forward, his crimson eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that seemed to pierce through me.
“Well,” he said, his voice now calm, almost gentle, “it’s simple, really; this isn’t your first time here. You simply refuse to remember.” The words struck like a dull blow, reverberating through the room, though it was unclear whether the sound came from him or from within me. Something in his tone suggested that this was not a revelation but a reminder, a fact so evident to him that my ignorance of it was a source of bafflement. “I… refuse?” I asked, though the question came out fractured, as though my own voice resisted forming the words. He nodded, his crimson eyes steady now, their earlier mirth replaced by a solemnity that felt almost reverent. “Oh, yes,” he said. “You’re quite practiced at it, too. It’s almost admirable, really. Few have the fortitude to deny themselves so thoroughly.” I wanted to argue, to reject the notion outright. Yet his words, like tendrils of smoke, had already begun to seep into my thoughts, curling around vague impressions and distant echoes that I couldn’t place. A flicker of familiarity here, a glimmer of déjà vu there, all of it disjointed and faint, like fragments of a dream slipping away upon waking. “You’re mistaken,” I said, the words heavy with uncertainty even as I spoke them. “Am I?” His smile returned, though it was no longer wide or amused. It was a thin, knowing thing, sharp as a blade. “Tell me, then—how do you explain the gaps, the moments you can’t quite account for, the sense that time itself has conspired against you?” I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came. He leaned back in his chair, satisfied, as though my silence were confirmation enough. Outside, the faint sound of a clock ticking reached my ears, though I could not remember seeing a clock when I had entered the room. The air felt heavier now, pressing against my chest, and I realized I could not remember the door, either—its shape, its color, or even whether it had closed behind me.
"I didn’t think it was worth the time to ponder," I said, my voice small, almost afraid to carry its own weight. He made no reply, staring at me with a gaze that was neither here nor elsewhere. "Who are you?" I asked, the question falling from my lips as if it had been waiting to escape all along. Sephiroth's words echoed faintly in my mind, like a distant warning I only half understood. He tilted his head slightly, as if considering the gravity of my question—or mocking it.
"I am you. I am him. I am everything. I am everyone you want me to be."
The words were simple, spoken plainly, yet they struck me with a peculiar violence. They did not seem addressed to me but to the empty air around us, as if I were merely incidental to their utterance. "That doesn’t make any sense," I murmured, though my objection felt feeble, impotent, like a bird flapping against the bars of a cage it barely remembered entering. He smiled—if it could be called a smile—and it occurred to me that sense might have been the least of my concerns.
“Call me Dante,” he said in a tone so measured it bordered on mechanical. His voice hung in the air, filling the room as though it had mass. He lingered for a moment, scrutinizing me with an expression both indifferent and deeply personal. “Enough with the games now. I’ll get straight to the point.” He paused, stood, and began a deliberate procession toward me. His movements were unnervingly smooth, as if choreographed by an unseen force. Placing his left hand firmly on my right shoulder, he leaned closer. I felt the weight of his presence more acutely than the pressure of his hand.
“Welcome to Purgatorio, Michael,” he said, his breath chillingly calm.
The words arrived like a decree, not to be questioned, though I immediately did. He moved behind me, his steps muffled yet insistent. My pulse quickened. I turned my head sharply, catching the fleeting sight of his retreating back, his posture unyielding. “Purgatorio?” I repeated, my voice a blend of disbelief and desperation. “That’s absurd. I’m not dead. I’m not—” My words fragmented, tripping over themselves. The certainty of my existence suddenly felt insubstantial, as though it were held together by an invisible thread now fraying. I found myself scanning the room, the walls seeming to lean inward, closing the space. My thoughts, too, caved inward, turning over his pronouncement like an inescapable riddle. I searched his figure for some clue, a betrayal of humor, but he offered nothing—only his back, which seemed less human and more a shadow cast by something incomprehensible. The air thickened. “This is madness,” I said aloud, though the sound of my voice did little to ground me. I was speaking to the air now, the walls, the floor—anything that might confirm what I was certain of moments ago but now could no longer articulate: I was alive, wasn’t I?
“Now, now, let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said, his voice coated with an almost paternal condescension, though the smile it carried felt anything but warm. “What’s the fun in that?” He let out a chuckle—deep, reverberating, as though it came from somewhere far beyond his chest. Before I could respond, he motioned with an elegant flick of his hand, the gesture somehow both inviting and commanding. “Follow me.”
The words were simple, yet they carried an undertone of inevitability, as if they were not a request but a law of nature. For a moment, I hesitated. My feet were planted firmly on the ground, yet I could already feel the pull of his instruction, a strange gravitational force I couldn’t quite resist. He stood still, his figure framed by the dim light that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. His silhouette shifted, or so it seemed, the edges blurring ever so slightly, like smoke threatening to dissipate but refusing to yield. “Follow me,” he repeated, softer this time, though the command was no less absolute. His eyes met mine—dark, patient, and unblinking, as if they knew something I did not and never would. I found myself stepping forward, not because I chose to, but because my body seemed to have made the decision on its own. The floor beneath my feet felt strange, less solid with every step, as though I were walking on the surface of a dream. “Where are we going?” I managed to ask, though my voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely. He did not answer, nor did he look back to see if I was following. He simply walked, his pace deliberate, his footsteps echoing in a way that seemed disproportionate to the size of the space. The corridor ahead stretched endlessly, a tunnel with no discernible walls or ceiling. Yet I could feel them pressing in on me, close and suffocating. The shadows flickered, alive with a logic I could not begin to fathom. As I moved further into this uncertain expanse, it dawned on me: the path forward was not of my choosing, and the man before me—if he was indeed a man—knew this far better than I did.
We stood before the door—an immense, oppressive structure, the carvings of which seemed less like decoration and more like a repository of something ancient and incomprehensible. The depth of the carvings was unsettling; their intricacy bordered on madness. Each image contained another, nested endlessly, spiraling into stories whose logic was alien, and whose purpose evaded comprehension. I tried to avert my gaze but found myself drawn to them, as though the door itself demanded my attention. Among the multitude of figures, one recurred with disturbing frequency. A man—or was it a demon?—with a nose so large and crooked it seemed to command the composition, as if it were the hinge upon which the door’s entire narrative turned. Horns jutted from the sides of his head, curling like parentheses that framed his grotesquely leering expression. Despite being only a carving, the figure seemed imbued with a life of its own. Its gaze, or the semblance of it, followed me as I moved, scrutinizing with a strange, predatory thirst. “I want you to go in,” He ordered, “You will know when to come out.” He turned to leave. I watched as he walked fading into the hallway. I turned towards the door staring at the handle, I gripped it with a hesitant force. Slowly, I opened the door.
IV
Over a fatal clash of sword graves
I stepped into the space—though to call it a "room" seemed absurd, almost dishonest. Bones lay everywhere, stretching beyond sight, a pale, jagged sea of skeletons that seemed both chaotic and strangely deliberate. Each bony hand clawed forward, as though frozen in the middle of some desperate attempt to escape or reach something. There was no sound, not even the soft crackle of a shifting bone beneath my feet. Silence pressed down like a heavy fog. I traced their motionless advance, their long-dead urgency, to a single point at the far end of the room—or perhaps it was the center. Space folded strangely here, the edges of the place unclear, as if it curved inward upon itself. There, on a throne carved from the same bleached bones, sat a man. He was reclined, almost languid, his body slouched against the cruel geometry of the chair. One arm draped lazily over its edge, his legs sprawled forward as though the weight of sitting upright was too much. His head tilted to the side, his face as pale and hollow as the bones around him, yet undeniably alive. His hair was the color of ash, and when he looked at me, it was with a movement so slow and deliberate that it felt more like a gesture of obligation than interest. His eyes, a sharp and piercing blue that seemed out of place in this world of grey and white, met mine. They held no curiosity, no anger, no recognition—only an impenetrable indifference, as though I were not the first to stumble here and would not be the last. Yet they bore into me with such weight that I felt pinned to the ground, unable to look away. The air grew thicker, oppressive, as if the countless dead around me were silently screaming, their cries pooling invisibly in the empty space between us. I opened my mouth to speak, though I had no words. The man did not move again. If he breathed, I could not tell. His stillness seemed to mock the frozen desperation of the crawling dead beneath him, as though he were their final, unreachable destination, and their futility was his comfort. I turned to leave, confused as to what I was supposed to do. “I should look for Dante,” I whispered to myself. A voice behind me mumbled, “It's futile” I turned towards the voice, he was still in the same position as before, not moved at all.
Suddenly, I fell to the ground. The fall itself was absurd — inexplicable and unceremonious — as though my body no longer belonged to me, as though some imperceptible judgment had been passed and I had been declared unfit to stand. The position I assumed was grotesque; my limbs sprawled out in an ungainly mimicry of the surrounding skeletons, my mouth ajar as though frozen mid-protest. I felt an unimaginable weight descend upon me, greater than the sum of my own body, heavier than stone, heavier still than silence. It was a weight without substance, as though the air itself had grown thick with a condemnation I could neither see nor understand. I reached out — or tried to. My arm shuddered forward, trembling under its own impotence. From where I lay, the man rose slowly. He did not hurry; it was as though my collapse had been predicted long ago, and the inevitability of it all bored him. The sound of his feet scraping against the bloodied carpet reached me with an unsettling clarity, each step deliberate, stripped of grace or purpose. He knelt before me, and I — still on the floor, confined by that incomprehensible pressure — tilted my head upward. His cerulean eyes met mine, devoid of any expression that might anchor me to the world of the familiar. They regarded me with a kind of vacant amusement, the look of someone who has encountered an insect on its back, legs flailing uselessly. "Tell me, duke," he said — and his voice carried the weight of an answer I had not yet received — "how significant do you think your presence is?" I tried to respond, but there was no air, no voice. The pressure against my chest was total, as though some invisible hand had pressed me into the earth, unwilling to let me rise again. My breath came in shallow gasps, and yet the weight remained unmoved by my suffering, uninterested in my despair. My silence, it seemed, had been anticipated. "As I expected," he said, and the words fell around me like dust, insignificant yet final. I closed my eyes then, exhausted, relinquishing myself to the futility of struggle. My vision blurred; the sound of his feet moving away grew fainter. When I opened my eyes again — if, indeed, they were ever truly open — he was gone.
But the weight remained.
When I awoke, I found myself precisely where I had been before, though the weight upon me had grown unbearable. I observed with strange detachment as the carpet beneath me darkened, its color absorbing the essence that seeped from me. Was it my essence? The thought barely registered, lost amid the oppressive haze that encased my mind. My head swam; consciousness came and went like an indifferent tide. I felt pity—not only for myself but for the pitiable fact of my existence. The weight that pressed upon me seemed not only physical but symbolic, as if life itself had taken tangible form and was intent on extinguishing me. My breath faltered, my ribs a cruel prison that closed in ever tighter. Each sensation was sharp, meticulous, undeniable. I felt it all: the crushing force, the slow collapse of my body, the clarity of my impotence. Yet, even in that moment, I did nothing. Or perhaps I could do nothing. The distinction seemed irrelevant. I lay there, watching my life flicker faintly, like an image projected onto a surface too uneven to render it fully. Tears rolled down my face, though I could not say for whom they fell—me, or the world that allowed this moment to exist.
My final act was no act at all, merely the slow dimming of a futile light. My awareness waned, and the tears on my cheek cooled. Darkness enveloped me, vast and indifferent. The weight did not lift. It had no need to. Helplessness was my inheritance, and I carried it with me into the abyss. In the suffocating darkness, a voice emerged, cold and detached: “Where have you come from?” The words echoed within me, but I had no answer. Where had I come from? I thought to myself, and perhaps I replied, though I couldn't be sure. My lips moved weakly, the sound barely escaping: “Who... who is it?”
“Belphegor,” the voice answered. The name struck me, a vague tremor of recognition reverberating in the hollows of my mind. It was frightening how familiar it felt, like a forgotten melody that both soothed and unnerved. I had never known my mother or father, not truly. My grandfather had raised me, along with Sebastian. My mother’s face was a faint blur, remembered only in flashes of an argument, the shattering of glass, and the empty silence that followed. After that, she and my father disappeared from my life as though they'd never existed, his name reminded me of that incident oddly.
“And why do you think that?” the voice pressed.
Why, indeed? Was it my fault? The thought clawed at me. I couldn't answer. The silence that followed was a judgment of its own. “Perhaps it was,” the voice continued, its tone measured and cruel. “I expected more of you, Michael—Duke, son, failure. We only call the worthy, after all. Do you know, I even suggested your name? But now, seeing you like this, I can only feel disappointment. Deeply unfortunate.” Instead, I had let the moments pass, watching them decay into nothing. My chest tightened, and I felt the crushing weight of my own inadequacy pressing me to the floor. The realization crept in like a shadow growing larger and darker: it wasn’t just guilt that pinned me down—it was my failure made manifest, thick and suffocating, heavier than I could bear. And then it struck me, with a dreadful clarity that sapped the air from my lungs: the floor was not beneath me—I was the floor. I was the dirt, the ground, the unworthy foundation upon which others would tread. My failings had consumed me, hollowed me out, and left me lying here as nothing more than the sum of all my squandered chances.
I wanted to scream, but even that would have been too much to expect of myself.
My heart crumpled under the weight of those words, or perhaps it was already broken before they were spoken. If only I had reached out to my mother, called her once, just once. Perhaps she wouldn’t have left. If only I’d picked up the shards of broken glass. If only I had done something, anything. But I hadn’t.
I spent the last moments of my life, overflowing with regret. Mine has been a life of much shame, I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.
When I regained awareness, I found myself standing before another door. It loomed in front of me, grotesque and unyielding, its surface alive with vile engravings—a demon with immense, twisted horns carved in dark, unyielding oak. The craftsmanship was almost hypnotic, the details so vivid they seemed to writhe and shift in the faint, flickering light. Around the edges, topaz gleamed faintly, as though mocking the wood’s grim despair with its fleeting brilliance. I felt no connection to the body I inhabited. My limbs moved without my consent, stiff and mechanical, as though some unseen puppeteer controlled me. It wasn’t just that I had lost the ability to critically think; it was as if I had lost the right to even try. My thoughts were distant echoes, drowned in a haze that muffled every rational impulse. I moved forward, not out of will, but because it seemed the only option left, the only direction permitted. The door towered over me, oppressive and incomprehensible. Its grotesque engravings radiated an air of judgment, as though they had seen my innermost failures and now bore witness to my futile attempts to continue. Each step forward felt less like an act of progress and more like a surrender, as if the ground beneath my feet urged me on to some predetermined doom. I reached out a hand to the door—not by choice, but as though I were commanded by forces unknown, a cog in a vast and uncaring mechanism. My fingers touched the cold surface, and for a brief moment, I thought I felt the wood pulse under my skin, a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
Slowly, I opened the door.
V
Inner Beast vanquished
I walked into the room, a stark contrast to the last—seemingly normal, if such a thing existed here. At its center stood a long dinner table, its presence both commanding and grotesque. On one side were twelve chairs, each set with unnerving precision, their rigid backs facing me like silent sentinels. A lavish feast covered the table: roasted meats glistening under invisible light, fruits too vibrant to be real, and steaming dishes that exhaled an aroma so enticing it felt almost malevolent. On the opposite side of the twelve chairs was a single, solitary seat, lined with velvet fabric that seemed to drink in the surrounding shadows. The air was thick with temptation, the kind that pulls at the gut and whispers insidiously in the ear. My body rebelled against it, though. I felt no hunger, only an overwhelming aversion that clenched my stomach and turned my mouth dry. Still, I moved forward, drawn not by curiosity but by something deeper, something I dared not name. It was then that I saw him, a man seated at the table, devouring the endless feast before him. He ate with no regard for time or consequence, his movements grotesque in their monotony. He did not pause, did not breathe; he simply consumed, and consumed, and consumed. It felt as though he had always been eating and would continue forever, his existence defined by this singular, insatiable act.
The sight of the food sickened me. My nausea grew sharper with each step, cutting through the faint allure of the feast. Memories clawed their way into my mind, unbidden and unwelcome: the endless refrains of "eat more" that echoed in my ears, the ache of sitting at a table with a stomach that refused to comply, the cold nights I spent staring at myself in the mirror, scrutinizing every inch, every flaw, every imperfection. I moved forward because stopping felt unbearable. I glanced at the table, and only then noticed the nameplates set before the seats. Each bore an inscription, etched in gold with a reverence that felt misplaced. The gluttonous man sat beneath the name Beelzebub. The name resounded in my mind like a bell tolling in a void, familiar and dreadful. It tasted like all the nights I lay in bed, refusing to eat, my empty stomach gnawing at itself. It felt like every fever that wracked my body after yet another day of starvation disguised as discipline. It sounded like every whisper of self-loathing that hissed through the mirror, assuring me that no matter what I did, I would never be anything more than vermin in my own eyes. Beelzebub feasted without end, while I stood there, hollow and unwilling to partake. His name, his presence, his insatiable hunger—it was a mirror of my own despair, twisted and magnified until it encompassed everything. I kept walking, my eyes fixed forward, refusing to acknowledge the grotesque feast behind me. The food’s aroma clung to the air, invasive and cloying, but I pressed on. Just as I thought I had escaped the scene, the man, who had been silently gorging himself, spoke. “Funny, isn’t it?” His voice was hoarse yet steady, a rasp that seemed to scrape at something deep inside me. “Your greatest failures are always the ones you think are your proudest achievements. You walking away just confirmed my suspicion.” The words stopped me in my tracks, their weight hanging in the stale air. Slowly, as though drawn by an invisible force, I turned to face him. His eyes, small and sunken, glinted with a cruel amusement as bits of food dripped from his mouth. My chest tightened with a growing unease.
“Pardon?” I managed, the word barely audible, my voice faltering as confusion mixed with a creeping sense of dread.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, waving a hand dismissively, though his gaze never left mine. There was a glint of satisfaction in his expression, as though he had already unraveled more of me than I cared to admit. “Just the ramblings of a madman. Pay no mind.” He leaned back slightly in his chair, a caricature of leisure, his lips curling into a knowing smirk. The faint, rhythmic sound of his chewing resumed, an unnervingly steady backdrop to the stillness of the room. Unsure how to respond, I hummed a weak reply and turned away awkwardly, my feet shuffling forward in a disjointed rhythm. Each step felt heavier than the last, my thoughts tangled and restless. I tried to dismiss his words as nonsense, but they clung to me, lingering in the crevices of my mind like the oily residue of a bad dream.
His voice seemed to follow me, echoing softly, though he spoke no more. “Your greatest failures… proudest achievements…” The phrase repeated itself, twisting and warping in my mind, as if it sought to latch onto something I had tried to bury. The feast was behind me, but the weight of his gaze and his words pressed against my back, an unshakable reminder that I could not leave this room untouched.
I reached a long hallway, its walls stretching endlessly in either direction. My thoughts consumed me as I walked, looping in fragmented spirals, whispers of the past and fragments of the present intertwining. I hardly noticed when the corridor gave way to a threshold—doorless and unassuming. Without hesitation, I stepped through. The sight before me was overwhelming. A room filled to bursting with gold, artifacts that shimmered with an unnatural brilliance, and jewels that towered to the ceiling. It was as though the wealth of countless empires had been hoarded here, blinding in its sheer magnitude. I had grown up surrounded by riches, but this was beyond comprehension, a mockery of luxury. The brightness of the room seared my eyes, every glint of gold reflecting light that stabbed at my senses. I wanted to be awestruck, to feel elation at such a discovery. Instead, unease settled over me, heavy and suffocating.
Still, a small, selfish voice whispered in my mind: What if it were mine?
I wasn’t a kind person—empathy had always felt foreign, distant, inconvenient. Pleas for help often went unanswered, my indifference shielding me from their weight. And yet, I pitied myself. My pity for others had always been a hollow performance, but for myself, it was unrelenting, inexhaustible. I hesitated before stepping forward, climbing the precarious mountains of gold and silver. My hands reached out instinctively, pocketing a few coins and jewels. They felt heavy in my grasp, their weight oddly comforting, as though they tethered me to something tangible amidst this surreal nightmare. But as I turned to descend, my foot slipped. I tumbled, gold and silver scattering around me as I crashed down the mound. Pain shot through my body as I came to a halt, limbs aching and a dull throb in my ankle. I staggered upright, leaning heavily to one side, only for my balance to betray me. I fell backward and froze, staring upward in paralyzed disbelief. Above me, where the ceiling should have been, there was now only emptiness—an expanse of darkness that framed an enormous face. Its hollow eyes were vast, yawning voids, consuming everything they gazed upon. Its lips stretched into an eerie, unnatural smile, a grotesque parody of kindness that made my skin crawl. The giant leaned closer, its presence overwhelming, blotting out the light. Its hand—if it could be called that—descended, and before I could react, I was lifted effortlessly from the ground, caught like an insect in its grasp. The air grew thin as it brought me closer to its face, its expression unreadable, though its smile widened further.
“Human cute,” it rumbled, its voice an earthquake reverberating through my very bones.
Terror seized me, and I pleaded, the words spilling out incoherently, desperate. “Let me down!” I begged, again and again, my voice rising in pitch with each word. The creature obliged. It let me go. I fell hard, the impact a sickening crunch. Pain exploded in my side as something snapped—bone, cartilage, I couldn’t tell. I writhed on the ground, the agony radiating through me in waves, each sharper than the last. Above me, the giant loomed, its hollow eyes unblinking as it erupted into laughter. The sound was grotesque, a booming cacophony that shook the ground beneath me. It wasn’t laughter born of joy, but of cruelty, a sound that delighted in my suffering.
I lay there, broken and helpless, as the laughter echoed endlessly, reverberating in my mind long after it should have stopped.
At this moment, I thought I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There’s no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it’s sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.
When I came to, the pain was still there, sharp and relentless, though now dulled by a strange numbness that crept through my limbs. I couldn’t tell if it was my body adjusting to the agony or surrendering to it entirely. Blinking through the haze, I saw him—Dante. He crouched in front of me, his gaze fixed on me with an expression that feigned pity. It was the kind of look reserved for strangers in fleeting misfortune, hollow and perfunctory. A stranger might have paused to offer comfort before continuing on their way, but the emptiness in his eyes revealed how shallow his concern truly was. “You are paying your dues, Michael,” he said calmly, his voice carrying the weight of inevitability. A spark of defiance flared in me, dulling the pain momentarily. “I never did anything,” I exclaimed, my voice raw and trembling. “I kept to myself most of the time. I minded my own business. What’s wrong with that?” Dante’s expression didn’t change, his face a perfect mask of detachment. He tilted his head slightly, as though my words were a riddle he had already solved. “Being neutral to crimes,” he began, his tone sharp and unyielding, “is often worse than committing them. To see suffering, to witness injustice, and to do nothing—it is a kind of complicity. You will remain in the middle, forever. In limbo.”
His words struck like a physical blow, more piercing than the pain that wracked my body. Limbo. The word echoed in my mind, suffocating me with its implications. A place of neither absolution nor damnation, a space where nothing truly begins or ends. It was worse than punishment; it was absence, emptiness, an existence defined by the lack of resolution.
“It’s not fair,” I murmured, my voice breaking under the weight of despair.
Dante’s lips curled into the faintest hint of a smile, though it carried no warmth. “Fair?” he repeated, as though the concept itself were foreign, irrelevant. “Fairness has never been part of the design. You did not consider fairness when it was you the designer, did you?”
He stood then, his form towering above me. For a moment, he seemed to blend into the shadows, his presence more a force than a man. I wanted to protest, to scream at the injustice of it all, but my words failed me. All I could do was watch as he turned and disappeared, leaving me alone once more in the suffocating silence of my own failures. I found myself in front of another door, similar to the ones before, I reached out my hand and opened the door.
VI
An epitome of young mortals
It was roses, roses everywhere, scattered with a kind of deranged precision, mingled with a dark myrtle that seemed to choke the path rather than adorn it. I walked, as if compelled, and found a gazebo ahead, its wood weathered, but radiating an unnatural luminescence in the heavy afternoon light. Inside sat two figures, so impossibly beautiful they seemed unreal. No, not beautiful—terrible. The symmetry of their features, their calm repose—it all felt like a rebuke to my very existence. Their eyes were mismatched: one’s as blue and cold as the empty depths of a winter sky, the other’s a green that stirred an unbearable longing, like the shadowed forest of some unattainable childhood dream. Their skin, a golden tan, reflected the sunlight in a way that made it seem as though the light, unthinking, had chosen them alone to inhabit. Their hair, a mass of brown and hazel, fell with a carelessness that could not have been accidental. I felt the weight of their presence press against my ribs. They turned toward me. I had not realized I was approaching them, as if my steps were not my own. Their gaze pinned me in place, and then they smiled—warm, inviting, and as utterly indifferent as the sun. They gestured to a seat before them, and before I could refuse, I found myself sinking into it. A cup was pressed into my hand. Tea, or something like it.
I drank. Bitter at first, the taste lingered with a sweetness that was almost cloying. I glanced at their cups. Their tea shimmered with an allure mine lacked, though logic told me it must be the same. Yet no logic could overcome the gnawing certainty that theirs was better, that I was already missing something. The one with blue eyes spoke first. “I am Asmodeus,” he said, the name striking like a memory of childhood envy, of things withheld, of being outside and looking in. He turned to the other, who nodded faintly. “And he is Leviathan.” The name crawled under my skin, as if it had always been there, dormant, waiting for acknowledgment. Their smiles deepened. My pulse quickened, unbidden. With every word they spoke, I felt the familiar surge of despair, the one I had spent years learning to ignore: the envy of the loved, the yearning for the unattainable, the endless resentment toward the living. The memory of all the times I had wished to vanish, to become less than the air that now surrounded me.
I tried to speak, to ask something—anything—but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Leviathan tilted his head, a motion as subtle as it was crushing. “Drink,” Asmodeus urged, his voice like a whisper in my mind, as if he were pulling the words from my own thoughts. I obeyed without meaning to, and the sweetness clung to my throat. Their gazes never wavered. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of roses being crushed underfoot reached my ears, faint and fading, as though someone had walked away from the garden and left me behind.
I drained the tea without realizing it, the empty cup trembling slightly as I set it down. Leviathan’s eyes locked onto mine—green and endless, pulling me in like a tide from which I could not retreat. He spoke, his voice smooth and unrelenting, a question both simple and unbearable: “Why are you here?” The words struck like a bell tolling in an empty hall. Why was I here? The question, so obvious, suddenly consumed me. Worse still: How had I come here? My mind fumbled for an answer, scrabbling at the edges of memory only to find them smoothed over, impenetrable. There were roses, yes—roses scattered like the remnants of something broken, a path I’d followed without thought. Beyond that, nothing. But my body, traitorous, whispered of pain, though of what kind I could not say. My heart raced. My limbs refused to move. The silence stretched, my confusion spilling out like ink in water, visible, undeniable. They noticed. Of course, they noticed. Asmodeus chuckled softly, a sound like silk tearing, and Leviathan followed, their laughter low and cruel, dancing in the air between us. “Oh, look at him!” Asmodeus exclaimed, feigning astonishment, his lips curling into something that could not be called a smile. “So blissfully ignorant. So enviably unaware. You should have paid more attention.”
“Yes,” Leviathan chimed in, his tone both mocking and intimate, as if revealing a secret meant only for me. “And such lovely blonde hair. What a waste—it doesn’t suit you. Do you even deserve it?” He leaned forward, his gaze sharper now, dissecting. “Are you not the duke? Yes, the duke. What a life you must have led, ignoring the cries of the poor, stepping over the undeserving, deaf to their pleas.” Their words sliced through me, jagged and precise, yet I could not deny them. Their laughter overlapped now, a cruel symphony, not directed at me but through me, as though I were a mere conduit for their amusement. The air around us grew heavier, thick with their mockery. My lips moved, but no sound came. I wanted to protest, to ask what they meant—what I had done to deserve this—but my voice had abandoned me.
Asmodeus tilted his head, watching me with an expression I couldn’t parse—was it pity, or scorn? “Ah,” he said, “speechless. Perhaps he’s forgotten even that.”
Their laughter grew louder, echoing in the hollow of my chest. The roses outside, I suddenly realized, were wilting, their petals curling inward as if retreating from something unseen. And still, I sat, unable to move, unable to leave, their voices circling like vultures above some unseen carrion. I tried to remember. I tried. But the harder I thought, the further the truth seemed to slip away.
The tea burned in my chest, a fire that spread upward and refused to stop. My lungs heaved, each cough raking through me like claws. I gasped for air, but the room had none to offer—just the sound of my own ragged breath and the distorted laughter of Asmodeus and Leviathan. Tears filled my eyes, blurring their faces, but not enough to hide the grotesque delight etched into their features. They were smiling—no, sneering. The edges of their faces stretched and twisted, their beauty unraveling into something unbearable.
Then, nothing.
When I opened my eyes again, I was elsewhere. The suffocating heat of the tea was gone, replaced by a cool breeze that played through my hair. Above me, a vast expanse of blue—deep and endless, speckled with faint stars. The moon hung low, its light shimmering on the surface of a lake that stretched out before me. The air was still, serene, the kind of silence that felt at once soothing and heavy, as though it pressed lightly against my skin. I stood, unsteady, and took in the scene. My breath came slowly now, deeply, as though I were inhaling the tranquility itself. For the first time in what felt like years, I bent down and plucked a flower growing by the water’s edge. Its petals were soft, almost unreal.
I wanted to stay here. Forever.
As I gazed into the lake, the water gleamed like polished glass, and I saw myself reflected there—only, it wasn’t me, not quite. The face staring back was familiar but impossibly whole, untouched by failure or grief. The eyes were brighter, the skin unlined. It was me, but a version of me I had never been able to reach. I couldn’t look away. I dipped my hand into the water, the surface cool against my skin. The ripples broke the reflection, warping that better self into something fluid, fleeting. My fingers moved in slow circles, and I felt a pull—not physical, but undeniable. Without thinking, I stepped into the lake. The water embraced me, cool and refreshing, its touch like a balm against the weight of memory. I waded further, feeling lighter with each step. Around me, the world seemed to hold its breath, as if I had entered a space that existed apart from everything else.
Here, there was no pain. Here, the failures that had defined me dissolved like mist in the morning sun. I felt as though I had stumbled into Eden itself, a garden that asked for nothing, that welcomed me without condition. Yet, beneath the tranquility, something lingered. A shadow in the corner of my mind, a whisper that I could not quite make out. It pressed lightly against the edges of my contentment, a reminder that peace, too, can carry its own kind of weight.
The guilt came suddenly, crashing down on me with the weight of inevitability. It pressed into my chest, heavier than the water that now lapped against my skin. I was not meant to be here. I was not deserving of this beauty, this tranquil expanse that welcomed me so unconditionally. And yet, I coveted it—I wanted to remain here, to claim this paradisio as my own. That desire, sharper and more insistent than I could bear, revealed itself as an accusation. I would kill for this place, I realized. I blinked, and the world began to change. The moon, once pale and soft, glowed crimson, casting its eerie light across the lake. The water turned dark beneath me, red as blood, its stillness shattered by something unseen. On the shore, the flowers I had admired withered, their petals curling inward like hands retreating from my touch. I was the cause—I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. My presence was a curse, a walking omen of decay. I looked around, expecting nothing but disappointment, and found it in abundance. The serene sky, now stained with streaks of red, refused me its comfort. I reached upward—not in hope, but in resignation. My arms stretched toward the heavens as though to pull myself from this nightmare, yet I knew there was no escape. I had no will left to be confused, or frightened, or even surprised. Emotions were for others. I had given up on them entirely.
All that remained was surrender.
I lay back, allowing myself to drift on the surface of the now-bloodied lake, its stillness broken only by the faint ripple of my movement. The water, once a mirror of perfection, had become a reflection of my corruption. I saw it clearly now. I was the disease. I had tainted not only my life but the lives of those around me. I had been given everything—resources, privilege, the tools to cultivate a garden of beauty and life. And yet, I had chosen to be the rot, the blight that consumed it all. As these thoughts weighed on me, the crimson water began to rise, creeping into my mouth, my nose. I felt it—no, it was not water anymore, but something thicker, warmer. Blood. It seeped into my lungs, filling them with a sickly warmth that carried no air.
I did not struggle. What was the point?
I let myself sink, the surface above growing dimmer, the crimson moon a distant memory. The weight of my own guilt dragged me down, deeper into the lake’s red embrace. My limbs grew heavy, my vision blurred. Somewhere, I thought I could hear the faint sound of laughter, or perhaps weeping. It didn’t matter. The last thing I felt was the blood—thick and unrelenting—filling me completely, and then, nothing.
When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by the sight of yet another door. For a moment, I stared at it, unblinking, my mind empty of anything resembling thought. I sighed—a sound that escaped without effort, as though it belonged more to the air around me than to my body. So it wasn’t over. Of course, it wasn’t over. There was no end to this. The door stood before me, towering, its surface glinting faintly in the dim light that seemed to emanate from nowhere in particular. It was familiar, though I could not say why. Its carvings were elaborate, intricate lines winding and twisting into shapes that seemed almost alive. Gold traced every edge, but the opulence only served to highlight the grotesque figure carved at its center—a demon, its face twisted into a snarl that might have been pain or mockery. Its eyes, rendered in ruby, glinted as though aware of my presence, watching, waiting.
I hesitated. My hand hovered inches from the cold surface, trembling slightly, though not from fear. No, fear had long since left me, replaced by a dull resignation that pressed against my chest like a stone. The weight of it was familiar now, almost comforting in its constancy. Slowly, I reached out, my fingers brushing against the door. The carvings felt sharper than they should, the ridges biting into my skin as if resisting my touch. Still, I pressed on, curling my fingers around the handle, cold and unyielding. And I opened the door.
VII
Presently, Beneath a shared sky of stars
This time, I found myself under a sea of stars. They stretched endlessly above me, their light sharp and cold, each one suspended in the void as though pinned there by an unseen hand. The constellations were vivid—so prominent and clear that I imagined I could name every one, tracing their shapes with my finger as though they would respond to my touch. The air was still, heavy with an almost reverent quiet. Beneath my feet, the grass swayed gently, though there was no wind. I walked forward, my steps hesitant at first, then steady. The ground beneath me felt soft, yet unyielding, as though it recognized my presence but offered me no comfort. The plains stretched on, a vast expanse of glasslands that gleamed faintly under the light of the stars. There was nothing here, nothing to distract or comfort, only the vastness of the sky above and the unbroken grass below. The moon loomed high, its brilliance commanding and oppressive. It shone with a light that demanded attention, outshining the stars, forcing them into pale submission. I lay down on the grass. There was nothing else to do. The blades pressed against my back, cool and damp, as I stared up at the sky. The constellations swirled together, their intricate patterns shifting with a fluidity that made me question if they had ever been fixed at all. I wanted to look at them forever, to lose myself in their immensity. And yet, the longer I gazed, the more the stars seemed to withdraw, their light growing faint and uncertain. The moon remained, its brilliance undiminished, yet I could not shake the feeling that it, too, was watching me. The weight of the sky pressed down, as though the vastness above could smother me in its indifference.
I closed my eyes, but the stars remained, etched onto the inside of my eyelids, refusing to let me forget them.
I awoke in the same place, though the passage of time was elusive, as though the moments had congealed into an indistinct haze. The rest I had stolen from the oppressive world brought me only a semblance of reprieve, like a flickering candle in an infinite void. In the distance, my eyes discerned a tower—a faint, jagged silhouette stabbing at the heavens with desperate ambition. Something about it unsettled me, as if it mocked the futility of all earthly endeavor, yet I found myself compelled to approach it. The journey stretched interminably, an eternal pilgrimage through a barren landscape that neither welcomed nor rebuked me. My footsteps carried me forward, though I could not recall when I began or if I had ever truly stopped. By the time I reached the tower's base, the moon hung static in the sky, its pale light suffusing the structure with an eerie pallor. The tower defied comprehension, an edifice so vast and intricate it seemed less the product of human hands than a cruel aberration of nature. Within, a spiral staircase coiled upward, an invitation both banal and sinister. Without understanding why, I began to climb. The steps seemed endless, each ascent punctuated by a growing sense of futility, as if I were not rising at all but circling endlessly within the same confined space. My legs burned; my chest ached; and yet I climbed, driven by an imperative I could not name.
At last, I emerged into the open air. The summit was not a summit at all but merely a staging ground for yet more construction, a place where scaffoldings reached higher and higher into the void, an infinite labor with no discernible end. And there, amid the skeletal latticework, stood a man. His wings, though once resplendent, were now a mockery of their former glory—charred at the edges, their feathers darkened and frayed. His hair, a disheveled mop of dirty gold, caught the moonlight in a way that seemed to illuminate him yet left his expression inscrutable. He regarded me not as one regards a fellow being but as one studies a passing shadow, with neither recognition nor malice. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words dissolved before they could form, leaving only the unending silence between us.
He turned to me, and our eyes met briefly—his gaze heavy with an unspeakable sorrow that seemed less personal than universal, the quiet desolation of someone long resigned to a task without end. His eyes were hollow, not from emptiness but from a weight too great to bear. It was not merely exhaustion; it was an erosion of spirit. And yet, he continued his work, laying one brick after another with the mechanical precision of a man who has forgotten the meaning of choice. For a moment, I stood transfixed, paralyzed by the absurdity of the scene before me. Why did he continue? Was it duty, compulsion, or something deeper, something I could not understand? The silence pressed down on me, thick and oppressive, and I was overcome with an inexplicable urge—one I could not tell if it was born of compassion or shame. Perhaps it was both, or perhaps neither. I knew only that the sight of him laboring, unacknowledged and unseen, was unbearable.
Before I realized what I was doing, I reached for a brick, fumbling with its weight as though it resisted me. My hands trembled—not with fear but with the unfamiliar sensation of action, of doing rather than thinking. I had spent my life locked within the labyrinth of my own mind, circling endlessly among possibilities, dissecting intentions until they withered and died. But now, in this moment, something stirred within me, a fleeting spark of what others might call confidence. It was a strange and alien feeling, like wearing a borrowed coat that did not fit. Yet, for all its awkwardness, it compelled me forward. The act of lifting that single brick felt monumental, as though it threatened to collapse the fragile edifice of who I was. And still, I placed it where it belonged, aligning it awkwardly beside the others. It was no masterpiece; it was barely an effort. But it was something. The man did not acknowledge me. He did not glance in my direction, nor did his hands falter in their relentless task. Yet, as I stood there, a peculiar sensation crept over me—a realization that my gesture, no matter how earnest, had no bearing on the immensity of the work or the infinite stretch of the tower. It was not hope I felt then but the curious absence of despair. For the first time, I did not question what it meant to help; I simply helped.
I picked up a brick, my fingers brushing the coarse surface as if it might reveal some hidden truth. Mimicking his movements, I began to lay it as he had done, one after another, the task strangely hypnotic in its monotony. I lost count after the eighth brick, my mind dulling under the rhythm. And then, he spoke. “You are not doing it right,” he said, his voice sudden and sharp, cutting through the silence like a blade. I flinched at the sound, my hands freezing mid-motion. It was not merely the volume but the tone—an authority so absolute it left no room for question or doubt. I raised my head slowly, meeting his gaze with what must have been a pitiable expression, my shame manifest in the tremble of my voice. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, each word like a stone in my throat. “I only wanted to help.” His wings shifted slightly, their charred edges crackling in the moonlight as if they bore the weight of an unseen wind. He regarded me with something that might have been contempt, or perhaps indifference—a look that reduced me to less than a shadow. “Well, I did not ask you to,” he said, his voice colder now, stripped of even the pretense of civility. “Nothing you can do is ever right. My goals are far beyond your trivial existence.”
I recoiled inwardly at his words, their weight pressing down on me like the stones of the tower itself. Yet he continued, each syllable a deliberate hammer stroke against my fragile sense of self. “I seek to reach the heavens, and with you laying such weak bricks, I reckon the tower just might fall.” He paused, the final word hanging in the air like an unspoken verdict. “Human.” The way he said it—human—was not merely a descriptor but a condemnation, an indictment of my very nature. I felt my body shrink beneath the label, as though his pronouncement had stripped me of any pretense of worth. My hands, still clutching the rough edges of a brick, now seemed absurdly small and clumsy, as if they belonged to someone else entirely.
For a moment, I considered dropping the brick, stepping away from the tower, and retreating into the shadows. But the weight of his gaze held me in place, pinning me to the spot like a specimen under glass. I could not move; I could not speak. I could only stand there, trapped between the impossibility of helping and the futility of walking away.
As I placed the brick down, the tower shuddered beneath us. A sudden gale arose, howling through the scaffolding and whipping the skeletal structure into a chaotic sway, as though the heavens themselves mocked its ambitions. The tower bent and groaned like a frail tree caught in a tempest, each stone quivering as if it yearned to break free from its precarious arrangement. The man froze, his hands hovering mid-air before descending into frantic motion. His composure fractured, and a low muttering escaped his lips—half prayer, half curse. “No… No… Not again,” he whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and fury, the words tumbling out as if addressing some unseen tormentor. I stood there, bracing myself against the wind, the absurdity of the moment crystallizing in my mind. “You have not laid a proper foundation for the building,” I said, my voice louder than I intended, though it was carried away almost immediately by the howling wind.
He turned to me sharply, his eyes ablaze with an anger so intense it seemed almost otherworldly. His wings flared, the burned edges crackling with a faint, luminous energy. His expression was no longer merely that of a man; it was something ancient and feral, a being whose authority had been challenged in the most intolerable way. “I am Lucifer,” he roared, his voice a thunderclap that seemed to silence even the wind for a moment. “God’s right-hand man.” He advanced toward me, his shadow stretching impossibly long under the moonlight, his presence overwhelming. “Do not think your wisdom is higher than mine,” he spat, each word a venomous strike. Yet his declaration did nothing to calm the chaos around us. The tower swayed more violently now, stones shifting in their places, the scaffoldings creaking under the strain. It was as though the very structure recoiled from his arrogance, the weight of his ambition too great for it to bear. For the first time, I saw something beneath his fury—a glimmer of desperation, a hint that his confidence was not as unshakable as he proclaimed. And yet, I could not move, could not speak. I could only watch as the tower and the man who sought to conquer the heavens teetered on the brink of collapse.
“If you wanted to go back so badly, why did you disobey him?” I asked, my voice firm, though I did not know where I found the strength to confront him. The question lingered in the air like a challenge, and for a moment, he was still. His fury, already volatile, seemed to ignite further, his wings trembling as though with the effort to contain himself. But his expression faltered, a fleeting crack in the mask of divine authority.
“My motives are far beyond the comprehension of mortals,” he said, the words strained, as if dragged from the depths of his being. It was not an answer but a retreat, a desperate attempt to preserve the veneer of infallibility. “At least, do it right,” I said, the words escaping my lips unbidden, as though some force outside myself compelled them into existence. The absurdity of speaking such simple truths to one who claimed dominion over heaven struck me, yet it felt necessary, vital.
And then, the tower began to crumble.
The bricks fell first, one by one, then in torrents. The scaffolding groaned and buckled, collapsing into the abyss of its own ambition. The wind roared in triumph, tearing through the fragile skeleton of the structure. Amidst the chaos, I felt an odd satisfaction, a sense that this was how it was always meant to end. As the ground beneath me gave way, I fell with the bricks, tumbling through the air in a moment of chaotic solace. The stars spun above me, indifferent and eternal, their cold light a silent witness to my descent. My eyes closed, and I waited for the inevitable impact. When it came, the pain was immediate and absolute. My body shattered beneath the weight of the rubble, each bone splintering with an awful finality. I could not move. I could not scream. The tower buried me in its failure, its collapse a monument to my helplessness. Time passed—or perhaps it did not. The moon changed its phase above me, waxing and waning as I lay trapped beneath the stone. My voice was silent, my body immobile, but my mind remained, tethered to the unbearable weight of existence. At first, the pain was overwhelming, an omnipresent force that consumed all thought. But as the eons stretched on, I found a strange comfort in it, a mutual understanding. The pain became my companion, the only constant in my unending solitude. It anchored me, even as it confined me.
And yet, as I lay there, staring into the indifferent sky, a deeper truth began to take shape within me. This was not a new state but merely a reflection of what had always been. I had been buried long before the tower fell, entombed by my own arrogance, my refusal to accept the hands extended toward me. I had always been lonely, though I had refused to see it, cloaking my isolation in pride, rejecting words of good intention simply because I believed I knew better. Now, there was no pretense left, no escape from the reality I had built for myself. The rubble was not my prison; I was. And the stars above, distant and unreachable, shone down as if to remind me of the vastness of the void I had tried, and failed, to overcome.
When I came to, it was yet in front of another door, but this one had blood all over it splattered in order to create an absurd painting. The handle felt warm under my touch, I twisted it slowly, and opened the door.
VIII
A collection of desires
The world I entered was a furnace, a vast expanse that seemed to mock the very idea of life. Flames roared unchecked, devouring everything in sight. Rivers of lava carved their relentless paths through the desolation, their crimson glow casting flickering shadows that danced like tormentors. The heat pressed down upon me, searing my skin and filling each breath with fire, my lungs protesting with every scalding inhalation. I was parched beyond reason, my thirst consuming me until I felt less a man than a beast driven solely by the need to find water. I stumbled forward, the ground beneath me blistering even through my worn soles, each step a battle against the overwhelming urge to collapse. And then, through the haze of heat and despair, I saw it—a plain of unending fire, stretching into a horizon that seemed to tremble under the weight of its own flames.
And there, at its center, it stood.
The creature was grotesque beyond description, a hulking monstrosity larger than the grandest merchant ships that had once graced distant seas. It moved on all fours, each limb as thick as a tree trunk and clawed like an instrument of divine retribution. Its maw, cavernous and dripping with the remains of its grim feast, chewed methodically on what could only be the damned—their faces contorted in an agony that seemed eternal. I froze. My body refused to move, paralyzed by the sheer incomprehensibility of what lay before me. Words fail me here, reader, for no language can capture the horror of that moment. I neither lived nor died, caught in a liminal state where being itself felt like an affliction. I was deprived of all, and in that deprivation, I became nothing. Think for yourself what such a state might entail; I cannot guide you further. The creature seemed at once insentient and omniscient, a paradox of awareness. It was like a tree rooted in its soil, drawing sustenance and knowing it instinctively, yet blind to its own nature. Its gaze, if it could be called that, fixed upon me, and in its depths, I saw a knowing that was not knowledge, a presence that defied all understanding. It growled, a sound that reverberated through the very ground and into my bones. “Michael… Oh, how you’ve come so far,” it said, its voice a rumble of thunder and ash. “I’d almost thought you gave up.” I blinked, the words sinking in like stones dropped into a bottomless well. There was an option to give up? The question hung in my mind, absurd and unbearable. Was my suffering not inevitable? Had I misunderstood, all this time, the nature of my plight? The creature laughed then, a roar that shook the very fires around us, as though the plains themselves shared in its amusement. It was not a laugh of joy or even mockery but something deeper, a sound that seemed to arise from the cruel heart of existence itself. I stood there, silent and still, as the laughter rolled on, as though I were nothing more than a shadow cast by its immense and terrible form. It did not stop. Its massive jaws continued their relentless work, grinding flesh and bone with a detached precision, as though it had long ceased to distinguish between its victims. The sound was rhythmic, mechanical, and horrifyingly indifferent. It did not even glance at me, though I stood before it like a petitioner before an unyielding throne. For a moment, I thought it might never acknowledge me at all, that my presence might dissolve into the fire and ash without a trace. But then it spoke, its voice low and resonant, as though emerging not from its throat but from the very ground beneath me. “You may go ahead,” it said, each word delivered with a weight that felt utterly impersonal. “I have no words to tell you.”
And that was all.
There was no explanation, no rebuke, no condemnation—nothing to frame my presence in any meaningful way. The creature continued its task, as if the act of speaking had been nothing more than an instinctive reflex, as unremarkable to it as a breath would be to me. I stood there, my thoughts churning, reaching out desperately for meaning in its words. But they offered no foothold, no insight. They were a door that opened to nothing. Its silence swallowed me, as if I had been dismissed not by choice but by the absence of need.
And as I stood, unmoving, I realized that its indifference was more terrifying than any malice.
I turned away, my steps hesitant at first, then more deliberate. Each movement felt like an act of defiance, though I could not say against what—against the beast, the landscape, or perhaps my own inability to grasp the meaning of it all.
But then it came.
The ground beneath me shuddered violently, a force so immense that it felt as though the entire world had convulsed in anger. The beast had stomped one of its colossal legs, the motion casual, almost thoughtless, yet the effect was devastating. A deafening crack reverberated through the cavern, and the red-stone ceiling above began to crumble, massive slabs falling like judgment from the heavens.
Before I could react, the ground gave way beneath me.
I plunged into the abyss, the heat rising to meet me like a living thing, consuming me before I even reached the molten depths. The lava embraced me, searing away the boundaries of my body, each nerve alight with a pain so intense that it defied understanding. I was no longer a person; I was an agony, suspended in fire. Above me, the beast's laughter echoed, deep and mocking, its voice cutting through the roar of the collapsing world. “You did not really think it was that easy, did you?” it taunted, the words heavy with disdain. “How naïve...” The sound of its amusement followed me as I fell deeper into the inferno, a reminder that my suffering was not incidental but intentional. The pain became my only companion, its presence absolute and unrelenting. And yet, even through the torment, a thought clawed its way to the surface of my mind: Why had I expected anything else? The beast’s words were not a revelation but a confirmation of something I had known all along, though I had refused to admit it. There was no escape, no resolution. Only this descent, endless and consuming, into the fire. When I came to, I was sprawled on the parched rocks, my body still smoldering from the torment. The heat clung to my skin like a punishment that refused to end. My fury burned hotter than the fires around me—not that it mattered. Wrath against the beast was as futile as shouting into the void, but the deceit festered within me, a wound that would not close. I kicked a rock in frustration. It skittered across the barren ground before tumbling into the lava below, disappearing with a quiet hiss. The smallness of the act only deepened my rage, as if the entire world conspired to remind me of my insignificance.
Then I felt it—a hand on my shoulder. I froze, my mind scrambling to reconcile the touch with the desolation around me. When I turned, I saw him. Dante. He stood there, calm and composed, as though he belonged to this infernal landscape as much as the rocks and fire. His expression was neither warm nor cold, but something in between, like a man who has long since accepted the absurdity of what he has witnessed. “How have you been?” he asked, his tone casual, as though this were a meeting on some quiet street rather than amidst the ruins of hell itself. “I’m not sure…” I replied, the words slipping out before I could think them through. They felt insufficient, hollow, as though I were speaking from a place that no longer belonged to me. Dante nodded, as if this answer were expected. He removed his hand, his gaze drifting toward the endless flames. “It is always like this,” he said, more to himself than to me. “You fall, and you burn. You rise, and you question. And all the while, the fire continues.”
I stared at him, the anger within me flickering uncertainty. “But the beast…” I began, though I could not finish the thought. Dante’s eyes returned to mine, sharp and knowing. “The beast deceives,” he said simply. “It is what it does. And you believed it.” I wanted to argue, to explain that it wasn’t my fault, that I had no reason to doubt. But the words caught in my throat, swallowed by the oppressive heat. Somewhere deep inside, I knew Dante was right. “What have you learned so far?” Dante asked, his voice drifting as though it belonged to someone else, someone I might have known long ago.
“That I ceased being the moment my parents disappeared,” I said, the words tumbling out like something rehearsed but never quite understood. “Physically, I suppose I died while opening the envelopes.”
“And?”
“I’ll never see the light again,” I continued, staring past him into the vague gray nothingness, “but that no longer matters. All I want is peace.”
Dante tilted his head slightly, as though inspecting the weight of my words. “So be it,” he said at last.
Then I was before another door. It loomed there, a rectangle of red wood that stood apart from the shapeless expanse surrounding it. Unlike the others, it was plain—no flourishes, no engravings, no grotesque ornamentation. It was, in its simplicity, disconcertingly familiar.
It was me.
I stood there, hand suspended in the air, waiting for hesitation to arrive. But this time, it did not come. My fingers closed around the cold brass handle.
And I opened it.
IX
Came a masquerade of the guilty
I found myself in my study. The air was heavy, as though the room itself resisted my presence. My eyes fell on the desk, where my own lifeless body slumped over, a black envelope clutched in its stiff fingers. Sebastian entered, his movements frantic, as though each step carried the weight of duty rather than concern. He called out, his voice echoing in a room that seemed to absorb sound rather than reflect it. He shook my body, his hands gripping my shoulders with an urgency that bordered on desperation. But I knew—deep inside, where truths too bitter to acknowledge reside—that he wished me gone. He had always wished me gone. This was my reality. Not a nightmare to wake from, but the sum total of my existence. I was the unwelcome guest in every room, the shadow that darkened even the dimmest corners. My life had been a series of failures, strung together like beads on a thread too weak to hold them. I succeeded only in proving my inadequacy, my talent lying solely in the effort to fail as completely as possible.
I was less than vermin.
From the next room came the sound of shattering glass, a discordant note in the grim symphony of my thoughts. I knew what awaited me. I had always known.
Still, I stepped into the next room.
There they were, my mother and father, their faces contorted with rage and despair. They stood in the dim light, locked in the same argument that had replayed in my mind for years, the prelude to their final act. Their words were sharp and meaningless, ricocheting off walls that seemed to lean in closer, hungry for the drama. I watched as an observer and a participant, powerless to intervene. Was I the cause? Had I, in my existence, been the crack that spread through the foundation of their lives? A curse, a jinx, an unwelcome weight they could no longer bear? I wanted to speak, to scream, to break the cycle. But I remained silent, bound by the knowledge that nothing would change.
I turned to Dante, searching his face for answers, for something to stitch together the tattered fragments of my understanding. But his expression was unyielding, a mirror reflecting nothing but my own inadequacy. Of course. He was no separate being. He was me—my mind, stripped of pretense and clothed in a form I could not ignore. He knew only what I knew, yet he seemed to carry the weight of what I refused to admit. Dante didn’t speak; he didn’t have to. His silence bore the unmistakable weight of inevitability. Whatever conclusions he had drawn were mine to inherit. I felt the futility of my attempts to resist him, a truth that would not bend to my will. And then, as if fulfilling a purpose he’d never needed to explain, Dante began to dissolve. First his edges blurred, then his form faded entirely, leaving me alone in the room that wasn’t a room, surrounded by walls that pulsed faintly, as though alive.
When I turned again, I found myself standing before a door. It was already open.
The sight unsettled me. There was no lock to turn, no handle to grasp—no choice to be made. The door yawned wide, indifferent to whether I stepped through or lingered behind. It was an invitation and an ultimatum, though I could not tell the difference between the two.
I made my way to the serene location, though the word itself felt like a lie. Serenity suggested something whole, something untouched by the chaos that gnawed at the edges of existence. Still, I sat down and let the stillness envelop me, an imperfect silence that echoed with all that had passed. This always happens to me, I thought. Always in this way. The pattern was as unyielding as it was absurd, a script written in a language I would never fully understand. Now, dear reader, this place is mine. Not by merit, nor by design, but simply because I found it—or perhaps it found me. I hope you will discover your own, though I know it is not guaranteed. These spaces exist, but they are capricious in their mercy. No matter how undeserving you feel, let it be yours. For me, peace is a specter, something that hovers at the edge of my vision but never draws close. It is not for me, and I have made my uneasy truce with that truth. Whatever has transpired so far, let it be understood as my reckoning, my attempt to settle a long-overdue account. I owed this to the world—or perhaps to myself—and the debt has been paid.
You, however, remain alive. You move, you breathe, you persist. Let that be enough, though it rarely feels like it is. Existence demands no justification; it merely unfolds, indifferent to your desire for meaning or certainty. For no wonder, the devil disguises himself as an angel of light. How else would you bear to follow? The brightest paths often lead to the darkest places, their glow a trap for those who crave clarity. I have learned this truth not through revelation, but through weariness—through the weight of choices made and doors opened.
It is the nature of things to deceive, to wear masks so finely crafted that you mistake them for faces. Perhaps even this serene location, this place I have claimed as mine, is no more than a façade, a fleeting reprieve from the storm within. Still, I sit here, not in peace but in resignation. And you—alive, moving, breathing—might yet find something I never could. Perhaps it will be enough. Or perhaps you will find yourself, as I have, staring into the light only to see shadows behind it.
Two worlds aflame, the crimson night fades. - Micheal Kaiser
By Diva Malviya
just loved the story!!!!
Wow, very well written. It’s as if franz Kafka himself descended and wrote this… just wow !!! 🤩
I loved the story its amazing, very very heartwarming💗💗
That's an awesome story, the ending is mind blowing. i love the concept of the story.. keep up the good work 👍🙂
beautiful