Upon a bed of endless frost, the world seemed to hold its breath.
He lay face-up, his back pressed against the frozen tundra, motionless, staring at the convulsing firmament.
A vortex of clouds spun with unnatural slowness, carving spirals torn by soundless lightning—
as if the universe were still deciding the color of its own fury.
The air sliced like a blade, and yet, the first thing to fall was not snow, nor ice...
but a piece of worn cloth.
A tattered mantle, dragged by the impending storm, descended as if the sky itself were offering it.
It settled on his face with mocking softness, stirring an instinctive reaction.
<
<
A guttural whistle swept across the tundra, like the whisper of a sleeping god.
The ice cracked with subtle yet ferocious sounds. <
as if each falling flake carried a torn note from a dying climatic symphony.
His fingers trembled faintly.
Then, with more strength.
Then, the entire arm.
As he turned his right arm, he saw the marks.
Three, aligned.
Cuts, carvings, symbols... he didn’t know.
Only that they bled with dispassionate calm.
The same on the left.
Red, violet, green, blue...
the blood seemed to follow codes he couldn’t comprehend.
It stung, yes.
But the pain had no name.
The cold was a fact, but suffering...
had yet to be taught to him.
His eyes, still clouded by the haze of his mind, focused on the horizon.
And there they were.
Two black holes hung from the sky like silent warnings,
devouring stars with dreadful elegance.
They emitted no light.
They emitted purpose.
A cruel, impossible pull.
Distant… but not that far.
Inaccessible… yet visible.
Like bait dangling from the abyss,
offered only to those unafraid of losing themselves.
<
<
<
The snow began to fall.
Instinctively, he covered himself with the mantle.
He didn’t know why—
but something within him—something buried beneath hundreds of former lives, perhaps—
knew he had to move.
Not to escape.
Not to hide.
To advance.
The storm roared in silence,
and he took the first step,
like one who doesn’t know their story but carries the weight of every sudden stride.
Following a blind instinct to keep going,
he walked and walked,
with no guide but the muffled rhythm of his own footsteps.
His eyes barely rose above the strange glow radiating from his boots,
as if they still held fragments of some forgotten light.
And every time he dared to look up,
he noticed the land shifting:
distant mountains,
colossal shadows veiled by the storm,
their mass concealing the light spilled from the sky’s dark bodies.
There were no signs.
No promises.
Only the blind determination to reach something,
anything that felt like shelter.
With each step, the world and his body unraveled:
the thirst,
the hunger,
the cold...
but not fear.
Never fear.
And so, climbing the final summit—
a frozen dune that tore his last breaths from him—
his eyes opened with a different clarity:
before him,
a fissure.
A deep canyon breaking the world’s randomness.
A wound in the earth that carved a path—
a direction toward that turbulent sky that placed the impossible before his eyes.
The storm stilled inside him.
The wind was no longer wind.
The cold no longer so cold.
And in his chest, for the first time, something trembled:
a raw, unfamiliar emotion…
curiosity.
And without thinking, without even understanding,
he took the next step.
Then another.
And another… and another.
Steps like silent prayers cast into a fate still without a name.
A step toward something.
And suddenly… he stumbled.
The terrain shifted—slick, treacherous.
But it wasn’t the stone that unbalanced him...
It was the image before his eyes.
A fragment in his mind overlaid reality and dragged him into a spectral scene.
A mental fissure, flashing like lightning from the deepest pit:
a memory—his?—
or perhaps a distorted mirror of what dwelled within.
—Everything went dark.—
—Utterly.—
No wind. No cold. No sound.
Only a black abyss contained between blinks.
Then, the space inhaled: <
A faint vapor rose from the invisible ground.
His vision began to blur.
He noticed it—he felt it crawling down his throat.
It was there, even if unseen.
He saw himself.
He recognized the markings on his arms.
Trapped.
Enclosed within a living circle of steel—
a ceremonial round board breathing impossible geometries, drenched in his blood.
White-metal shackles gripped his limbs.
His torn skin bled crimson,
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marking the sigil of his prison.
And amidst the torment…
he—the other him—
was watching him.
Furious.
Bloodstained.
Awake.
The reflection looked straight into his eyes.
And for a moment… it smiled.
Not mockingly, but with certainty.
As if it knew something he didn’t—
As if that smile said:
"Something has changed."
The fear shook him.
Suddenly, he pulled away from the man—
the space between them stretched wide,
as if inviting him to witness something.
In the middle of an icy and shadowed void,
the air stopped—
as if the universe itself were holding its breath.
<
<
<
A heart beat—
for the first time, with awareness.
Then, ten figures emerged, rising from the abyss like living shadows.
They did not walk.
They floated—
swaying like flames of a fire that never burns.
Six of them glowed faintly
with the archetypal colors of the primal forces:
— Light, a golden white that pierced the eyes.
— Darkness, a black so dense it consumed outlines.
— Life, a pulsing green, almost organic.
— Death, a muted gray like damp ashes.
— Chaos, a spiral of hues twisting without form.
— Order, a perfect blue, unchanging like the purest crystal.
<
—A deep rumble, like thunder behind distant mountains—
The remaining four shadows were different.
Denser.
More ominous.
Amorphous and flickering,
surrounded by a crackling mist—
as if each one exhaled nightmare static.
By their chromatic resemblance,
they accompanied four of the six present specters.
They encircled the man.
He was lifted into the air—
his shackles—not mere metal—
emitted living, pulsing energy.
His body arched,
muscles tense,
skin engraved with burning symbols,
etched by unknown forces.
And the board that had once held his back
vanished.
Each convulsion made his luminous, spectral restraints tremble
with a metallic moan.
He screamed.
But no voice came out.
Only echo.
The shadows whispered.
And they weren’t mere murmurs.
There were a thousand voices layered in the same tone, as if a ruined cathedral had swallowed the angels and was now spitting out their broken prayers.
The words made no sense… but they hurt.
They tore at the soul like sharp blades across raw flesh.
<
A sound like the universe trying to silence everything at once.
The ground cracked. The air ignited. Around him, a circle of fire rose in a spiral.
It didn’t burn. It didn’t light up.
It divided.
It was a barrier of damnation.
<
—The fire burst to life, erupting in sudden flares—
The ten specters raised their hands.
The sky—if there was still such a thing—trembled.
<
Bolts, vibrations, invisible blasts surged toward the prisoner.
Each strike made him convulse with a pain that wasn’t physical, but ancestral.
As if his body remembered punishment from a time before time.
The air smelled of scorched metal, ozone, and agony.
One of the shadows stepped forward.
Its voice was deep. Cruel.
Like shattered glass sliding down a throat:
—Now you know pain, don’t you?... Go on…
<
>
—A sharp, piercing beep—like censorship carved into sound—
But then… something changed.
One of the specters—the being of light—slowly raised its head.
Until now, it had been merely a witness. Indifferent.
But something had shifted.
Its formless eyes met those of the observer.
The protagonist.
Him.
He was there.
Present. Watching. From some shattered corner of memory or soul.
<
<
<
The luminous figure raised its hand.
The atmosphere cracked like frozen glass.
—A sudden spike of tension. Heartbeats accelerated—
A single gesture could erase his existence.
One more second and…
<
—A sudden burst, total void—
He awoke.
But not fully.
—
Identity shattered under the glacial glow,
Fragments dancing in wintry air.
?Am I the scars, or the man trapped??
?Where did I begin??
?This endless whiteness is my only guide,
toward lost answers, toward my fate.?
—He cried out for the first time—
Memories surfaced, vision blurred,
Ten presences, shadows intertwined.
A spectral labyrinth,
Primordial forces of unequal power.
Experiments etched into his very skin,
A war of creation, with no sky and no faithful redemption.
The scenes burned out, leaving remnants in his mind,
And a truth bled from the marks they left behind.
“Was I ever inside that burning circle?”
?Who am I??
He stepped back, heart beating consciously for the first time.
And then, he returned to the present.
<
He was still falling.
And with a newly awakened instinct, he pressed a hand against the icy slope,
sliding down awkwardly, yet with resolve,
as if that stumble had always belonged to him.
Thus, he reached the mouth of the canyon.
Thus began his true path.