Reality melted.
Not into dreams.
But into something far worse—
A truth too old to be remembered and too heavy to hold.
I didn't fall.
I faded.
Downward, like breath leaving a corpse.
Not toward heaven, nor toward death—
but something that made both seem merciful.
And I didn't resist.
Because resistance demands meaning.
And I had none left.
My mind surrendered. My body... was irrelevant.
When awareness returned, I was already there.
No door. No descent.
One blink, and I stood in the belly of a thought that hated being thought.
The air wasn't air.
It had the taste of static silence—
thick like syrup, metallic like guilt.
Above me: nothing.
Below me: something that pretended to be a floor.
I stood on a surface that shimmered faintly like frozen oil, cracked but unbroken—
smooth yet soaked in forgotten screams.
It stretched outward like a dead ocean. No shore. No reflection.
It didn't mirror me.
It rejected me.
I walked.
Not by will, but by instinct.
Because in this place, stillness felt like offense.
Then it appeared.
Far in the horizon—
then suddenly close.
The Throne.
A monument to dominion, not design.
It wasn't built.
It was remembered.
Like a scar the universe forgot to heal.
Its architecture shifted with every glance—
spikes folding into branches, stone bleeding into bone.
A contradiction in form, constantly reshaping itself, as if searching for the least blasphemous version of itself.
The color?
No. It didn't have one.
It had absence—
not black, not red, but something that devoured all interpretation.
It sat atop steps that did not descend—
they sank,
each one deeper than the last,
as if ascending meant erasing yourself layer by layer.
I tried to look directly at it.
But my vision fractured.
My spine curled like a dog recognizing its first master.
My thoughts stuttered, skipping beats like a broken instrument.
My soul remembered something my brain did not.
And terror—real terror—does not come with screams.
It comes with quiet compliance.
"This is not for you."
No voice spoke that line.
But the sentence carved itself into the marrow of my bones.
I tried again.
My mind begged me not to.
Something primal hissed from within:
"To gaze upon the Throne… is to drown in meaning too dense for survival."
Still, I stood.
Knees trembling.
Fists clenched, not in defiance, but desperation.
A single tear welled—not from grief, but the gravity of being seen.
Behind the Throne, or maybe within it—
a gap.
A wound stitched shut with logic and prayer.
Something missing.
Or perhaps... the missing itself.
I opened my mouth.
But my voice betrayed me.
It died before it left,
spilling onto the glass-like floor with the weight of a question too sacred to finish.
I wanted to scream:
What am I?
I wanted to beg:
Why me?
But only one thought bloomed inside me.
Heavy. True. Cruel.
"To stand before a throne is to know you were never free."
And then the whispers began.
Not voices.
Not sounds.
But meanings—slithering through my bones like memories I'd never earned.
"Truth burns louder than lies rot."
"Worship is just fear wearing a crown."
"The first sin wasn't rebellion. It was the hunger to understand."
My knees gave way.
And I didn't know whether I was falling… or bowing.
Unlike last time, it was worse.
The pressure wasn't just around me.
It was within me.
Pressing.
Judging.
Knowing.
Was this a punishment for my fatigue?
Or… had I finally died?
Maybe this wasn't death.
Maybe this was what death feared.
I tried to find comfort in the silence.
But this wasn't silence.
This was the murder of silence.
Each moment dragged like years—
not of pain, but of awareness.
Of being watched not just by something divine,
but something that regretted making you.
"The idea of death does not terrify us.
What terrifies us is when death stares back, and whispers: 'I am not the end.'"
Then came the voice.
It didn't arrive.
It unfolded.
Like a curtain of air being torn open by authority.
"Ignorant child.
You mistake my mercy for affection.
You wear favor like armor—forgetting favor is often given to bait, not to heirs."
"You walk with borrowed fate, and yet your stride is arrogant.
Why must I tolerate such noise?"
With every word, the pressure shattered logic.
I could think again.
But I did not speak.
Not immediately.
I calmed my mind,
remembering an old lesson.
My mother's voice—
not loud, not stern—
but careful, as if shaping stone with breath.
She once told me:
"The gods don't test your strength.
They test your answer."
I closed my eyes.
Breathed once.
Twice.
And then said:
"Great existence…
one of the few things my mother taught me before she vanished was this:
'When life knocks at your door, it's rarely dressed as opportunity.
It often comes in the cloak of terror.'"
"But that is precisely when you must answer."
I stood straighter.
Then added—
"The wise do not wait for mercy.
They move forward when every step is a blade.
Because to hesitate in fear…
is to offer your fate to someone else's story."