As he passed the threshold, pain stretched through his body, heat pushed itself from within to fill him with warmth once more; it was as if, in an instant, he grew in height; in an instant, he no longer felt hunger. In an instant, the doorway behind vanished, and darkness laid claim to all where there once had been light. What he saw on the other side was just the stairs ahead… When the pain finally passed, he found strength, at last, within his body. He got up, even when he really didn’t want to, for he didn’t wish to once more face what he had regretted all these years. No one wants to face the wrong choice they had made years ago, whilst knowing all too well that they would have to make the same decision again. There would be no other way out of here. There was no other way. There was just this…

  A long stairway that led only downward. Not in a spiral, not one with twists and turns, but one that leads only in one direction: down in a straight line.

  He looked back and saw the end of the stairway. A ledge that would begin the fall, for one could never climb down this stairway. There was no going up. There was no chance of returning to the previous room.

  To the right and the left, it was just the same. A gaping abyss on all sides except where one could place their feet on yet another step. And after leaving one step behind, it would disappear. You can’t step backward. You can’t falter. The only way one can go is down.

  He didn’t want to go down. Not again. He didn’t want to slip and fall. He didn’t want to descend for hours with no end to the stairway; he didn’t want to do such a thing. But he didn’t want to jump off the staircase either. All of the options that had been placed before him led only to a singular option. All of which practically meant an eternity of some sort.

  Kanrel hesitated for a long while, turning around on the first step of this staircase. He looked at all these options: back, left, and right, all of which meant jumping off and embracing the fall; forward, which only served as a waste of time, as you contemplate your existence and how futile it is to descend; how futile it is to exist; how useless a human is; and what a waste everything until now had been. It was there only to break the fools that had believed that they would find meaning through priesthood, meaning through service.

  It all meant nothing. There was and is only nothing. Meaning is an illusion, and finding such a thing, be it from within or outside of yourself, is a fool's task, a useless endeavor.

  What a fool he had been back then. What a fool he had grown into. What a fool he was, even to this day. Can a man change? He wondered as he took the first step and started his descent. He knew that each step was a useless one, yet he wished to fool himself, the fool that he was, with a false sense of choice, as if there ever was such a thing presented here, for there was only the notion of it, a simple illusion presented for those who would cling to any form of hope even when such a thing never existed in the first place.

  Yet, step by step, he went down. Step by step, he lived through this illusion built on top of a memory of an illusion.

  Time went by. It would only make sense to claim that it did. For there to be movement, there must be time as well, right? A thing one must believe in, lest he becomes more disoriented than he already is. And he did not stamp his feet on the same step over and over again; the steps were clearly changing. He was not stuck. Time exists. It does not reach a moment of stillness. It ought not. But if it does, then at least this wouldn’t be a waste of time; it might just be here to simulate such a concept. And if times come to a stop here, how it was felt remained the same. These moments in their disorienting subjectivity remained a true experience, even when they were not. For a memory would remain, and it all would have an effect on him and anyone who went through it. Does it matter if a thing or thought or whatever doesn’t truly happen, when it is enough that the mind is fooled to think that it did?

  After a time he guessed to be an hour or so, he came to a stop. Everything happens in a circle. From one circle to another. From one image of a house, where each door leads to the same room, with the same object of interest in the middle of it, to the next. It all repeats itself. One does not break a circle; one only makes it bigger and bigger and bigger until you fool yourself into believing that it is no longer a circle, that there is such a concept as choice. Everything that has happened has already happened in one form; now it happens in the next, with only slight alterations to make one believe that this new event is somehow different, even when it is built from the same old. Yesterday is the same as today, and so will be tomorrow.

  Kanrel exhaled, slow and steady. A choice between two eternities. The first time, he had fallen by accident—but deep down, he knew he would have jumped eventually. Most do. Only a rare few descend long enough to die from hunger, their bodies failing before their will does, never reaching the moment where the Fall becomes a choice at all. A quiet defiance, ending in silence. And yet, somehow, were not those stubborn few the only ones who achieved true enlightenment? A gentle embrace of oblivion, free from the torture of the Fall and all that follows it.

  He turned around and positioned himself at the edge of this void. He spread his hands. Just one step. That is all that it would take. One step, and nothing more. He gritted his teeth. A blind step into nothingness… Maybe, just maybe, there would be something after all? Could the darkness be just an illusion? He took the step and leaned forward; his foot found nothing, but it was too late to do anything else. He fell.

  There was no such thing as air that pushed against him. This time, he didn’t even spin. He just fell into nothing. There was just nothing. There is just nothing. There would always be just this nothing… Yet, even in this nothing, he existed. Even in this nothingness, thought existed. His mind lived and prospered with broken thoughts that came into a grand bloom akin to the height of summer. It flowered with a thousand thoughts that repeated themselves in rotation, sometimes on top of each other. A fool. A failure. A useless defect of existence. A lowly creature long disgraced. Simply nothing; he was nothing. Not worth the time of others; not worth the time he had been given. Not worth the chance of existence that he had been granted. Not worthy of love or any grander concept of acceptance. A collection of repeating mistakes, of bitter regrets, that is all that he had become. A stained memory in the eyes of others. A betrayer who had left behind everyone and everything. A murderer he was. A charlatan.

  Pain built on top of pain. First, his mind ached with these thoughts; then his body, one limb at a time, again experienced the torment of the Fall.

  The suffering began forming a fog around him in his own mind. It became dull again. It felt like he had lost again what he had lost back then. Ripped from him, from within his mind, into tiny shreds of memories that for a moment he could not access. Thirst. He wanted to quench this thirst. He wanted to sate this hunger. All this time it was the one thing that he had wanted to do. He wanted to taste the sweetest wine; he wished that he could bite into the ripest fruit and enjoy it as it would burst in his mouth. He needed to love and be filled with desires, which he would chase like a hedonist. He wanted to be a butterfly that flew and fluttered around from one flower to another; he wanted to be free from the chains of mistakes and regrets. But he would not be. He would never be.

  He felt a pull that tried to twist and sever each of his limbs from his torso, as if the nothingness around him tried to pull him apart; tried to rip him into pieces. Yet all he could do was grit his teeth and fall. There was nothing, just the fall and the pain it provided. And it would continue until even that would feel like nothing. Until dullness would remove all feeling, all senses must become dulled.

  Thought recedes. Memories, were there ever such things as memories? Pain: To feel pain, one must have access to the illusions created by the senses. There is no pain. There are no thoughts. There never were memories. And for a time, he just fell.

  There is no time. Just… The Fall.

  …

  A beat. The heart beats. A silent yet defiant voice to remind him of existence. It quickens; one can feel it; it is barely there, but it surely exists. It quickens, and it quickens. It smashes through; it becomes louder and louder; it beats against the chest like a hammer against the bars of a cage; it bangs against it; it tries to break free. All there is is the sound of a quickening heartbeat. It burns. Everything is in flames. It burns. It burns. A scream erupts from within, breaking through time and space; through existence, it fills his head; it gives clarity. Pain is here; it is here to stay. Deep breaths, alive and fully unwell.

  The chest rises, the heartbeat becomes stable, it slows down, and his eyes are now open. Above him is the light. Around him are figures. Perhaps he knows them. He was sure that he knew them somehow. They must be people whom he once knew.

  He was… on a bed… in a small room… Around him were three figures. Three women and a man… They were all young, barely adults if they happened to be adults at all.

  One of them, a woman, seemed somewhat agitated and hissed at him, “We’ve been through this many times by now… Shut your damn mouth! I’m trying to focus here!” The woman went around him and the table a few times, “Why can’t it ever be simple?” She muttered, “Clearly you are in great pain; I can imagine…” She continued; she went ahead and, with a quick code, ripped apart Kanrel’s robes to show what was beneath.

  The three others looked in what seemed like shock; one of them turned around, perhaps in disgust, perhaps thinking that it was not very decent of them to remove his robes like that, but the woman who had done so nodded, “Won’t you look at that? Burns, all of it covered in burns…”

  “An improvement, some would claim,” she observed, “but above all else, a pain in the ass…” She folded the sleeves of her robes. “I could just let you die here and now, in excruciating pain, of course, but I would save myself the time of fixing this mess…”

  “You’ll come back, well and all, so who really cares?” She muttered.

  “Yviev… Just fix him; I really can’t bear to look.” Another woman said—the disappointment in her voice was overwhelming.

  “Yes, yes… Do this, do that…” Yviev complained, and then she feigned a grin. “Try not to scream, Kanrel.” Then she began, while explaining at the same time, “The patient seems to be burned to a level from which he is unable to survive unless the burns are treated.”

  “Thus, I will begin the rejuvenation process…” And as she formed the first code, pain surged anew, one somehow greater than before. It blocked all possibilities of truly remembering who these people were or where the hell he found himself now. He screamed from the top of his lungs; his mouth was unable to form any other sound…

  “Wussy… We’ve all gone through worse, surely!” Yviev complained and continued the process, explaining, “Basically, I will remove the dead skin and muscle tissue, regenerate it, which will be great practice; maybe I will learn to be quicker at it. Who knows!” Kanrel continued screaming.

  “Let’s just hope that there isn’t bone damage… That’s an even greater pain for you and me both!” She casually spoke as she removed burned flesh, at the same time growing new muscle tissue, veins, and fat in the process. Kanrel continued screaming until he passed out, but the woman continued her work, and the three others now stared at her process intently while taking notes.

  There is no sense in dreams. After all, often or not, they are formed from previous experiences in a way that tries to make sense but truly doesn’t. He sees himself as he was fifteen years ago. A lad studying in the Academy of the Heavenly, especially during his time in the Academic Hospital, studying the art of so-called “Medical Magic.” A time of great pain, yet at the same time, a time when he formed his closest relationships; true friendships that he missed so dearly that he feared that they could not exist as they once did before… Then again, one of them was lost forever.

  In this dream, he helped Uanna carry a couch to her room. She was no longer able to sleep on her own bed. There was just too much pain and too many nightmares that disturbed her dreams. She did not feel safe in her own bed.

  “Why were you so distant back then?” A question that awoke him from his dreams. He blinked his eyes and looked around, another familiar room. Uanna’s room was much more frugal than his own room, with a lot more religious scriptures as well, and a couch that was turned so that it would not face the bed. Then Kanrel’s gaze found Uanna, who stared deeply into his eyes. They begged for an answer, but then she looked down in shame.

  Kanrel looked at her. He remembered this moment so well. It had been years since he had last thought about it. Here, he had veiled a lie with a smile. He had crowned it to make it seem like the truth. He lied to form hope, even when his answer wasn’t really pointed at the question that she had asked, but instead another one that persisted in her. Uanna had talked so much about the pain she was going through—they all did—and Kanrel had wanted to offer some solace, even when it came from someone as hollow as him… He had lied and wanted to believe in this lie of his own making.

  Kanrel looked at her for a moment longer before answering. “I don’t know, but I’ve learned to regret how I was before.” First, tell the truth. Kanrel gently raised Uanna’s head so that they could directly look at each other, and then he told the lie, “Uanna, you’ll be fine. Just don’t give up, and everything will be fine.” And for the second time, he experienced this moment. He smiled in a way that felt normal to look at. He smiled a bright, gentle smile. It was loving. It was pure. Deep within, he wanted to believe that at least this smile was truthful, even when it was a practiced one, even when it was a fake one. Only the words were a lie.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He left the room and returned to his own, leaving the girl—tears trembling in her eyes—to shed them in peace. Kanrel sank to the floor, his back against the door, and buried his face in his hands. He gritted his teeth and asked himself the same question he had asked back then: Was it wrong of him to lie to her?

  His own words felt so bitter in his mouth. His tongue felt vile. He wanted to bite it out. In this dream, he held his head buried in his hands. He let tears run down his cheeks without even trying to stop them. He shivered in silence as he muffled the sounds of these bitter tears. In this moment his hatred for himself grew, but only tears could he cry. He could only concede and resign to this fact: He would never know if she were okay. He would never know if his lie had caused her to hold on to hope uselessly. He would never get to meet her again. He would never have to witness the consequences of his lies.

  He cried until there were no more tears to cry. He wept until he had emptied his mind of the anger and bitterness that had surged within. And at last, he could open his eyes. At last, he could witness another memory he was forced to relive… Kanrel got up from the floor and accepted this familiar view.

  Rose petals on the floor. Candles were lit all around. On the bed, a girl was lying down; she was nude, and the petals covered her nakedness. Her eyes were open, and she looked at the ceiling. She was beautifully positioned on the bed. She was made into a twisted piece of art.

  She did not breathe. She did not blink her eyes. She was dead. And Kanrel knew that if he opened her mouth, her tongue would be missing. He stared at her for a while. He had remembered this scene all too well, but he had forgotten what she had looked like exactly. Tarin’s eyes were so blue. He shook his head and turned around; if one body was here, then the other two bodies would be in Yviev’s and Yirn’s rooms.

  But when he turned around, he saw not the door but the two other rooms merged with his own room. Everything was where it would have normally been, and from this angle, Kanrel could see Yviev’s portion of the room and Jeso’s corpse. A young man was suspended in the air by his limbs, pierced by long stakes. No blood, just more rose petals to cover the floor. Jeso’s ears were missing. A cruel sight, yet some would see it to be an artistic approach to such brutality. Kanrel wasn’t one of those.

  Kanrel shifted his gaze to Yirn’s section of the room. He witnessed the most gruesome murder of the three. A dead girl. Her eyes were removed, her fingers stuck into her sockets; positioned on the ground, her legs crossed, and her eyeless gaze pointed downward… No blood, just more rose petals.

  She had been tortured. The bruises and the cuts on her naked body told as much.

  How could he forget? How could he ever dare to seek a way to forgive the things that Yirn had done? Even if Henan had bullied him in the past. Kanrel let out a long sigh that trembled.

  “Kanrel!” A deep voice shouted from behind him. Kanrel jumped in surprise and turned around to see who had called for him. He saw a handsome man who gracefully approached him; he moved like a master swordsman… Kanrel gritted his teeth as he realized who he was. Or what this moment was supposed to be.

  Yirn stopped before him and asked, “I am really sorry to bother you, but could we go and have a talk somewhere?” He spoke so naturally; this monster could speak like a human.

  Kanrel wanted to spit at his feet. But he couldn’t. He just stared at this young, tall lad and blinked tears from his eyes, just when he had thought that he had cried all the tears that he had held within his heart. There just seemed to always be more.

  A long moment passed. One without words. A deep, uncomfortable silence between them as Kanrel bawled his eyes out.

  “I would like to join you and Yviev in your study group. The way you two code makes me wonder about all the things that we could achieve together. I think we might have a very beneficial relationship in the future.” He spoke, his voice soft, almost shy. And every word he pronounced was like another nail hammered into his heart. It hurt so much. Kanrel collapsed to his knees; he cried as he looked up at the tall man, who kept his gaze ahead.

  He continued talking, on and on, about how he had wanted to always talk with Kanrel, how they both were Nameless, even though Kanrel’s mother is the Herald of the Gods. He babbled so innocently.

  Then, Yirn looked ahead, somewhat strangely, and then performed a handshake with the air. “Likewise. Also, not to offend or anything, but your smile does need a bit of practice.”

  Kanrel could only reply with his wailing. He could remember the warmth of that hand.

  Yirn grimaced, “You look really scary, like you’re ready to rip my arm off or something.”

  The moment seemed to last forever. But the handshake stopped. Yirn stood still before him; only his expression would continuously change. Different smiles, frowns, grimaces, and expressions of different levels of torment, even what seemed like worry, showed on his face. It was as if, in just a few moments, months went by. The young man got slightly older before his eyes. And around them, the merger of the three rooms began to change, from the stone floors to grass as it pushed through. A hill formed under them, and around them, in the north, one could see the city of Atarkan in all of its glory, but around the hill a forest grew; their leaves had already fallen to the ground. The cold began to settle in; the grass was covered by frost. Darkness came from the horizon as the clouds gathered over them; only the moon gave some light to this world as it showed itself from behind the clouds.

  As he breathed in and out mist would come out, and the cold air tickled his throat, causing sudden bursts of coughing.

  They stood in the middle of the hilltop. Yirn’s expression shifted to concern; he looked straight at him. “We have to kill her. It is the only thing we can do.”

  “No! If we kill her, how are we supposed to explain her not coming with us back to the academy?” Yviev’s voice came from next to Kanrel, and he glanced at her.

  “We’ll run away… We’ll go as far as we can!” Yirn pleaded.

  Kanrel remained silent through all of it. He didn’t need to do anything. Everything happened as he remembered it happening. He felt so defeated as he sat on the frozen ground, with just the moon and the magical lights of their creation offering them any light.

  Yirn scoffed. On his face, there was a weird expression. It looked like a smile, but one not as well practiced as the ones he would usually show. The smile he now had on his face was a true smile of his, “Fine, have it your way!” He spat out his words, and soon they were surrounded by people in dark robes, their faces covered with grotesque masks.

  Kanrel paid no attention to them. His gaze was set only on Yirn and no one else.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Kanrel whispered.

  “The truth!” Yrin yelled and lunged an explosive ball of fire at them…

  Kanrel didn’t react. He let it happen, and without doing anything, the fireball smothered away before it managed to hit its target. Soon another came, and another, as the other attackers came from every direction with their knives out.

  A stab came at him, or where he was supposed to be standing, and he felt pain as blood began running down his hand. The pain ran through him. It healed on its own.

  So empty. So dull within. He could only witness as it all would happen again. Nothing would change. It was all the same. Yirn’s attacks, Kanrel defenses, and counter-attacks. The ice spikes and flames. The masked men with their knives… Yviev, who weaved her own codes, her own attacks. A spike ran through one of the ambushers, who then flew a few meters back.

  On Yirn’s face, there was only bloodlust. Death had conquered him from within, a form of madness, where it would only stop if everyone was either dead or if he himself were put to death.

  Kanrel felt a stab at his side, then another. Warm blood began to gather, and pain ran through him once more. There were more wounds, but only some of them were healed soon after. Some remained until the end of the battle. It went on for a while.

  “Release me!” A woman yelled; it was Oidus, who was bound to a spell near him. She was unable to see, thus nullified and unable to use her magic. Soon after, a mist quickly surrounded them, forming into a thick fog. And as Yviev lunged to where Oidus would be, she began removing the entrapment code. Hectic moments went by, but Kanrel remained on the ground; he stared ahead at the place where he knew Yirn to be.

  A gust of wind came and pushed the fog away. Once again, Kanrel could see Yirn standing not far from him, on his face a grin that promised only death, in his hands an icy whip that soon struck at him. Kanrel did not react. The whip was blocked, but fireballs came soon after; they hit him and engulfed him in flames that burned his robes; Kanrel screamed with the pain that followed. The fires were extinguished soon after. But the damage was done.

  More magic and attacks were flung at him, but most of them were either deflected or blocked. The still-alive ambushers attacked him again. Screams of death filled the air as three spikes of ice pierced into three of the attackers. Most of the attackers were repelled, but one of them got to him.

  He felt a stab at his back. Pain ran through him. Another attacker had their head pierced by an ice spike. Blood flowed as the dead man fell to the ground. Even now, Kanrel didn’t witness it. He felt as if the knife was pulled out of his back, how magic began to heal some of his wounds.

  He remained surrounded, “Kanrel… Accept this truth that I have given you! Accept the death that I have thought for you!” Yirn screamed from the top of his lungs the same nonsense that he had screamed back then. His attacks grew swifter, and his grin more inhumane. More twisted… More demonic.

  The violent barrage of attacks continued. He felt attacks hit him; he saw attacks that were deflected; he felt how some of his wounds began to heal, only to be ripped open by another barrage of attacks. Then it came. The whip struck flesh; it ripped it apart, pulling his chest and shoulder open. Kanrel flew a meter backward and hit the hard ground beneath.

  He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. A knife hit his stomach and another his chest.

  The world wasn’t as loud as it had been moments before. It was peaceful, and no sounds would come—neither those of the battle nor screams of pain from his lips. Nothing. It was supposed to end here. Then he would’ve had his peace. There would finally, truly, be nothing.

  Again, it wasn’t allowed.

  All of the attackers except Yirn were instantly killed. Kanrel’s wounds began to rapidly heal as multiple codes began healing him. His breath stabilized, the world regained its colors, and sounds surged from around him. He could see how Oidus stood in front of him, her back toward him; she looked at Yirn, and she was ready to fight.

  Yviev came to Kanrel’s side and went through his body and looked for anything that Oidus’s codes might have missed. Kanrel was pulled further away from the battle and helped to sit up a little so that he might see what would happen.

  The attackers were dead, but Kanrel ignored this detail; he returned his gaze to Yirn. His friend.

  “My beloved student,” Oidus spoke and blocked an insignificant spell that had been sent her way, “You’re no match for me, so why even try?”

  “Give up, and your death will be less painful,” she promised.

  But the grin never left Yirn’s face… “Your kind disgusts me the most. A Nameless that has become a mere hound for the Priesthood, a shill to powers that have lied to us, that have done wrong to us!” Yirn spoke while pulling a necklace shaped like a dagger from under his robes. An old necklace, a tool of the Atheians, one never meant for anything like this.

  “Hail to the true God! Hail to the true magic! Behold, the truth!” Yirn yelled from the top of his lungs and stabbed his chest with the necklace. It pierced deep into him.

  Yirn stood very still and watched only Oidus. In his face, he held the most genuine smile that he could ever form: a weird grin that lacked all humanity.

  “Fool…” Oidus scoffed and observed what would happen next.

  Dark gas came out of his mouth, followed soon by a liquid that flowed slowly out; his skin began crawling as if something wanted to come out as if there were a thousand bugs inside trying to pierce the skin to be free. His arms twitched as a scream, muffled by the flowing liquid, could be heard. With his hands, he rapidly started to tear his skin, his flesh that was beneath, and as he did so, first came blood, then a gray-muscled body from under. Many hands pushed their way through his skin. He grew slowly in size, first only a meter, then another, until he was at least six or seven meters tall; his head exploded violently, and another head grew to take its place. The dark liquid covered the ground, and the necklace could still be seen in the middle of his chest. On his body, the dark gas danced around, as if he were much warmer than everything around him. They all looked up at the eldritch creature with eight hands, most of them growing out of its back, standing before them. Its head was similar to the grotesque masks that the ambushers had worn. It opened its mouth and let out a scream that could be heard kilometers away. It shook the ground beneath them, and even Oidus had to take a step back, and the others had to cover their ears.

  A toothy grin came to the monster's face as it took a step forward, perhaps the truest of Yirn's smiles. The ground shook under its heavy weight.

  A flash of light.

  The creature stood still and didn’t move for a few seconds. Then it took another step. Just to fall over, a loud thump shook the ground violently, and the head of the creature rolled to the ground. It had been cut off cleanly; black blood spilled out from the neck, and the head of the horrible creature lay on the ground with a face of shock on its face.

  From above, a figure of light descended on top of the creature's body—an angel of light, a woman who looked at them. On her face, no expression existed; only serenity and holiness oozed out of her as if she truly were a god or an angel. She looked at those who were there and still alive; at last, her gaze fell on Kanrel. She smiled her unpracticed smile. "My son, are these the friends you wanted me to meet?" She asked and kicked the massive body that she stood on top of.

  ”Mother,” Kanrel whispered under his breath. He drifted away, losing consciousness as the first snows of a long past winter rained down on them.