Through the Cracks of the Reflection

  Imagine yourself, adrift, upon an endless ocean of thick, black substance. Above you, there is no sky, and all around you, as far as the eye can see, there are just two different textures of darkness. One is oily, and the other is flat, monotone.

  You know that you’re adrift because there is motion. You can feel it all around you. It presses against your body and pushes you toward a direction, the horizon, that repeats itself indefinitely.

  And as you float, you hear a faraway, muffled sound as you approach your destination. It is as if someone is blowing into a cup… the sound grows louder and less muffled as this destination grows closer, and closer until the sound grows to the point where it is no longer someone blowing into a small cup, instead, it is the sound of someone blowing into a bowl that reaches and covers your ears. A rumbling of sorts, so great and overwhelming that it denies all other sounds. If someone were to talk next to you, even in your ear, you would not be able to hear them. There is no sound more massive than this.

  At first, the floating is slow, it is constant and it has no variation. It was the slow ticking of time. But as the sounds grow louder, so does the speed as you approach the destination. It quickens until you reach the edge. You arrive at a point where this dark substance gushes down a great ledge into yet another texture of darkness… You cannot fight this moment. You cannot scream or defy it in any way. And with the substance, you go over the ledge. You fall as that which falls with you batters and covers you at last. You can barely see, and when you can see, other than the oily liquid flowing over your head, you see the third texture of this realm of darkness…

  A darkness so blinding. It is so bright, for some reason, that it burns to look at it, for there is no point where one can look at it. You cannot anchor your gaze at something in the distance, for your eyes are forced to waver and frantically search for something that remains still, for this third texture of darkness refuses to do so; and it would refuse to do so even if you weren’t falling.

  Your vision begins to fog. The edges of everything become blurry at first, then they darken, until you cannot see but this fourth and final form of darkness…

  Cold.

  Light gushes in. His eyes force themselves open, and a gentle candlelight embraces the somber surroundings of his bed. He saw himself, but younger than he would be now, sitting by his bed, looking down at him from slightly above. This version of himself held a saddened, yet stern expression on their face.

  He could feel how his own lips parted and words came out, “Don’ worry, you ain’t gonna get infected with old age, at least not from me…” A soft whisper. A familiar voice and words that he had forgotten. But he could not forget the way in which he spoke.

  It is cold.

  In this moment, he saw the world through the eyes of Rant Jankse; through the eyes of an old, dying man. One who might’ve had even more things to regret than Kanrel did.

  He felt how his chest would slowly rise, up and down. It was a great struggle to breathe, as a wave of coughs exploded from within. Death would take him soon.

  It is so cold.

  “Betty… I… I regret what happened to her…” He could hear himself speaking again, he could feel how his lips moved, and another violent burst of cough followed. “She should’ve never gone so deep. She should’ve never gone there.” He mumbled, his voice now barely there. His vision had begun to wane, but he still saw this younger version of himself, peering at the old man who lay on the bed; he saw himself leaning closer, and whispering a question, “What do you mean?”

  Violent coughs parted his lips, and the bed shook. “No one is allowed to enter,” the old man whispered. His voice was so thin, almost nonexistent. The world around became soft, then fully blurry, until there was nothing. His breathing stopped. His already weak heart struck its drum softly for the final time. Darkness laid claim to this realm. Death.

  It is just cold.

  But through the darkness, something allows his mind to exist. This is no true death. Just… a portrait of it. Through the darkness, he could still see, although this body was dead. A grand curtain was pulled from his way, and he could see through Rant’s eyes again. He could see himself. How his hands shook as he placed his hand on Rant’s neck. How he took out his notebook and, carefully, despite his shaky hands, wrote down something in that notebook. He wrote down the moment of Rant’s death. He wrote down the old man’s last words. Then he got up, taking support from the walls, and he disappeared out of the room.

  And Kanrel was left to witness himself through the eyes of the dead… he was left to wait for the faces of grief that would look at him.

  One by one, he saw their faces as they emerged through the door. First came Rant’s son, Isbit, who seemed almost unfazed by his father's death. But down from here, he could now see it so much more clearly. Ever so slightly, his brows quivered. Silently, he swallowed his own tears. His eyes must’ve felt like afire, burning with the desire to shed his grief. Looking at Isbit’s face and his expressions, it felt like waking to a morning without the sun. There was no light on his darkened face.

  Isbit’s children cried; they wailed. They understood what death meant. Perhaps they cried so that Isbit could be brave in this moment. His wife cried. She cried, her face covered by a pained expression. Her tears ran freely down her pale face. Perhaps she cried so that Isbit could hug her in search of solace. His hands were around her, her face against his chest, to him, it might have been the only place where he could find safety. A haven, who would bless him with her tears, blessing him with the bravery to offer his own comfort to others. They could lean on him as much as he could lean on her. Even when it seemed like he wasn’t in search of solace, he found it in her anyway.

  But he did not cry. Kanrel had seen how he had cried later. Isbit had excused himself, gone for a walk, and wailed out of sight, out of ear. He had wailed, a son who had lost his father.

  But what he could now see was his own expression. His own face of grief. A complicated look, one that looked at the others, that observed their grief. That stood on the side, notebook in hand. A stern expression, different from Isbit’s, with a different form of sadness veiled within. Above all, confused. With a question in mind: “How does one comfort another? How could he comfort another?”

  Back then, he had been too blind to see it. This sight that he could now see from a different perspective, with a different mind, showed him how. Of course, it would not cure heartbreak or grief. But it would give a moment for each during which they all could grieve in a way they saw fit.

  Soft goodbyes to the departed. His body, through which he now saw the world, was lifted from its bed with magic and carried outside. Through the fields that the old man had toiled for decades, close to a nearby forest. To a spot that Kanrel had thought back then to be suitable.

  Through the eyes of the dead, he could not see himself in this moment. He saw only the forest and its vegetation. It had been a beautiful summer day when Rant had died. This body burst into flames. An inferno that was so intense that it rivaled even the sun in its brightness. Around it, the world seemed so dark. Within it, even more so. There were just the flames that consumed this body… Ash is all it became. It is what we all become.

  But it did not hurt. He did not feel the burns. They had wanted him to no longer feel the cold, but it was all that he could feel before his death, and there was no warmth after it.

  Then, the fire went out. It had existed just for a moment. The dusk fell back in, the late moments of a summer day. Enveloped by this pile of ash that Rant had become. Still. He could see. But now, he saw in all directions at once. He saw the surroundings around himself, the forest, the field, the house, and the sky above. He saw himself who stood there, biting his teeth, closing his eyes, and allowing the wind to come.

  The wind picked up the ashes, and he flew with them. He saw the world from above, he saw everything. The world below with its forests, its fields, and the village that wasn’t too far away. He saw himself looking up, up at the ashes that were carried away by the wind. It carried him toward the forest. It carried him above it. It carried him through time. Through moments, through seasons. Through days and nights. He saw how the sun set and rose, over and over again. He saw it happen nearly a thousand times as he flew above the forest, deeper and deeper, toward the mountains that graced his view and awaited him. He saw how it would rain, how it snowed, how there would be moments so beautiful and warm, even moments that were dark and cold. He saw the passage of time until he landed on another summer day. He, again, saw himself but now somewhere else.

  The passage of time slowed down. He saw two men returning to the camp near the ruins. They carried a deer tied to a pole on their shoulders.

  “Jared! You were supposed to prepare the fire!” Shouted one of the men, but Jared was dead. Kanrel had burned him to a crisp.

  He saw himself walking out of the tower. Into the open, toward the two men who approached. Without a word, without a moment during which the two men could even notice him, ice spikes formed and in quick succession, surged toward them. The sound of ice hitting flesh, piercing through, a loud thump. Franc, one of the men, stood still, utterly confused. He looked down at the spike that ran through his chest. Blood spattered from his mouth, and he fell to the ground.

  Petyr, the other man, was left alone. The horror on his face was so clear. He met eyes with the approaching Kanrel, and he could not move. He could not run; he could not speak or protest this moment. Fear. He must have been so afraid.

  More ice spikes formed around them as Kanrel approached, then stopped not too far away from Petyr.

  But the ashes flew by, they entered the tower, and the last thing he could see of himself and Petyr was how the ice spikes pierced the man from multiple directions… He was left standing in an awkward position. Petyr looked eerily like Jeso at that moment, but instead of rose petals, blood covered the ground beneath.

  Enter.

  The ashes flew down, down the tower, and they went beneath the ground. At the bottom, there lay a charred body—Jared, who had suffered, perhaps, a worse fate than the two outside had. But surely that had been justified? Hadn’t they all been justified? Had these people not killed countless innocent souls? Had they not drugged and then tortured him? Were they not worse than he in every way? Surely, this was justice. Surely, this was a form of justified cruelty. He had to believe so as the ashes flew over the body and into the tunnels that lay beneath the ruins…

  Halls, rooms, and corridors. Darkness through which he could see. Everything is built from marble. Engravings that repeated themselves in rooms that weren’t supposed to have an identity of their own. Dust, mold, and web-covered floors and ceilings of the corridors. He went in circles, not taking the path that he had taken initially when he had scoured through these ruins. A maze that he hadn’t truly solved, yet had still found his way in the middle of…

  Back then, everything and all caused him pain. Everything had led to suffering. Everything and all that had happened had brought him here.

  The center.

  At the doorway to a massive room. The ashes entered through, the floor sloped down, and so did the walls and the ceiling. A globe in the middle of it all. A rope hung from the ceiling with a noose at the end of it. It hung freely without motion. Beneath it, at the center of the bottom of the globe, there was a pit. The ashes went down, descending into the darkness through which he could see.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Enter.

  Bodies, bones. Things owned by those who had lost their lives here. Shoes, boots, clothing, books, pens, pouches, coins… Corpses. Skulls. A journal held by the bony hands of a corpse that wore familiar robes. Boran Walden and his journal. The thing that had made him want to go further down, to see for himself… what there might be.

  Enter. It had whispered to him. It had asked him to do so. It had begged. Demanded, wished, and desired… A priest ought never feel desire, but this desire to enter was as real as it could be.

  The ashes flew on, over Boran’s discarded body, toward the stairs, further into the caves. Further down, following the winding, narrow steps that were surrounded by the nothingness…

  All the while, a whisper grew louder, “Enter.”

  Cold but barely. Warm, but not warm enough. Nothing to see except the narrow steps, the ashes flew over and followed. He could hear echoes of steps. He could imagine and almost see himself taking each of them. He could feel and remember the thoughts that had governed his mind as he went down. The call of the void. The fear of another fall. He had doubted that the staircase might ever end and that he would have to make the same decision again. Only saved momentarily by the sight of a platform, suspended in the middle of the darkness, supported only by the cave wall. And on that wall, there was not a door but a framed black surface. One in which he could see his own reflection. It was like looking into a Globe of Darkness, again.

  Back when he had climbed down these narrow steps, he had seen himself as a young boy, with a smile he couldn’t relate to, holding in his hands Deft, a cat he had adopted. A creature that he had loved, on his face a smile he had not smiled since then…

  But now… As he peered into that darkness. That reflection. He saw himself, but someone else. Not him, but someone who is like him. Someone grotesque, someone with a face covered with scales. A face that he had seen before. With eyes defeated. Tired eyes that met his. They waited for something or someone, but he did not know what or who.

  That someone reached their hand toward him, toward the ashes that were certain to come into collision with the mirror; it reached out and broke the surface of the mirror, reaching out. Grabbing him, it grabbed him, and it pulled… It pulled him into his reflection as the world around him hammered into his head, a whisper that repeated itself until it became a yell. “Enter… Enter. Enter! ENTER!”

  Quiet. Submerged in the oily, dark substance. The deepest part of the sea. Floating in the midst of it. He could not breathe. He could not see. There was nothing to hear. No words to speak. No dreams to dream. No reason to move. There was nothing he could do.

  Suffocating. A pressure within and around him. A heavy force that squeezed him into something else, into someone else than himself.

  Be not afraid. A faint whisper, a reassurance.

  I’ve only shown you what you need to see. I’ve only shown what you wanted—nay, desired to see.

  The Voice had returned, but just for a moment. It began as a whisper, grew into a noticeable presence, then waned into nothingness, an echo of a memory he might forget in the next moment or two.

  For a moment, he was a butterfly with golden wings. It flew from flower to flower. There was no sun, there was no light. There was just darkness.

  But the darkness opened itself, it moved away as the butterfly flew through it. And as it flew from one flower to another, one color at a time surged into existence. There came blue, there came yellow, and red. There was green and there was purple. Until all colors in existence were presented, in a grand assembly of an infinite continuum of hues that none could ever name, for there were just too many.

  And as the butterfly reached the final flower in this sea of endless color, the reflection of reality fragmented in a sharp crack, and the butterfly flew out through these cracks, to a corridor of many doors, out of a mirror, in which Kanrel had been a golden butterfly…

  The Baptism of Heavenly Fire

  From cracks and darkness emerged the butterfly. It fluttered to the land of color, from where there were none; yet here, the colors present were never nearly as overwhelming as mere moments ago. A hallway of doors, each open, within them just a mirror, and nothing more. But within those mirrors, there was always something. Things that could have been, things that Kanrel would claim to be better than what there was now. They were lives, not quite options, not something that had genuinely happened in another existence. They were something more, yet seemingly less than the magnitude that life in itself has. They existed only as thoughts, as desires whispering, “What else could there be? Who else could I have been?”

  Dreams. Fantasies. Desires. Lies…

  In one, there was a Sharan, be it him or someone else, though it might as well not be him, for it was nothing more than a reflection of something that could not be. On the other hand, it might as well be him, for he had experienced life as one of the Sharan, although as part of a previous collection of forced-upon illusions. In that lie, he had the ability to experience life as one ought to. Is it not what he most wants?

  In another, he sat, as himself, upon a throne of desires. Women and gold, riches that would be unimaginable to most. Is it not something that all of us, to some degree, wish for ourselves? If given the chance, wouldn’t most accept such a future if it ever came their way?

  In the next, yet another vision of himself. A loving, caring man who could share moments most fulfilling with family and friends. Within this reflection was not only him but everyone who had ever touched him in some way. Not just his mother, not just Yviev, Uanna, and Yirn, but Y’Kraun and Gar, as well… The butterfly fluttered past even this possibility, another desire, one that was in truth what he now sought to have for himself. He wanted to stare at this vision for a moment longer, but the butterfly cared not for such desires; it only flew to the next…

  He saw himself in a temple, looking away from the altar and the painting that hung above it. He had become an old man with hair as white as snow. His eyes were tired, filled with the culmination of a life lived in regret. An old man who had lost his faith. It was what he had now become, lest one could regain something as fickle and fragile as had been his faith.

  A king, a slave, and just the darkness. Desire, joy, and repeated despair. Useless hope, foolish endeavors; moments of bliss, an illusion of freedom. Everything and all a man could have been and still claims that he could still become. But still past it all, fluttered the butterfly, as if from one flower to the next. It ignored all of this as if none of it mattered. They were, after all, just lies. Useless ruminations on something that could or could not exist. Something that might be, but nothing that would be certain, as there is no such thing as “certain.” At times, even death seemed like a moment that would just pass you by, for it seemed so insignificant when compared to life itself. Somehow, death in its presumed eternity was a footnote to the grandeur of our meek existence. Even to a butterfly’s perception of reality, if it even had one, or if it only cared to flutter from one flower to another…

  Together, he and the butterfly, one and the other that might as well be one at the moment, reached the door at the end of the hallway. The final door remained open to them. Inside, it was a vast, white room that had no walls, that had no ceiling, and might as well not have had a floor either. The white was so absolute that one could not define which parts of it were physical, actually there, and which were just a different form of void, a different color of nothing…

  The golden butterfly fluttered forth, leaving the door through which they entered long behind them; they flew and they flew, and the doorway became first just a sliver, then a spot, until it disappeared out of sight. Yet the butterfly did not stop; it only flew forth.

  First, Kanrel could perceive all that was around him. The illusion of physical reality, although from within a creature less significant in its size than most. But thought at a time, sense itself became as if the white itself. A flat, open nothingness that felt the same as the darkness before, yet remained bright in how it manifested itself within his mind. There was no fog or shadow over him; there was just the light, even if it really wasn’t the light. It was as if being awake, fully awake, but unable to comprehend anything at all. There were no thoughts to be had. No memories to be remembered. There was… peace.

  He was a butterfly painted on the coarse surface of a white canvas, yet the painted insect was naught more than an outline, and so yellow in its coloring that one could not see, or perceive its existence unless the rest of the canvas was submerged with an overwhelming color of black.

  But if there is peace. Then there must be chaos, for one cannot exist without the other. And if one, somehow, for a moment or two, exists without the other's presence, then the other shall emerge and remind all else of its existence. The canvas was covered, submerged with a shade of black, through the existence of a spot of ink in clear water. It spread in all directions at once, blooming like ink in clear water, until the butterfly, hidden before, became visible. Its existence now gained significance, and through the chaos that emerged, so did thoughts and memories.

  And in that ink, the butterfly fluttered to a figure that stood in the middle of it all; it showed itself, for the darkness had unveiled it, and the figure stared right at them. No. It stared right at Kanrel. Not the butterfly, just him. And Kanrel knew who that figure was. A god, a monster, a son who killed his own father… Ignar, someone who was like Kanrel, but not quite.

  It reached its hand toward Kanrel; the butterfly flew toward it, sat on the figure’s outstretched finger, and dissolved into its skin. For a moment, there was nothing to see. And when he could open his eyes again, around him, he now saw Café N’Sharan… just moments before hellfire would consume it and the people trapped within…

  A voice aware of danger screamed within his head. Everything was wrong. Yet the café and its people weren’t aware of such a thing. Something happening here was never a thought that crossed their minds.

  Kanrel stood in the middle of the café, within and through the eyes of Ignar, he could see the Sharan that sat around tables, partaking in idleness, conversations that linger of different topics, mixed with rumors and talks of yesterday, and speculations of what there might be tomorrow. Be it about the arts, be it about finance, or the stock market. The air was filled with such conversations.

  In the air there was a powerful stench of lit cigars and cigarettes, of coffee and tea as servants brought such things to the tables with their trolleys. And they all wore a uniform of sorts, the servants wore neat vests and a well-practiced smile on their lips, and the customers wore a wide variety of statements. Dresses and suits, all competing with each other, all showcasing wealth and what each person thought to be art. This seemingly varied mixture of colors, styles, cuts, and shapes made it so that none of them truly stood out; this in itself was one movement of fashion, one unified statement with the same underlying thought behind them. “Aren’t I so interesting? Look at me, please.”

  His thoughts were then interrupted, “We are similar. Are we not?” Kanrel could hear himself speak, not with his own voice, but with Ignar’s voice. Not the same voice he heard at first. This version of Ignar’s voice was far too alive. It hadn’t yet reached a point where there was no emotion.

  “We both have made uncomfortable decisions to protect something greater than ourselves. I have seen it. I have seen everything within you. And so I know that we might as well be the same. We are entwined with the same strand of thought that then connects us and forces us to see and look within, to observe our actions.” Ignar spoke, then halted for a moment before continuing, “We both regret to the point of torment. We both have tried justifying our actions. For how else could we have the right to exist? But we do not.” He scoffed, “Yet…”

  Ignar gestured at the people within Café N’Sharan and asked, “Why is then the existence of people like this allowed?”

  Why indeed? A question he had struggled with for a while now. It was as if one was meant to struggle with it; to wrestle with the injustice of the world. And you couldn’t get rid of it unless you came to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter. But how could one reach such a conclusion? Should he extinguish even this bit of idealism within and paint it as nothing more than a naive belief of someone who just hadn’t grown out of it quite yet?

  “By now, you know as well as I of some of the things that burn me from within… The things that I have done to have the regret that I carry even now… You’ve seen the justifications that I have made so that I could do these terrible acts…”

  Swift execution, because of corruption, extortion, and the failure to abide by the vows that a member of the Office of Peace ought to follow.

  Torture and slow execution, because of murder, rape, and the same failure to abide by the sacred vows of the Office of Peace…

  But then… Purge. Why? Because they partook and indulged in the tragic death of truth…

  “But no matter how much one moralizes and dwells in the questions of right and wrong, or good and evil, justice remains elusive in reality. We do not understand it, and for seemingly no good reason at all, we all have our conclusions on what is just and what is not. Even when it ought to be clear as day to us, we still ardently disagree on these things.”

  “And even when we have rules upon which there is a general agreement, laws, and so forth, so many seem to go against them. And when justice is sought, it is seldom truly just. And when reform is sought, it is refused.”

  “We remain stuck in our ways.”

  “So I did what I did. I didn’t want to be among my brethren and just give up on N’Sharan.”

  Kanrel remembered the conversation he had with the Angel of Order and Chaos, and particularly, the last few sentences they had said: “We tried; we all tried.” They had spoken, “And one by one, each of us gave up. Each of us chose to spend the little time there was to indulge in the things that we enjoyed, and was there anything wrong with that? If war is inevitable, and if that is what the equation has decided, then why deny it? Why not embrace the end that was designed for this city?”

  “I didn’t want to let it become more corrupt than it already was. I believed that we could salvage it somehow. But I was refused and disregarded, as the city we built pleaded for change. And instead of helping it, instead of healing it, we let it rot.”

  “And when I tried, it was already too late. And so my greatest regret is not the things that I did, but the things that I didn’t.”

  Ignar released his magic, and power that felt infinite emerged. A fire that burned everyone and everything within Café N’Sharan. The flames were so bright and powerful that no other sound could exist… not even the screams of terror and pain.

  The flames crackled. A chilling tension forced itself through him; he could feel shivers running through him, even when he could experience physical reality only through Ignar. An acrid scent covered the smell of coffee. A returning sensation that something was inherently wrong, but only he could sense it. The flames erupt, not from the floor, but from the very air itself. Descending like divine wrath. It hungers, it yearns to baptize everything with its touch. Covering all, burning everything, and all within the café. The flames, so bright and powerful that no other sound could exist nor pierce through it… not even the screams of terror and pain that must have existed…

  Like a creature with infinite hunger, the flames scorched everything. A deep rumbling accompanied its arrival. Not just objects, but people, and through people, history—years of memories, of conversations, of whispered dreams shared over cups of tea. The seedlings of rumors died before they could ever bloom. The fire ate even that.

  The heat blasted against Ignar and through him, Kanrel could feel it. How his mouth went dry, how sweat formed yet evaporated instantly from his skin. Through his eyes, Kanrel witnessed how history repeated itself, how another failure, another massacre, was allowed to exist. How regret filled the demon who had caused even this, and so it mirrored itself unto him. Disgusting, it was disgusting. How could a moral being do something like this? Yet… Of course, one could… Even he could.

  Cruelty. We hate it, yet we adore it. We love the cruelty that is used in ways that we deem to be just. Was this not just? At least somehow, in some way… How else will there be change?

  The flames, the rumbling hellfire burned away, in one moment it was there, overwhelming, bright, and powerful in its dark purpose. And now, it was gone. In mere seconds, it had formed itself, in mere seconds it had burned everything, and after its departure, after its hunger had been quenched momentarily, the ruination that revealed itself was total. Absolute annihilation.

  The was just black ash that covered everything. There were no bodies, nor other objects to remind us that it had been a café filled with customers… Instead, it was just an empty room, filled with a harrowing soon-to-be memory. It had become so dense in its silence.

  “I have killed all these people,” Ignar whispered, though the weight of his words felt heavier than the silence that smothered them. His voice cracked, fractured.

  He trembled as he let his gaze mix with the ashes of his actions.

  “But just how many more did I kill by not doing anything earlier?”

  Kanrel could not form a reply. Through Ignar’s eyes, he only stared at what remained—not ruins, not just the ashes, but absence itself. The café, the people, the memories they carried—wiped clean as if they had never been.

  Ignar let out a deep sigh, “And even this isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough. I was far too late, weren’t I?”

  The black surfaces of the café became more intense.

  “And to truly understand, one has to go deeper. One has to pry past that which they ought never to look past.”

  The ashes melted and became another canvas.

  “One has to indulge with evil to realize the things that form good, that form justice, that form the things that we think to be right…” A desperate whimper escaped his lips.

  It became whole. But within this darkness, one could not truly see what there might lie if there was someone else, another creature or thing that would show itself only if the black of the canvas were to be washed away, or bleached till it became just a surface of pure white.

  “Kanrel, to understand and to condemn the monster that I am, you will have to witness through my eyes great sin. An abyss comparable to the Fall.”

  White in straight lines, as if chalk on a blackboard, emerged, connecting themselves into shapes and forms, soon drawing what seemed like the outline of a room.

  “Forgive me, Kanrel, for what I have and will force you to see… and in them, you will find not only evil, but perhaps good as well, not just what I am, but also what you are.”

  Color was introduced again, the lines and shapes were filled with them, and soon, Kanrel could see a chair and on that chair, a tied person, a sack covered their head… It was… cold.

  Past the chair, animal carcasses were hung. Frozen. And soon, he could feel how Ignar moved, in their other hand a bucket, and with their free hand, they uncovered the person: a knocked-out Sharan in deep slumber. Ignar lifted the bucket with both of his hands and poured it all over the poor bastard. Who then woke up with screams of shock…