I don't remember how I got here—or if I ever belonged anywhere else.
Memory is a luxury for the dead.
It was all fog, back then.
The past feels like a series of snapshots,
blurry and stained with blood I can't even recognize.
Sometimes, I can't tell which of the images is me.
That thing—
that thing that was mine but wasn't me.
A ghost, maybe,
or a shadow without a body.
But it was always there.
A constant. A presence.
Not cold, but… there.
An endless embrace that left no room to breathe,
no space to think.
It didn't care about my pain.
It only cared that I survived.
And beneath it all—
laughter.
Low, sick, and knowing.
Not mine.
But I couldn't escape it.
It felt like home.
Or maybe that's just what I wanted to believe.
The blood on my skin—
not all of it mine.
Not all of it even real.
The horror became a story,
until the lines blurred,
until I couldn't tell if I was the monster
or the victim.
But the thing that haunts me most?
The joy.
I can still hear it echoing sometimes.
A laughter I'm afraid to remember,
a joy that was mine.
"Even now, I wonder if it was survival—or just the shape of surrender wearing my face."
I never asked for it.
I didn't… want it.
But it was there—
like a drug,
and I couldn't stop chasing it.
I didn't understand it back then.
I think I know now.
Ex leaned back against the jagged bark of a tree,
the roughness biting into his skin.
His ankle ached from where he twisted it earlier,
but the pain was a small thing,
a whisper compared to the hunger gnawing at him.
I'd been starving for so long,
I forgot what full felt like.
The smell of the forest hung thick in the air—
wet earth, decay,
life on the edge of death.
My fingers clutched at my shirt,
pulling leaves from my body
like they were trying to hold me in place.
But no matter how far I ran,
they always followed.
The trees. The wind.
That thing—
always there, lurking.
I looked up at the fading sky,
where the sun bled out in the distance,
and I knew—
this wasn't real.
I wasn't supposed to be here.
But it didn't matter.
None of it ever mattered.
I should have known what was coming next.
But when it happened,
I still wasn't ready.
No one ever is.
The world shifted.
The air thickened,
as if the sky bent lower,
pressing its invisible weight onto my chest.
The forest blurred at the edges,
trees melting into dark pillars,
the earth trembling with a sound
I felt more than heard.
A silence that devoured other silences.
A stillness so absolute,
I could hear the soft rush of blood behind my ears,
the small catch in my breath,
the slow grind of my molars as I clenched my teeth.
Even the stars seemed to retreat,
fading behind a film of black.
Then—
Clink.
A single note of metal,
sharp and deliberate.
Chains.
They didn't rattle like in stories;
they whispered,
soft as a lover at your ear,
cold as ice down your spine.
Another step,
and the ground split,
a hairline crack racing through the dirt,
carving the earth open like skin.
I wanted to run.
My body screamed to flee.
But something older,
something coiled deep in the marrow,
held me still.
A predator's presence.
Not hunger.
Not anger.
Inevitable.
The figure came into view.
Smoke without wind,
shadow without shape,
its limbs too long,
its gait too slow for anything living.
And its face—
was mine.
Not as I am now.
As I was.
Younger. Sharper.
Lifeless eyes reflecting a thousand fractured lights.
My chest tightened.
No.
This wasn't just a dream.
This was a memory
that had waited.
It stepped forward,
grass withering under its feet,
leaves curling to ash.
The scent hit me—
not rot,
not death,
but burnt time.
Pages turned to cinders.
The air in a room long abandoned.
"Ex."
The voice cut through me,
rough with rust,
echoing off bones only I could feel.
"Did you think you could bury us?"
My knees buckled.
Sleep.
I was supposed to be asleep.
This wasn't supposed to follow me here.
But it always did.
The memory hooked into the soft places,
into the quiet,
and dragged me down.
The figure's grin split too wide,
like a mask tearing at the seams.
"Did you think forgetting would free you?"
It tilted its head,
watching me with eyes
too human,
too knowing.
I wanted to scream,
wanted to tear the dream apart—
but the ground gave way beneath me.
And I fell.
Not through space.
Through memory.
The ground tore open,
no longer bound to the failing body
that stumbled after rabbits
and cursed the trees.
I fell between moments,
past the thin skin of time,
into the marrow of what I am.
Flashes:
A blade slipping from my hand.
A voice gasping my name.
A city burning under a sky
that bled silver and ash.
Laughter,
low and bitter,
rolling up from the pit of my own throat.
The moment it all shattered.
The choice I made.
The face I turned away from.
The silence that followed.
I felt the crack open inside me,
the rift where my soul had once sat.
And then—
I remembered.
Not the event.
Not the blood.
Not the screams.
I remembered the feeling.
The rush.
The break.
The unbearable lightness of becoming
something more—
and something less.
The moment power swallowed guilt,
and all that remained
was need.
"Time folded in on itself, every heartbeat cracking open a door I wish i could never relive."
When I hit the ground,
I did not wake.
I rose , inside him.
The figure—
the thing that wore my face—
opened its arms.
And for a moment,
I understood.
I had never left.
Below me,
the earth stretched away
into an endless plane of pale stone,
cracked and veined with gold,
rising like ribs
around a single tower.
Black marble,
twisted like bone melted and reforged,
spiraled into the hollow sky.
At its peak,
no crown,
no throne—
only a circle of burning eyes,
watching from the dark,
their voices coiled like smoke between the stars.
At the foot of the tower—
him.
My younger self.
Dragged.
Bloodied.
Barely alive.
Chains coiled at his wrists,
bit into his ankles,
snaked across his throat.
He stumbled forward on torn feet,
knees buckling,
head lolling against his chest.
I saw the skin split at his back,
scars like mouths too tired to scream.
And in the hush of that place,
the gods spoke.
Not in words.
In weight.
In the cold press of expectation
that breaks lesser things into ash.
I followed.
Feet touched down—
no sound,
no impact,
as though the dream itself
feared waking.
With each step,
the tower loomed taller,
the air thickened,
and the whispers sharpened to knives,
cutting into the soft parts of memory
I had tried to seal away.
The boy stumbled at the stairs.
He lifted his head.
For a breath,
for a sliver of eternity,
our eyes met.
I saw myself—
not the survivor,
not the monster.
The boy still reaching for a hand
that never came.
And in that moment,
I saw me—
not as the man I'd clawed into being,
but as the thing they made.
The blade they sharpened on my soul.
I reached for him.
The chains snapped tight.
His body jerked,
the breath punched from his lungs,
his face twisted in a soundless cry.
The gods leaned closer,
their unseen mouths pressed to the world.
I heard their judgment
not as words,
but as a shiver through the marrow
of every living thing.
"Not yet."
My fists clenched.
The old anger flared.
The laugh crawled up my throat,
sharp and bitter,
filling my mouth
with the taste of iron and ash.
I stepped forward—
and felt the change.
The skin of my arms,
veined with pale fire.
My eyes,
splintering into gold and red.
The weight in my chest,
not a heart,
but a furnace stoked on rage and memory.
I had become
what they feared I'd be.
The boy was dragged up the stairs.
The gods turned their eyes toward me.
I smiled.
Slow. Wide.
"And when they come?"
My voice tore from me,
hoarse with the weight of it all.
The figure hesitated.
"I'll kill them,"
I whispered,
almost lovingly.
"Not for revenge.
Not for justice."
Eyes flickered,
burning from within.
"For fun."
The shadows bent toward me.
Not in fear.
In worship.
"I'll rip crowns from skulls.
Drag screaming gods into the dirt they built me from."
The figure stumbled back.
"And when they weep,
when they break,
when they beg—"
The smile bloomed.
Vast. Wrong.
"they'll remember"
whose hands
"shaped this monster."
The laughter that followed the words didn't come from me.