The ritual of the staircase was second nature now. My muscles protested with monotonous familiarity, my lungs burned with a steady rhythm, and my mind, now a calm spectator in its own head, registered the sensations with a forensic chill. One: the physical exertion of the ascent. Two: the unmistakable pressure of the descent. Three: the air, increasingly cold, increasingly thin. I had stopped questioning the physics of this place. Accepting its illogical nature was the only way to keep the last, thin thread of my sanity intact.
I no longer dreaded what I might find above. My failed attempt at rebellion in school had taught me the most important lesson: my feelings were irrelevant to the system. Fear, hope, despair... they were just variables the game used. By emptying myself of them, I had become, or so I believed, a more difficult participant to manipulate. I moved forward not out of a desire to escape, but from the simple inertia of existence. Because the staircase was there.
I reached the stone archway. There was no pause. No deep breath to steel myself. I simply crossed the threshold, like an office worker stepping from their cubicle into the conference room.
And I entered the silence.
It was the first thing that struck me. It wasn't the oppressive, empty silence of the subway station, nor the expectant stillness of the dead park, nor even the brief reprieve in the school classroom. It was a dense, heavy, opulent silence. A silence that felt expensive.
I was in a banquet hall. A hall of absurd length, stretching into the distance until it almost disappeared. The floor was of black marble, so polished it reflected the ceiling like a dark lake. In the center, a single obsidian table, equally polished, extended from one end to the other. Upon it, an impossible feast.
Silver platters overflowing with exotic fruits of colors so vibrant they seemed artificial. Multi-tiered cakes with intricate, perfect sugar decorations. Carved crystal goblets, filled with liquids that glowed with their own light, from deep reds to luminous golds. Everything was illuminated by a soft, warm light that seemed to emanate from no source, simply existing, bathing the scene in an ethereal glow. The air was warm and perfumed with a mixture of sweet flowers and delicious food, an aroma so overwhelming it was nauseating.
But the most disturbing thing was not the opulence or the silence. It was the guests.
Along the endless table, dozens of figures sat in tall, ornate chairs. Men and women of impeccable beauty, dressed in formal wear and evening gowns that seemed woven from silk and shadow. And all of them smiled. They were not warm or kind smiles. They were identical, vacant, beatific smiles, fixed on their perfect faces like porcelain masks. Their eyes did not blink. They moved with a deliberate, unnatural slowness, raising a goblet to their lips without drinking, spearing a fruit with a silver fork without eating. They were automatons in a display of luxury. Smiling monsters.
My new inner emptiness served as my shield. I felt no temptation from the food, no awe at the luxury. Only a distant confusion. This place was not violent like the storm, nor melancholic like the park. It was passive. And its passivity was profoundly threatening.
One of the figures, standing at the head of the table, turned towards me. It wore an immaculate tuxedo and its smile was the widest and most vacant of all. It did not speak. It simply gestured with a white-gloved hand, indicating the sole empty chair: a carved chair, almost a throne, at the head of the table.
I knew that refusing was useless. The game had its rules, and the first was to participate. I walked across the marble floor, my footsteps the only sound in the vast hall. The echo was soft, absorbed by the heavy atmosphere. I sat in the chair. It was surprisingly comfortable.
Before me, my place at the table was set. Unlike the rest of the table, with its chaotic abundance, here there was only one dish. On the white porcelain plate, there was a serving of katsudon. Rice, breaded pork cutlet, scrambled egg, and onion. It was my favorite dish. And I recognized the way the onion was cut, the exact doneness of the egg. It was exactly how Valeria prepared it.
The name appeared in my mind unbidden, and with it, an echo of pain so distant it seemed to belong to someone else. Valeria. My girlfriend for almost two years in college. Our breakup had been quiet, civilized, and, on my part, completely incomprehensible at the time.
I looked at the katsudon, and the trigger for this level activated. It wasn't a violent tug. It was a subtle dissolution. The faces of the smiling guests along the table began to ripple. Their features softened, merged, and reformed. One by one, they all became Valeria. Dozens of Valerias, with dozens of vacant smiles, watched me from the endless table. The hall had become a feast of her reflections.
And then, the perspective shifted.
I was no longer in the opulent hall. I was in a small apartment in Colonia Roma, flooded by the orange light of dusk. The air smelled of soy sauce and her perfume, a mix of vanilla and old books. I was seeing the world through her eyes.
I felt the weight of her day on her shoulders. I felt her, Valeria, set her backpack by the door and massage her neck. She was exhausted. She had just come from an eight-hour shift at the coffee shop where she worked to pay for her architecture studies. And I felt her love for me, a warm, deep love, but one now tinged with immense fatigue.
I saw myself. I was sprawled on her sofa, her laptop on my lap, playing some video game. I didn't look up when she entered.
"Hi," she said, and her voice came from my lips.
"Hi," I replied, my past self, eyes glued to the screen.
I felt her disappointment, a small pang, and the way she instantly suppressed it. She was used to it. She walked over and kissed the top of my head. I felt the softness of her lips in my hair. I didn't even pause the game.
"How was your day?" she asked.
And then, my past self launched into a long litany of complaints. The calculus professor was an idiot. The design project was a waste of time. My parents had called again to lecture me about my future. I talked and talked, and through Valeria's eyes, I saw myself as a black hole, absorbing all the light and energy from the room.
I felt her push aside her own tiredness, her own stress, her own worries, to focus entirely on me. She sat beside me, rubbing my back. She asked questions. Offered support. Listened. And I, through her ears, listened to my own voice, a monotonous, complaining drone. I didn't ask her about her day. I didn't ask her about her job. I didn't ask her about her classes. The conversation was a monologue. My life was the center of the universe. Her role was to be a spectator who clapped and offered comfort.
The memory skipped. Now I was in her small kitchen. She was making dinner. Katsudon. The aroma filled the air. I was leaning against the doorframe, talking about how nothing motivated me, how I felt empty and rudderless.
And then I felt it. The exact moment of fracture.
She was stirring the egg, her gaze lost in the pan. And a wave of absolute, devastating clarity washed over her, and over me with her. It wasn't an angry thought. It was a quiet, sad truth.
"I love him," she thought, and I felt the sincerity of that statement with a soul-shattering force. "But he's draining me. I give him everything I have left at the end of the day, and he just takes it. And there's never enough. Tomorrow he'll complain about the same things, and I'll listen again, and I'll feel a little more empty than today. I'm turning into a ghost in my own life just to keep his world afloat."
I felt her love and her resentment entangled, a toxic mix. I felt her understanding that the relationship was no longer a partnership, but an act of parasitism. And I was the parasite.
The memory dissolved, leaving me back in the obsidian chair, in the silent banquet hall. The dozens of smiling Valerias watched me. The katsudon, perfectly prepared, waited on my plate.
I gasped. The horror of this revelation was of a different kind. I hadn't been cruel to Valeria. I hadn't yelled at her. I hadn't betrayed her in an obvious way. I had simply consumed her. I had devoured her energy, her time, her patience, her love, using them to fill my own existential void, offering nothing in return. My "gluttony" had not been for food, but for her soul.
The figure of the maître d', who now had Valeria's exact face, but with a stern, unsmiling expression, pointed to my plate. The gesture was unequivocal.
Eat.
The understanding hit me with nausea. This was the punishment. There were no shadows chasing me or storms hitting me. The torture was this feast. I had to consume the physical manifestation of my own selfishness. I had to savor my sin.
My hand trembled as I reached for the silver fork. It felt incredibly heavy. I lifted a portion of the egg-covered pork cutlet. The aroma was delicious, the same one I remembered from Valeria's apartment. But I knew the taste would not be that of food.
The taste would be of her exhaustion after a long day.
The taste would be of her worn-out patience.
The taste would be of her love turning into an obligation.
The taste would be of her soul emptying, bite by bite.
I brought the fork to my lips. The vacant smiles of the Valerias watched me, waiting. The silence of the hall was absolute, waiting. The entire universe seemed to hold its breath, waiting for me to eat my own broken heart, served on a plate.