(A spark.)
(Beams of light.)
And thus begins the next Arcana I. The Magician.
"This is where I woke up… and where I died."
He didn't know where he was but Drek wasn't just watching from the fourth dimension anymore he was feeling it.
"This was my Eden…
And this was my grave.
Memories that exhaust my past…"
A place where Heaven hung low over Earth a house weathered by sunlight, built from the hands of a father a pure echo of something lost.
The wind swept through golden wheat, grasses danced, feeding wild animals. Here, the mere idea of knowing you exist was equivalent to feeling it.
(River waves.)
(Birdsong.)
(A dog's bark.)
Everything connected an ambient without decor, a frame simple in form… yet unforgettable in meaning.
(A door opens.)
"Mama… I'm bored…" he said, longing to play.
"Drek, I told you I don't have time to play right now.
I have work to do.
„Go outside and play with Aby," she said referring to his dog.
"Okay, mom…"
His voice, heavy with disappointment.
"If you're good, I'll tell you a story later," she smiled, stroking his cheek with warmth only a mother could give.
"Yay! Aby, come on!"
He ran through the meadow, toward the river's shimmer. In the distance, a mountain its peak brushing the gates of Heaven. From the forest beyond the stream, a deer emerged, her fawns trailing behind.
They sat.
Aby became his pillow his reddish, golden fur soft beneath him, his eyes… not loving, but always present.
"Aby… you're my best friend. I hope I never lose you…" And the dog licked his face in reply.
Meanwhile, his mother hung clothes on the line, sunlight filtering through the linens like quiet hymns. When the chores were done, she returned to her son.
"Come inside, Drek midnight is near." They entered the house together, where gas lanterns still howled with faint flickers, and family portraits held onto life.
"Start the story, mama… I can't wait anymore!" He smiled, gazing at the nightlight playing across a painted canvas.
"There was once a writer…"Her eyes soft blue, her hair black silk like the depths of midnight.
"…and that writer longed for something more than stories could offer. He wanted a fairy tale that could speak with him directly with the reader themselves."
It was a revelation one beyond simple fiction.
"He spent days, nights, weeks, months, years until he finally finished the story." Months that felt more like decades under the weight of his own emptiness.
"What happened next, mama? Was it about… dad?" The boy asked with hesitation. He only knew one thing: his father had once been a writer too.
"No, Drek… He went to war. He died. Came home with no arms, no future. You were too young to see such horror." Her hands trembled. Her body quivered at the memory.
"And when he tried to publish it, they refused. They laughed at the idea, as if he were insane. So he left the City of Fantasies, and cursed his own art, without rest or return."
(Her voice cracks.)
(Tears swell in her eyes.)
"When he came home, broken and worn from labor, he went to bed. But he didn't sleep he was quantified into a paradox, trapped inside his own story, where the characters no longer saw him as a creator… but as a murderer.
He had killed his own idea."
"I promise, I'll never do that! Never!" Drek vowed, kissing his mother goodnight. But something something awful entered the room.
(A rustle.)
(A glitch of static.)
(A pulse of ink and shadow.)
Behind her, a ribbon spun into a sphere from it emerged a man, masked by a Question, wielding a sword… made of red ink.
He struck her.
She collapsed.
Blood pouring from her lips, she whispered,
"I love you… and I always will…"
Her final breath.
Her final echo.
Her final scream in front of her child.
(Sobs. Screams. Blood dripping.)
She lay across the bed,
cradling the sleeping child,
her body falling into an eternal rest.
As Drek leapt up to attack the masked man he was gone. And not just him but this entire dream.
(Sunlight streaming through the window.)
(Birdsong.)
(The cold breath of dawn.)
"Another nightmare.
But this one felt… far too real."