Chapter145: The Dark Dance in the Grandmother's Embrace
The Manifestation of the Shadow
[Scene: A desolate courtyard where a black rain falls like ink. Diyari sits in the center of the mud, a broken statue of a man. The mark on his back glows like a subterranean volcano.]
The mist suddenly thickened, curling around the pillars of the house like the very breath of death. Out of that gray void, a bent and twisted shadow emerged. It was Diyari's grandmother—his mother's mother. She was the architect of this misery, the woman who had planted her black sorcery into the very veins of this household. Leaning on her staff, which appeared to be carved from human bone, she stepped toward Diyari. Every footfall felt like a localized earthquake beneath Diyari's feet.
Grandmother: (In a raspy, mocking voice that hissed like a viper) "Look at him... my precious grandson! Look at this 'hero' who thought he could change the world with his loyalty. Now he sits in the mud like a parched dog, stripped even of the strength to scream. Tell me, Diyari... does your silence smell of love, or does it reek of absolute failure?"
Diyari did not lift his head. His eyes, crimson and deep like two lakes of stagnant blood, remained fixed on the mud in which his body was sinking. He felt the black mark on his back beginning to consume his vertebrae. The spell had reached a point where every breath he took felt like a glowing nail driven into his lungs.
The Distortion of Perception
[Scene: Rina watches from the window. In her eyes, filtered through the curse, Diyari is merely a pathetic beggar, while the grandmother appears as a figure of mercy.]
Rina: (Shouting from behind the glass) "Grandmother! Leave him be! That mindless fool isn't even worth your words. Look how ugly he is... look how ill-manneredly he refuses to prostrate himself before you! He is only putting our child in danger with that curse he carries within him."
The grandmother let out a long, screeching laugh that sliced through Diyari's brain like a jagged blade. She moved closer and pressed the tip of her bone-staff firmly into the black mark on his back.
Grandmother: "Do you see, Diyari? Even your 'love' calls you ugly. She sees me as an angel and you as a demon. This is the true power of my magic! I have scorched your soul so deeply that even an ocean of tears could not extinguish the fire. You made one mistake... you tried to be human once. Now, you must spend a lifetime paying the price for that humanity."
The Agony of the Innocent
Inside, Diyari was on the verge of exploding. The vivid image of his body turning to ash played before his eyes. He wanted to leap up and wrap his hands around the witch's throat, but the spell was tethered: every movement he made inflicted such agony upon his child that the baby's cries would pierce the air from inside the room.
Diyari (In the depths of his heart): "Kill me... just kill me, Grandmother... but leave the child alone! I have been betrayed... I have seen the world's unfaithfulness... but I never expected my mother's mother to be the executioner of my soul. Rina... please... just once, look at the truth... look at the wounds I have carved into myself for you..."
Inside the room, the child's skin turned a dark, sickly blue. Every time the grandmother ground her staff into Diyari's back, the child's lips trembled in synchronized pain. This was the most agonizing facet of the curse; Diyari had to die in silence to prevent his son from suffering further. The family treachery had become a living cemetery.
Grandmother: "You are silent because you know you have nothing left. You are the beggar of a love that no longer exists. Look at Rina... in her mind, she sees me as her savior. She thinks I am protecting you! Oh, what an unfaithful world... where the murderer is seen as the protector, and the loyal man is seen as the monster!"
Rina opened the door and stepped out, looking down at Diyari with a cold, pitiless gaze. she took the grandmother's hand.
Rina: "Grandmother, do not exhaust yourself with this mindless wretch. He is just a lazy fool trying to get attention with this silence. Let him die here in this mud. He is ill-mannered because he refuses to let us live in peace."
One solitary, blood-red tear escaped Diyari's eye. It fell onto the soil of the courtyard and seemed to sear the very earth. Amidst the chaos of pain and the dark reality of a family turned foe, only one thought remained in his mind: "I will not leave... let my heart turn to charcoal, I will remain here until my final breath."
The grandmother, with a terrifying grin, led Rina back into the house, leaving Diyari alone in the black rain. Behind him, the black mark continued to melt the flesh of his body, merging him into that cursed earth.
Wirtten by : Dlin_myth