You took my warmth and ran east,
Thou art an undeserving fool,
For the cold remained, undisturbed by rule.
[Reconstruction Completed.]
[Subject: Elio Welchia]
[New Status: Alive]
Darkness was a sweet thing, really. It was to be expected that I couldn’t enjoy it for too long.
So after that familiar voice vanished from my mind, I felt my soul resurfacing, as if being pulled involuntarily out of the water, straight into the fire.
Pain overwhelmed every sense, tearing my eyes open in agony.
“Reconstruction my ass,” I cursed, turning in the pool of my own blood, unsure of which part of my body I should have grabbed and held onto to relieve some of the pain that was making my mind go blank. But nothing did. Not my head, not my stomach, not my legs, nor my chest.
For a minute straight, I wailed into my own suffering, my own foolish mistakes, until all I could do was curl into a ball and sit there, heaving and trembling like a feverish child.
But this was no mistake, was it? I should’ve been dead. I WAS DEAD. Yet now I was not.
‘Why?’
I never expected an answer to my fleeting thoughts amidst all the pain I was experiencing.
[Law not in accordance with the Custodians’ wishes.]
‘Fuck your Custodians. Fuck this place. And fuck you especially, how dare you sound like my wife?’ I said in my own head, hoping she… or it… or they would hear me, whoever they were.
[Do you deny this Law?]
[It has been purposefully picked by the Custodian of Love, in remembrance of The Subject’s Wife.]
‘Yes, I bloody deny it.’ I thought to myself, ‘You are not my wife. You do not get to use her voice.’
[Understood. Remodeling.]
[Remodeling successful.]
Mid-sentence, the voice inside my head began changing. Fracturing. It was small at first. The way the voice said the letter ‘s’ felt off, fixed itself, then continued.
But by the end, its tonality, shape, depth, and emotion were all different. Still the voice of a woman, but not my Julia’s.
It gave me a sense of comfort. But one that was soon replaced by the purgatory I was in.
My skin was prickly, itchy. A taste of bile and iron combined in my throat while the stinging scent of my own blood began gripping at my nostrils.
Just like the old lady at the orphanage used to say right before beating us into listening to her.
“At least you can feel that you are alive,” said the crooked bitch, before slapping me over the face.
But by all the gods named and forgotten in the annals of history, I, Elio Welchia, was feeling alive.
Yet… the pain was too great. My brain attempted to numb it as much and as quickly as possible, but it failed spectacularly. I felt like fainting, vomiting, and dying all at once. And yet, none came.
Instead, the voice emerged again.
[Choices beget Consequences.]
[The Custodians request that the Subject Remembers that.]
Even in my grief, even in my agony, all I could feel in that moment was pure, unfiltered hatred toward the damned voice.
Not because of the warnings it tried to give me, but because it kept me alive when I was already dead.
‘As I said, fuck your Custodians and all your bullshit-’
Then, suddenly, a wave of relief washed over me, like diving into a cold river on a suffocating summer day.
My breathing slowed. The trembling stopped. The pain was gone.
Not dulled. Not eased. Erased completely.
If not for my bloodied costume, it was as if I had never jumped to my death at all.
Slowly, I pushed myself up, nearly slipping in the pool of blood beneath me, then took a few steps back from where I had fallen.
My eyes wandered between the ledge above and the crimson pool in front of my eyes. Perhaps it was that experience that made me forget my grief for a few moments and ask the obvious question.
“Where the fuck am I?” I whispered, listening to my own voice echoing off the large interior.
Then, out of my own pool of blood, several spikes of pure ebony and intense scarlet shot up as they materialized, making me jump back in a panic and fall to the ground.
The spikes drew closer together, uniting into a smooth pillar of those same violent colors, as the same voice from my head now spoke from the pillar itself instead, her words slowly appearing in bright red on the pillar.
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Subject: Elio Welchia
Age: 28
Status: Alive
Reign Index: 0.00%
Reigncraft: Locked.
Location: The Calcan Castle.
Directive Unchanged: Continue Existing.
“That’s it?” I blinked, looking baffled at the words burning on the pillar like flaming embers. “Is that all you can give me? “
I waited a few moments, hoping for more. Yet nothing came.
I exhaled slowly, trying to calm the frustration that was bubbling up. Being unreasonable now, with whatever or whoever brought me here, who brought me back to life, was a stupid thing to do.
“Where am I?” I said, voice trembling with a mix of anger and exhaustion, trying to hold back my bloody tears, “Give me a location, a continent, something more. Is this Europe? Asia? What time is it? Date? Where is Julia? Her casket?”
When no answer came from the pillar, from the voice, I dropped to my knees in front of the spikes. “Please… give me more than that. What am I supposed to do with this vague directive? With myself?”
Nothing again.
“You… kept me alive,” I muttered through gritted teeth, “I deserve to know why.”
The words on the spiked pillar vanished as dying embers turned to ash, making my heart jump in anticipation at the awaited explanation.
But instead of an explanation, the pillar broke into the same several spikes that made it, moving away from each other, revealing a crown suspended amidst the crowd of spikes, as if floating.
Then, the voice returned inside my head, repeating the same words it had said earlier.
[Directive Unchanged: Continue Existing.]
“Ah, is that so?” I asked, getting to my feet, “Very well then, I will jump again. Maybe this time, I will fall on my neck, making it ever more difficult for this charade to go on any longer. I have no reason to live, and by the looks of it, you have no reason to keep me here. Farewell.”
I walked past the spikes and the crown suspended between them without a care, heading towards the same flight of stairs I had used previously.
It didn’t take more than twenty steps before the same voice returned, speaking in my head once more.
[The Custodians Request that the ‘Subject’ halt while They come to a Decision.]
It seemed that even God-like beings cannot handle the selfishness of humankind. Fitting.
[Decision Taken.]
Subject: Elio Welchia
Age: 28
Status: Alive
Reign Index: 0.00%
Reigncraft: Locked.
Old Location: Terra (Return to Terra: Non-viable.)
New Location: The Calcan Castle; The Great Velvet Forests; The Westgod Peninsula.
Directive Updated:
- Continue Existing
- Aid the Custodians (Further Details will be provided at the right moment.)
Reward for Completion: Julia’s Revival.
I froze mid-step at the echoes of that last line.
“Julia’s revival,” I whispered, eyes glued to the ground. I repeated those same two words for what felt like an hour. I couldn't believe it.
My wife... My Julia.
My heart turned toward hope, like a sunflower seeking the Sun. But my mind clung to unease.
“Say.” I turned from the stairs back toward the spikes, watching as they reformed into a pillar. It seemed the Custodians wanted to chat. “I don’t like that ‘Aid the Custodians’ part. What is it precisely? And is it a one-time thing before I get my Julia back? Or will you add more and more to that aid you require until you have no use for me?”
Letters emerged from the pillars of spikes, the living embers taking a new form.
[The Custodians request that you have Patience.]
“Easy to say,” I took a step towards the spikes, “And even easier would it be an attempt to coax me into doing your bidding with the only thing you know is keeping me jumping off that damned balcony again.”
[...]
[Existence must persist.]
[Restore the Broken Laws.]
[Once the Broken Laws are ‘Restored’, the ‘Reward’ will be granted.]
“What are the Broken Laws?” I asked, watching the new burning embers turn to ash a foot away from me.
[The Custodians request Patience.]
[Do you accept?]
I sighed, taking a step back away from the spikes, thinking on the matter.
I wasn’t back on Earth anymore. It wasn’t out of my own will, but neither could I go back if I asked nicely.
But even if I did, what was there for me left? At least, despite the plethora of questions that I had, who was I speaking to, or what in God’s green earth was this place and this world, at least I had the opportunity of a lifetime.
Bring Julia back.
If these ‘Custodians’ could really bring her back, then so be it. I will continue existing only for that hope.
But if they lied to me…
“I do,” I said to the pillar of spikes.
[Entering Law into Existence.]
[Law Added.]
Directive Updated:
- Continue Existing.
- Pick up the Crown.
At that last directive, the embers split between the several spikes that made the pillar as they opened, revealing that same crown from before, suspended in the air.
“Do I have to pick it up now?” I questioned, looking at the magnificent ruby standing tall in the middle of the crown, “My brain cannot handle much else right now.”
[Directive Recommended to be ‘Completed’ immediately.]
The voice echoed in my head.
“Of course,” I sighed, shaking my head as I walked towards the spikes and raised my arms, stretching them past the spikes, towards the crown.
The heat the spikes were emanating was too much, so instinctively I pulled my hands back, looking to see if the costume I wore was burned. It looked fine, cold to the touch, and still wet with my blood.
Seeing this, I tried again, this time putting my hands past the spikes as quickly as I could, grabbing the crown with my hands and pulling them back just as soon as the heat gripped at my skin, almost making me drop the crown on the floor.
“Phew,” I exhaled quietly, raising the crown gently towards my face to look at it better.
Something about it felt wrong. The surface was cold and unnaturally smooth, almost slick beneath my fingers. Even looking at it was tiring, my eyes aching if I stared for more than a second without blinking.
But that ruby… it felt like it called to me, drawing me in with sweet poisons, making me press my finger to it, slowly caressing it. But I didn’t.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked, looking away from the crown, “Just… put it on my head?”
[Correct.]
“Easy enough,” I frowned, turning to look back at the object in my hands.
It was such a magnificent thing to spin it around and look at it from all angles, trying to understand it. But there was nothing to be understood. Nothing by my knowledge of things, at least.
However, one thing was clear: it was hypnotizing to stare at it for too long. It asked to be worn. Demanded it.
Who was I to say no to such… conviction?
Slowly, I raised it higher, watching it with feverish intent. But I stopped, moving my eyes towards the spikes.
“I will not put it on,” I called to the spikes before quickly putting the crown back in its place, before the spikes could burn me, watching it suspended in the air at the same angle I had placed it back on.
[Is there a reason for the Subject’s Refusal?]
“Call it precaution,” I replied, looking at the crown, not feeling that hypnotic effect anymore, “You see, decades of bullying and trusting the wrong people had offered me only pain and disappointment. What reason is there for offering me a crown? Why a crown? What benefits does it offer me? What costs does it bring?”
[The ‘Subject’ has agreed to the Law.]
“Incorrect,” I countered to the echoes inside my head, “The ‘Subject’ has agreed to continue existing and aid the Custodians. Not to put on a crown the Custodians had so carefully forgotten to mention.”
The voice stood silent, not trying to counter my point. But there was no point to be made. That crown felt more like a trap than anything else.
I wanted nothing more than to bring Julia back. However, what was the point if it came at a cost they refrained from mentioning?
It would be easier to hurl myself off again than risk God knows what.
Let them keep their crown. When the time comes, and I do find a need for it, or whenever they explain what it does, I will put it on.
But until then, let it stay frozen in space.
“Now.” I turned, scanning the rest of the so-called Calcan Castle properly. “Where is the toilet?”
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