Antik woke to find himself surrounded. Around him stood several people, each armed with weapons capable of erasing his existence in an instant.
Every weapon was aimed at him, and Antik felt the weight of the situation pressing down. The air around him seemed to thicken, amplifying the tension until it was almost unbearable.
Yet, one by one, they lowered their weapons, their bodies stiff and rigid, eyes filled with pity as they looked at him. The room was suffocating under the weight of their calm, unyielding presence—powerful, controlled, and absolute—everyone but Antik.
Antik realized that, in their presence, his existence was no more significant than that of a fly. The attention of those surrounding him pressed down so heavily that he could feel his neck stiffening under their gaze.
Meanwhile, the owner of the house and the neighbors had stepped out, leaving the room behind to experience the true presence of someone truly strong—someone whose strength was undeniable, palpable, and awe-inspiring.
Finally, one of them spoke, pointing out the cause of his fault—the reckless choice of his conscious mind to summon the shadow, an act that had endangered the lives of everyone around him.
Antik, too, seemed to grasp the weight of his mistake. What had begun as mere research had carried consequences, and even his experiment had borne a conscience of its own—one that now pressed heavily upon him.
One of the men stepped forward, pulling out his weapon to signal that Antik was under arrest for the consequences of his actions. The gesture made the moment even more tense, surreal, and almost unbelievable, as the weight of his reckoning pressed down on him.
Antik tried to take a stand, but the pressure around him grew unbearable. In the end, he found himself walking with them, powerless against the weight of their presence and authority.
He sat with them in the car, a large vehicle trailed by another, both moving with quiet authority. From his stiff, aching neck, he forced out a voice, fragile but determined, asking the question that burned in his mind: What is my fault? What are the consequences of my actions?
The people around him wore stiff, pitying expressions, as if they understood that none of this should have happened—that it was something unbearable, weighing heavily on Antik alone.
Yet one of them spoke of others—people who, by mistake, had summoned creatures by breaking the rules, using forbidden words. Their punishment had been severe: taken by the authorities and condemned to become void labor, erased from ordinary life and bound to their fate.
(Void labor refers to those who enter the void alongside people who stand against creatures, sacrificing their own lives to help. If the person who takes a stand is in danger, these laborers protect them, offering their existence in place of the one confronting the creature.)
Yet the police stopped speaking, and all that remained was the fear reflected in Antik's eyes. His body had been ravaged by the shadow that night, and what had once been a fleeting experiment now marked the beginning of a desire he would carry for the rest of his life—a drive to become something far greater than he had ever imagined.
The fear in his eyes was so raw, so uncertain, that it could terrify anyone who met his gaze. His body stiffened under its own weight, and his thoughts were consumed by doubts—relentlessly questioning the magnitude of the mistake he had made.
The world around him seemed to fade—the vacant houses dissolving into emptiness—reminding him, with quiet cruelty, of the consequences he was about to face.
They reached their destination: a police station, vast and imposing, almost like a palace. Inside, Antik could see many others like him, their faces bearing the same expressions—hollow, fearful, resigned—silently revealing the fate that awaited him.
There were hollow expressions everywhere, in every corner. It felt as though Antik was staring into an abyss—only to realize that the abyss had already been staring back at him.
There was only one question that lingered within the police station: what was its true purpose—why was it even called a police station? In truth, it felt more like a prison, filled not with officers or ordinary people, but with void laborers, their presence overshadowing everything else.
And yet, Antik came to realize that it was nothing more than an open domain for void labor—far closer to a place of enslavement than anything else. It was here that he would face the consequences of his mistake, already being forced toward the abyss by a system that allowed no escape.
And he also realized the reason behind the policemen's pity. It was not kindness, but the weight of their duty. They were not protecting people—they were searching for those who would become slaves, condemned to live as void labor and die the same way.