Memory Passage 1:1
"Only By Facing your burdens head on do you realize that the weight that dragged you throughout your life was only your own imagination"
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What would you do if the only fear you could feel was stripped of every extension of itself, where light could not be savored by dark? Until the essence of life fled in small drips of blood, in truth you could only stare at the moment when time itself truly froze. The mountains, the seas still, the sky dark under the endless cold that is the vast expanse we call Existence.
It was dark. No—it had always been dark here. It was just that if you never followed closely, you would never grow accustomed to its rhythm. There was no blue moon, only a red eclipse hanging in the sky. It had a peculiar yet terrifying appearance, like a hollow creature howling in visceral pain. From its eyes, two waterfalls of crimson blood ebbed and flowed—this was the moonlight.
I had not moved for days; my body was paralyzed. No amount of physical motion could be exerted even with force, Was it fear? My hands felt cold and numb, my face pale as snow, yet I could not understand what my body was signaling me. I felt my pupils dilating, enlarging, the beating of my heart spreading through my entire body—a constant, never-ending thump.
"After several days, my body began to ache. Dark lumps were growing beneath my abdomen. From them, a strange sensation sprouted. As I lay there, I could only observe the world and contemplate. It had a rhythm. It was not like Earth; everything here served a purpose—from the shifting terrain to deaths and lives. All followed the rhythm of the world, like Morse code. Something you could almost understand with even a surface level pattern recognition, except the attention span demanded was far more extensive. I cannot move anywhere, so i have been quietly observing things"
In the southern sky, staring menacingly and interchanging with the eclipse, what appeared to be a colossal Eye constantly surveilled the world.
Every five minutes, it blinked, and each blink carried a change—or rather, death itself. Each movement reflected in its vast pupil, but it did not notice me. I was weak and still. After some time, I realized that the strange sensation I felt came from the dark lumps. Inside them was a yellowish-black orb. Whenever I allowed fear to overcome me, it sprouted into a pitch-dark oak tree with only branches. It was painful; sometimes the branches penetrated my skin if they grew in unlucky positions.
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–.. . .- - …. / – .. -- . / -.. .- ... .... . ... / .- ... / . -.-- . / -... .-.. .. -. -.- …
It was this rhythm I caught. Every five minutes, without fail, something changed. If it was near, I could observe it—they were dying. Even if it was outside of my range of observation, i felt it. The aura of death permeating, That realization petrified me. It was the oldest emotion in history: fear, especially the fear of the unknown.
The Eye was biblical. It was grand, majestic, yet its entire existence appeared to serve one purpose—to intimidate and impose order. But this Eye was different; it radiated a malevolent aura. Each time something died, it revealed an almost mocking amusement. Its depth grew darker, like a black pool that swallowed you the moment your gaze lingered too long.
It had no muscles to smile with, yet its amusement was visible. From its expression, one could imagine a dark, eerie grin. It did not pity the world. It loathed it.
For six days, I did not move. In those six days, I witnessed 1,728 intervals of five minutes—1,728 deaths. Each blink, each gaze, mocked the futility of life. It carved a void into the concept of value and meaning. Travelers searching for food or shelter died miserably. Their decaying corpses were devoured by others, who too met the same fate.
My body grew malnourished. I questioned whether I was hallucinating. Fear became repetition—a routine. What counters fear? Confidence through conditioning. Yet my body was weak, my senses dulled.
Fear numbs the senses. It creates paranoia—you hear sounds that are not there, your mouth dries, your vision sharpens but tunnels on specific movements until you are certain they are harmless. Your blood rushes, intensifying your sense of touch. But there was one more sense I had never considered before: balance.
It ensures the body is in a stable state and can move accordingly.
Fear had always been tied to death, but fear itself was worse—fear is the feeling of hopelessness, often we fear what happens before death more so after. I remembered a line from Earth:
> "Fear arises from attachment. Once we let go, there is nothing to fear."
What was I attached to? Perhaps my former life.
But am i really dead? Can i consider it my former life. What happend? I have gaps in my memories.
To me, this world was no different from Earth. On Earth, those who spoke against fear were often the ones who spread it. Fear was hypocrisy. It was learned, nurtured, conditioned toward a single being: God, kings, aristocrats.
But here, fear was raw. It was annihilation.
Fear ruled history. It drove kings to slaughter kin, emperors to wage wars, and tyrants to cloak themselves in lies. Fear created torture, exclusion, trauma. It twisted civilization into obedience. And yet, at its root, fear was always something to fear itself.
It changed people, reshaped the body, and molded survival. In a world consumed by fear, there was no rest. Even without hope, humans still clawed at the illusion of it. Survival was the body's final defiance. Desperation, however, was fear disguised—a fear of rejection, of abandonment.
Hope was absent, but survival endured.
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When I was younger, I heard a story. It has circled my heart ever since.
There once was a nameless man who lived deep in the mountains. Pale, frail, and sick from birth, he was scorned as a failed successor of his clan. His mother endured seven days of agonizing labor. Each night, the moon turned pale blue, and by day the horizon burned crimson.
On the final day, the father entered the room, only to see his wife wavering between life and death. He grasped her fading hand, felt its warmth, and wept. She opened her weary eyes, eclipses dim yet hopeful. The child, wrapped in blood-stained robes, was unveiled.
Dead.
Heartbroken, the man rushed to the dark woods and out of spite seemed to be in conflict with his values and emotions, wanting to punish this child for being the cause of her wifes death, yet also clinging to his only sanity. This was an innocent child, it was brought by our actions and hopes. He let the child rest, as the sky were gloomy and then it was starting to rain, he went back outside and stared at the heavens above.
> "Oh, why have you forsaken me, God? In soul, in heart, in mind, I have served obediently. To what avail? My wife lies cold, and my heart grows colder. Why allow this suffering? What crime have we committed? Will you punish me for the hatred now carving into my heart?"
As if in answer, an imposing presence descended from the heavens. From the gloomy skies, a ray of light pierced through, accompanied by A red-veiled woman, her sleeves like angelic wings, smiled as she reached for him. He, broken, reached back in ecstasy and delusion. Their hands overlapped—but her touch passed through him like a ghost.
Then came the cold. His body shattered, his heart crushed, blood spreading into a sickly hue. What remained was only his mutilated corpse.
The truth? The child was already dead. That had always been the truth. The story was a lie.
The woman in red was no savior, but a cause, Seductive, lethal, and without reason. A cause requires a goal. Humans exist for causes—civilization itself was born of them. Some attainable, some impossible, all binding. Causes where mysterious, no one really was capable of understanding them. If a goal was unattainable, the cause would be harder to cling too, it also gave room for causes to exist in the form of manifestation of their goal, causes often trick humans into fighting for a goal they often don't even want to really pursue. Through 1000 years it has remained an eternal mystery.
Was his suffering justified? Or was it simply the nature of a cause?
Why was the child dead you may ask? It doesn't make sense, i have pondered over it and the only conclusion I've drawn is that the child which died along with the wife, was his cause. It was the cause that gave him a goal. Hope, he went to the woods yet carried nothing but a corpse in his arms. There are missing pieces to this story, variations. The original seems to be lost.
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It has been nine days since I arrived here. Three days since my last coherent thought. Today, the rhythm shifted. The five-minute interval faltered. Fatigued, I realized I had no choice but to act. I also had lots of thoughts drifting, inferences with no way to confirm them. I lacked understanding, i lacked knowledge.
"where do I run? What exit exists? No, no… I cannot despair. I must not allow negative thoughts to seep in, or they will bury me deeper into this grave."
The black lumps receded.
"These lumps appear only when emotions are disturbed. Despair and fear feed them. A double-edged sword. Forced positive thoughts will only leave cracks for them to sprout again. I need movement. If I could just stand, I could observe the terrain. Damn it! What to do! What to do!"
At that moment, a thought struck me.