"Brother… I told you, everything will be alright… brother, believe me… brother, come back… brother…"
I was screaming through tears I could no longer hold back.
My hands and legs slowly went numb not physically, but as if my very existence had been drained of strength.
A hollow exhaustion crept through my mind, devouring everything.
In the distance, a young boy stood barely past adolescence. He wore a loose fitting, pristine white shirt paired with simple trousers. His medium-length hair caught the dim light, shimmering in shades of light brown with subtle, golden undertones. But it was his eyes that truly defied this bleak reality. They were deep, harboring unknown, fathomless thoughts, gleaming with an ethereal emerald green. Looking at him, one couldn't help but think of a tragic, fallen prince of a ruined dynasty.
"Brother… brother…"
I kept calling him. Again and again. With all the strength I had left. But the void offered no answer. No echo, no presence, no warmth. Slowly, the desperate calls withered away into a haunting silence. I stopped.
Slowly, I forced myself upright.
A faint smile a broken, exhausted slipped onto my lips. I whispered under my breath, almost to myself:
"So this… is your answer, brother…? This is what you always wanted…?"
My voice trembled, not with fear, but with something far heavier.
"I was your brother… your little brother… You could have said it… you could have stopped me like this…"
Without waiting for anything else, he began walking forward. Straight. Unthinking. As if the path itself had been carved into my soul.
Around me, everything was identical ..an endless white chamber with no edge, no ceiling, no end. Even the concept of direction felt meaningless here. Yet I walked, because standing still felt worse than oblivion.
I do not know where this place begin or where it ends. Or whether it even has an end. But I no longer cared. I walked alone. Because In a world of absolute nothingness, wandering aimlessly was a better fate than rotting in stagnation...
COUGH… COUGH…
My steps halted. A sharp sound pierced the silence someone coughing. Female. Weak, yet unmistakably real.
At first, a cynical thought crossed his mind , perhaps it was a cruel hallucination born of his fracturing sanity. But even if it was an illusion, it was a sign of life. Driven by a sudden, desperate spark of curiosity, he began to scan the monochromatic expanse..
...
He turned slowly, narrowing his perception, letting his awareness stretch through the emptiness like a blade cutting through fog. He tried to feel it , not with his eyes, but with everything he had left.
"Over here... yes, over here," an unknown female voice echoed from the white fog.
At those words, the boy suddenly stopped walking. His emerald gem-like eyes slowly closed as if he was trying to grasp the sound itself through his senses alone, tracing its existence beyond sight.
"Found you."
A faint smile appeared on his lips. Without a moment's hesitation, he sprinted toward the path on his left. After running some distance, however, he abruptly came to a halt.
The boundary of the wall ended there. And within the endless white walls stood a massive black door.
It was like a hidden corner of the chamber itself , an unseen passage leading toward another room, concealed behind the pale emptiness.
The boy paused for a moment, lost in thought.
Then he slowly pushed the door open.
Beyond it was another identical room.
An endless white world once again, its limits impossible to perceive. Yet this chamber felt… different.
Because inside this place, there was another living being imprisoned just like him.
Not far ahead, a girl was bound to an old, filthy chair with thick iron chains wrapped tightly around her body.
Like the boy, she too wore pure white garments. A black cloth covered her eyes, hiding them completely. Her figure appeared somewhat frail, almost starved, while her dark brown hair fell in long wavy strands down her shoulders like withered silk.
Then, in a quiet voice barely above a whisper, the girl spoke.
"You'll leave too… eventually. I know it."
"Huh…?"
…
Those emerald eyes suddenly opened wide.
As though awakening from a deep slumber, Vaelith sat upright on his bed. At the corner of one eye lingered a faint trace of tears.
"Vaelith…" The name escaped his lips softly.
What… was that?
Vaelith lowered his gaze in silence. Ever since arriving in this realm, he had witnessed countless bizarre and incomprehensible things. Yet for some reason, what he had just seen felt different from all the others.
Was it merely a dream…
or something real?
Still… no matter how much he thought about it, the meaning behind it remained nothing but an endless void.
On the other side
A massive centipede slowly crawled out from within Lyanna's eye socket, writhing its way upward before slipping beneath her tangled hair, disappearing as though it had never existed. The eye it emerged from had turned crimson red, blood trickling from it and staining the pale skin beneath her face.
"Uughh…" A broken cry escaped Lyanna's lips, yet no true sound followed. Her body twisted weakly against the blood-soaked floor as she forced herself to observe her surroundings.
An unknown white chamber.
Its end could not be seen, as though the room stretched infinitely into emptiness. Across the white floor, nearly two inches of blood had gathered like a shallow sea, and in the middle of it lay Lyanna herself.
She wore nothing but a long, pale-white dress that draped loosely around her fragile figure. She felt utterly hollow. Other than observing her surroundings, her mind could no longer find a single path forward. Her breathing became violent and uneven, desperate gasps escaping one after another as if she were drowning within an unseen ocean of despair.
A crushing hopelessness slowly dragged her deeper.
If I had known this would happen… perhaps I would not have slept that night.
Perhaps I would have stayed with them instead…
Or if I had known things would reach this point, maybe I would never have gone to take that exam from the very beginning. Perhaps the school would have only scolded me for missing it… but at least I would not have ended up here
In this incomprehensible place…
A place where there is no way to understand what comes next… where I can do nothing except obey every command like a slave walking an unknown road.
Yet amidst the chaos consuming her mind, one question returned again and again, refusing to disappear.
A question whose answer she already knew.
Slowly, Lyanna whispered, her trembling voice barely existing within the endless white silence
"It feels as though… I was chosen for all of this."
Drip… Drop… Plip…
From somewhere far within the endless white chamber, the sound of footsteps slowly echoed toward Lyanna. Each step stirred the blood beneath the figure's feet, creating faint ripples and wet sounds across the flooded floor.
The moment she heard it, she stiffened.
Slowly, she forced herself upright.
She closed her eyes gently as she focused entirely on the direction of the sound, trying to determine where it originated from. And once she grasped the path those footsteps traveled upon, her gaze locked onto that endless corridor without wavering even once.
Her body was almost completely drenched in blood. The eye from which the centipede had emerged remained horrifyingly crimson, nearly motionless, while dried trails of blood stained the skin beneath her cheeks . Though the bleeding had stopped, the terrifying redness within that eye remained unchanged.
A subtle coldness slithered across her skin.
Quietly,
Lyanna wrapped her arms around herself before beginning to walk toward the direction from which the footsteps echoed.
Shik… shik…
After walking some distance, Lyanna suddenly halted.
Far ahead of her, someone was approaching directly toward her through the endless white abyss. Yet because one of her eyes had become almost unusable after the centipede crawled out from it, she could not properly distinguish who or what was coming.
Standing still and waiting would change nothing. The thought surfaced within her mind. And so, with slow and hesitant steps, Lyanna moved forward once more.
But after only a few steps , something touched her foot.
A faint voice of pain escaped her lips as she lowered her gaze. Kneeling down into the shallow blood beneath her, Lyanna reached toward the object. The moment her fingers brushed against it, she felt the touch of something extremely sharp.
A thin cut immediately opened across her finger. Yet Lyanna did not let go . Carefully, she observed the object before gripping it from its duller side and lifting it from the blood-covered floor .
It was a narrow medium sized weapon, roughly seven to eight inches in length, resembling a dagger.
Its edges were terrifyingly thin and sharp as though even the slightest touch would be enough to split flesh apart instantly. Beneath the blade rested a small circular cross-shaped guard.
Lyanna silently wrapped her fingers around the handle.she slowly rose to her feet once more.
Lyanna slowly steadied herself, her fingers still tightly gripping the ground as she pushed herself up to her feet.
When she raised her gaze… she stopped
The man standing before her , his face struck her like a memory she had never dared to forget..
White, flowing shirt and pajama, the fabric soft yet strangely pristine. Medium-length light brown hair with faint golden undertones, catching the dim light like a forgotten halo. And those eyes green, ethereal, sharp as carved crystal, carrying a strange royal elegance. A face that looked less like a human and more like a perfected piece of aristocratic art.
The closest person Lyanna had ever known in her entire present existence.
"Vae-va… Vaelith…" she whispered, almost against her own will.
"Vaelith…" He stepped closer.
Vaelith stood directly in front of Lyanna. For a brief moment, he simply looked at her silent, unreadable. Then, slowly, he raised his hand and gently placed it against Lyanna's cheek.
"Lyanna… come. We have to return home. Won't you come… with me?"
Lyanna remained deathly still. She could not understand. Was this a mistake of her mind… or reality itself bending in an unfamiliar shape?
She looked at him in silence, and just as she was about to speak , vaelith interrupted her.
"Wait… what is that in your hand? Something so sharp… why are you carrying something like this?"
Something shifted in his voice ," Give it to me. I'll throw it away. Don't keep things like this with you. You'll hurt yourself."
At that moment, Vaelith tightened his grip on Lyanna's hand. A pressure subtle at first, then slowly increasing.
A forceful push through his grasp, as if trying to make her surrender the object in her hand.
And in that instant , Lyanna understood. This was not concern.Vaelith was trying to take her weapon by force. Her mind sharpened instantly, like a blade being drawn from its sheath.
So… this is your intention?
Were you always like this… or is this another version of you I never knew?
Or perhaps… you are not Vaelith at all.
Maybe you are just a mask… worn by something I cannot yet see.
Her thoughts spiraled, cold and calculating beneath the surface of her silence.
Meanwhile, Vaelith's expression darkened, impatience rising.
"Hey… give it. Give it now , Give it to me... hand over that sharp object to me!" Vaelith roared with sudden, frantic desperation, his voice tearing through the air .
Lyanna merely stared at him, her gaze fixed and unblinking. Suddenly, a faint, chilling smile played upon her lips as she spoke.
"Why? So that you can use this sharp weapon to kill me later?"
she said softly, " If you were truly so worried about a blade hurting me, you would have asked me the moment you arrived why my eye is bloodshot.
You would have asked why there is blood smeared on my cheek, or how I am holding up right now...
You wouldn't have grabbed my hand with such forceful violence. You would have given me time to trust you."
The moment the words left her lips, Lyanna fell silent, her eyes locking onto Vaelith. He, too, froze instantly upon hearing her indictment.
Slowly, Vaelith pulled his hand away from her. The expression on his face shifted entirely, morphing into something unrecognizable. Looking deep into his eyes, an eerie, unsettling realization began to dawn on Lyanna.
"Lyanna... it is not just you, nor is it just me. Both of us are here..."
Vaelith began to stammer out an explanation, but his voice could no longer penetrate Lyanna's consciousness.
Inside the deepest recesses of her mind, a solitary, echoing command began to warp and spin:
Kill him... Kill him... Kill them all before they kill you... Everyone...
The sheer weight of these words became unbearable, triggering a cascade of fragmented flashbacks that flooded her mind.
Driven by an autonomous, detached impulse, Lyanna's body moved completely on its own, bypassing her conscious thoughts.
The hand gripping the sharp weapon plunged forward. Before she even realized what she was thinking, the blade had already driven deep into Vaelith's abdomen.
"Ly... Lya... Lyanna..." Vaelith gasped out her name, his eyes pinned on her as a torrent of blood began to erupt from his wound.
Without a trace of hesitation, Lyanna yanked the knife back out of his stomach, standing perfectly still as she stared back at him.She couldn't comprehend what she was feeling ,her facial expression was a mask of absolute, hollow emptiness.
Vaelith's gaze remained fixed on her as his legs gave out, causing him to sink slowly to the floor.
Slouched against the ground, his body went entirely limp as he exhaled his final, ragged breath.
Lyanna remained standing, completely upright, watching him die.
Looking down at his corpse, she spoke in a barely audible whisper, her inner thoughts bleeding into the quiet room:
"Vaelith... Am I supposed to feel grief? Then why do I feel absolutely nothing? Why am I becoming like this... or was I always this way from the very beginning? "
Yet, despite the profound void in her voice, tears were quietly welling up in her eyes. It was as if her own tears were betraying the cold reality of her heart.
Her gaze stayed fixed on him, hollow and distant, as tears finally formed in her eyes.
But even those tears felt like they didn't belong to her.
.....