Lloyd had been lying on the ground.
Slowly, slowly, he opened his eyes and rose with difficulty.
His head was spinning.
He placed his hand on his forehead — that forehead wet with sweat that was neither cold nor hot, the sweat of having been present in a place that was not.
“Ah… my head… it hurts. Where am I now?”
The words seeped from his throat, but there was no one to hear them.
No bird, no breeze, no echo of his own voice.
A silence so profound that it seemed “silence” itself had fled this silence in terror.
And then his eyes — those worried brown eyes — saw what no eyes should ever see:
Mist.
A gray mist, such that it was neither cloud nor smoke, but the very texture of the air had changed.
There was no sky.
No ceiling.
Only the endlessness of mist, from above and below and all four sides, as if earth and sky had become one, and that oneness was not love, but madness.
Beneath his feet, stones lay scattered.
But when he looked — he looked — he could not feel his foot.
As if he walked not on stone, but on “absence,” and the stones were mere patterns on the floor of an abyss.
He asked again: “Where am I?” This time louder, with an anger born of fear.
His eyes stared into the mist, and something within him, something older than his name, whispered:
“This mist… it’s like the mist I used to see in my dreams.”
And then, with a hesitation that made every step a decision, he began to walk.
His footsteps were soundless — not silence, but a soundlessness as if sound had been “slain” in that space, the corpse of every utterance choked the moment it was born.
But suddenly — and this “suddenly” is a word for a phenomenon that has nothing to do with time — the mist changed.
Hands, fingers made of oblivion, clenched the clouds and tore Lloyd from the ground.
Lloyd looked down.
His feet no longer touched the stones.
They were suspended.
In the air.
In nowhere.
And the space — that space — began to change.
The mists, like curtains drawn aside in a theater, parted, and in the blink of an eye — a landscape emerged:
A castle.
But “immense” is a word humans made for things they hope to understand.
This castle was built of shadow and bone.
Its walls rose upward, such that any eye that tried to follow them turned back.
As if they meant to pierce the sky itself — that ceiling of mist — to reach what lay behind the curtains.
The stones were black, with cracks from within which a light shone — a light that did not resemble light, but was reminiscent of something once called blood.
Lloyd, breathless — if that air could be called “breath” — stared at the mass:
“This… this castle… it’s huge. It’s impossible that this castle belongs to humans. This… it’s as if it was made for giants. As if the earth itself trembled in fear of this structure.”
And at that moment — as if the castle had heard his words — the gate, with a sound that was not a roar but the “groan of the earth,” opened.
A scent seeped out: sulfur and ash and something else, something sweet that clung to the throat and was reminiscent of a death that had already occurred.
Lloyd passed through that gate.
And in a moment — if “moment” had meaning here — he found himself in the heart of a giant.
The corridors were so high that if Lloyd’s head reached the hinges of the doors, the ceiling was so distant it seemed stitched to the sky.
The walls were made of stones, each containing fossils of beings — not dinosaurs, not anything books had ever shown.
Things with wings of bone and eyes that, even as fossils, remained open.
The guardian statues had lost their heads — but not in war, in oblivion.
They stood in the corners like skeletons of giants who had seen God.
Lloyd murmured to himself, his voice falling in that space like a pebble down a well:
“It’s like… compared to this place, I am an ant.”
He reached the gate of the great hall.
On the stones of the gate, carvings were etched that, after the passage of centuries, were still terrifying: humans kneeling and worshipping before a shadow.
And that shadow was devouring the sky — not in jest, not as a symbol, but literally: the sky was disappearing into its mouth.
And at that moment — just as Lloyd held his breath — the gate opened by itself.
No sound.
No tremor.
It simply opened.
Lloyd took a step forward — but his foot locked onto the stone.
“Why? Why am I afraid?” he thought, as his heart pounded.
“I should go back…”
But his feet were drawn toward the gate.
“But… I’ve come this far. I can’t go back.”
And this was the lie every mortal tells themselves on the threshold of madness.
You can always go back.
You just have to sacrifice reason for safety.
But Lloyd, without knowing it, had given his reason to the mist.
He entered the hall.
The hall was not a palace, but a mausoleum.
A ceiling that once rose high (and perhaps once showed the stars) had now collapsed, and the mist-light dripped through its cracks.
Plants with silver leaves and black stems sprouted from the fissures in the stone and danced in the air.
But at the far end of the hall, everything changed.
There, on steps of stone — steps whose number could not be counted, for the eye lost itself in that slope —
A throne that, if you saw it in a dream, you would wake from fear; and if you saw it awake, you would wish it were a dream.
Upon that throne, a mist swirled and coiled upon itself —
Lloyd whispered:
“So… this castle really was built for giants. This throne… this crown… it’s magnificent. Just a few steps… I have to go up and reach the throne.”
But then he realized:
“But why is it so ruined here? Why has a kingdom that was once powerful been abandoned?”
And his eyes moved to the armrest of the throne.
There, at one point, was something different from the throne.
An orb.
Black.
Smooth.
Without reflection.
As if it did not absorb light, but denied it.
It was not stone, not metal, not wood, not glass.
It was, and yet it was not.
As if it were a hole in the fabric of reality situated at that point, and from that hole, “nothing” stared back.
Lloyd, with curiosity and a fear seated in his bones, took a step forward and whispered:
“That… what is that?”
And at that moment — perhaps because such a black thing should not be questioned — the orb did not answer, but the space did: with a silence, with a scent, with a feeling as if eyes, all at once, had opened.
Lloyd sat beneath the throne — he sat because standing felt like insolence.
His breaths burst from his throat.
The stone floor of the hall sent cold through his shoes, into his bones —
His eyes slid over the details: the walls, the statues, the flagstones.
But the throne was untouched.
Lloyd’s mind — that mind always taking refuge in stories — wove scenarios:
First possibility: This place was attacked.
The king defeated his enemies…
but the victory was bitter.
He placed the crown down and left.
A kingdom without a king.
Second possibility: The enemies showed respect.
Perhaps they feared the king, or perhaps laws dictated such.
They left the crown untouched.
A trophy no one dared to touch.
Third possibility: Rebellion.
The giants themselves rose against their king.
They abandoned the crown for fear of a curse.
But none of these possibilities explained the orb.
“But that orb… it doesn’t fit at all,” he murmured.
“It’s as if… it’s not a part of this world.”
And at that moment — as if the orb heard — the silence grew heavier.
The scent of age was now laced with a trace of sweetness — a scent coming from the direction of the orb.
And its sweetness was such that it scraped the lip and burned the throat.
Lloyd rose.
Fear ran in his veins, but curiosity — that curiosity that had always drawn him toward stories and mysteries — was stronger.
He took a step.
Lloyd stared at the orb.
That darkness swallowed his gaze and returned nothing — no image, no memory, no hope.
Only emptiness, striking him from the heart of stone.
But suddenly — and again this “suddenly” is a word for things that violate time — something changed behind him.
No sound.
No movement.
Only a sensation.
A sensation every creature knows: that someone is standing behind you.
That eyes are fixed on the back of your neck.
That a shadow has measured the distance between you.
The hair on the back of Lloyd’s neck stood on end.
He turned — a turn in which every second passed like a century.
The mists, which had been swirling in the hall before, were now concentrated at a single point.
At a distance from him, a mass of mist was compressing, as if hands were squeezing it to mold something from it.
The mist thinned, until it was no longer mist, but glass made of smoke, and within that glass, an image formed:
A cradle.
A room, with wallpaper full of stars.
Warm.
Safe.
So much so that the scent of safety seeped from the mist and reminded Lloyd of something he had never had: a home.
Inside the cradle, an infant with black hair slept.
Its breaths raised and lowered its small chest.
Safe.
Peaceful.
Unknowing.
And then — from among the blankets, something slithered out.
A snake.
Thin, black.
Its scales gleamed under the light of the image.
The snake crept toward the infant’s face, toward its forehead, its tongue flickering.
There was no scent in the image, no sound — but the fear radiating from that frame was palpable.
Lloyd remained silent.
But in his mind, thoughts stormed: What is this?
A hallucination?
Is it real?
Or…
is it me?
Is that infant…
me?
The snake was now close to the infant’s face.
Its mouth opened, its fangs revealed.
And at that moment — the mist stirred from all four sides.
A tendril of mist coiled around Lloyd’s right hand.
It was not cold, not hot.
It simply was.
It had presence.
And that presence wanted something.
Lloyd looked down.
His wrist was caught within that mist.
It pressed against his pulse — not to harm, to ensure that it beat.
And something stirred in the depths of his mind — a call, a command.
It’s as if…
as if it wants me to do something.
His hand rose from his side.
His muscles no longer answered to his will.
Something else, older than volition, guided him.
His hand stretched toward the image, his fingers opened, as if wanting to grasp something.
And then — an instinct he had never experienced — erupted within him.
He twisted his wrist.
A movement, like turning a handle.
And at that same moment, an image imprinted itself in his mind:
That snake…
does not exist.
It was never in this scene.
This thought was not like a prayer, not like a wish, not like concentration.
This thought was like a decree.
Like a law the universe was obligated to obey.
And the universe obeyed.
Within the image, the snake trembled.
Then — it faded.
Not like smoke, not like dissolving.
As if it had never been there from the start.
Reality had been rewritten.
The infant still slept.
The stars still shone.
The snake was no more.
As if the narrative of the snake had never existed.
The mist detached from Lloyd’s wrist and dispersed.
Lloyd’s hand remained in the air, his fingers trembling.
And a question deeper than all other questions seeped into his mind:
What…
am I?
Before he could find an answer — or even understand the question — space bloomed again.
First ten images.
Then hundreds.
They appeared like windows in the air, each a frame of light.
From the floor to the hall’s ceiling, from left to right, everywhere filled with those windows.
In one: a man in a desert, sand to his knees, gazing at a horizon that never set.
In another: a family around a table, candlelight, a laughter Lloyd had never heard in his own home.
In a third: a man on the ground, eyes open, hands on his chest.
And hundreds more images — hundreds of lives, hundreds of moments, hundreds of deaths and births and loves and solitudes.
Each a story, each a wound, each bound to Lloyd — a bond he did not understand, but which pulsed in his brain.
“What is all this… this…” His throat was dry.
The words felt like wounds.
“It’s something beyond what my logic can bear.”
His mind was on the verge of collapse.
Each image struck like a hammer against the walls of his beliefs.
Chicago, school, books, streets — all fading like paintings on water.
And then — from among those images, something new appeared.
Before his chest, four elements emerged from the heart of the mist.
Fire, a flame but radiant.
He felt its warmth on his face — a warmth that wasn’t reminiscent of something, but was warmth itself.
Water, a droplet formed from nothing, circling beside the fire.
Earth, particles of sand swirling around the two like a galaxy.
Wind, which stirred Lloyd’s hair — a wind that blew from within the elements themselves.
The four elements spun.
Fire with water, earth with wind.
A cycle of creation and destruction, until the colors began to melt: orange, blue, brown, transparency — all collapsing into each other and transforming into violet energy.
A violet that existed in no rainbow, because rainbows lacked the courage to combine them.
The energy swirled, pulsed, breathed — as if it were alive.
And Lloyd’s eyes — those worried brown eyes — began to change.
His irises shifted from brown to violet.
Not just the irises, but the entire eye.
The whites of his eyes drowned in that light as well.
Two violet orbs glowing from within, without being light itself.
The violet energy now swirled before his chest like a vortex, and it had a sound — a sound like the whisper of stars.
Lloyd felt something opening inside him, a door he hadn’t known existed.
Fear and wonder mingled, and from that mingling, something was being born.
The mist, which until this moment had been a spectator, this time took action.
It surged toward Lloyd from all four sides.
Not to suffocate, to embrace.
It coiled around his legs, then his waist, then his chest.
The violet energy still swirled, but the mist was covering everything.
The images were fading.
The elements were disappearing.
The hall was collapsing — not in rubble, in oblivion.
And Lloyd’s violet eyes within the mist — the last thing that remained of that world — went dark.
Lloyd awoke with a jolt.
His torso shot up from the bed as if a force had launched him.
He was gasping.
His lungs seemed to have just remembered how to work.
He put his hand on his head — reeling.
The room was spinning: the bed, the curtains, the light streaming through them, the clock with its numbers.
Sweat soaked his entire forehead and back.
His hair clung to his skin.
His heart pounded.
He murmured in a voice: “I… was I asleep? But… it was too real.”
His eyes fixed on the clock.
The numbers, indifferent to the storm in his mind, showed only one thing:
8:02