Waiting quietly in a dimly lit room was a man holding onto a torn book.
He sat on the cracked wooden floor, staring at the manual with a blank look in his eyes.
It wasn't expensive or special to him.
Just a plain-looking book with a worn cover that could crumble whenever he put too much force into his grip, barely holding itself together with a single string wrapped around it.
But it was something he received as a sort of reward for finally having his achievements recognized, though its value was now long gone, not even worthy as fuel for flames.
The room he was staying in was far from the safest option, with shards of glass and wood splinters littering the floor he lay on. The ceiling was split in two as if with a giant cleaver, bearing a straight hole through which moonlight poured down on his spasming body.
With bleeding hands and torn clothing that was caught in the glass, he found himself a place in a corner of the cabin, waiting for something.
He himself had forgotten to count the number of times he fell in such a situation.
All alone, hopeless, and without a way out from there.
Tak!
The thick scent of blood poured out from outside, disturbing his peace.
A sound of footsteps came from the other side of the room, bringing his lifeless gaze towards a tall figure whose shadow made a chill run down his spine.
The heel of their boot tapped against the wooden floor, so meticulously calculated that he thought the person was matching his heartbeat on purpose, always missing intentionally whenever his breath hitched.
He wanted to run away, scream his heart out at the world that made him feel that way.
But it was too late.
How much more...
Too late to change his actions, which he took without thinking, too soon to think of a future where he could live peacefully.
It was all he wanted to do, all he thought of when he came to this world with a naive mind of his own.
His face contorted with anger, watching the room twist and turn in front of his eyes; his life was coming to an end.
"How long do I have to suffer for you to be satisfied with it..."
His body, which should have been rendered dysfunctional, slowly stood up from the floor, fastening his grip over the half-torn book under his arm.
The figure through the shadow stood above him, a head taller than the bleeding man whose face was covered in cold sweat and tears of dry blood.
His eyes, originally deep blue, were hollow and crimson, burning with pain just by keeping them open.
Something inside him stirred as he took a sharp breath, raising his face to try and meet the shadow's outline just to absentmindedly stare up at the pleasant sky.
"Is this... what it means to die?"
Mumbling with his cracked lips, he flinched at the cold wind caressing his wounds.
Above his head, a golden cloud had manifested, covering the blue moon with its light that fell on him, bringing him internal warmth.
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But how... what have I done to deserve this?
It was a gift sent down from the heavens for those whose souls were long forgiven for their sins, appearing above them at the moment one's death was approaching.
His mind was in a daze as he watched the cloud flicker and breathe like a living creature, exhaling clouds of sparkling dust that scattered all around the cabin.
...How?
He wasn't a good person.
Honestly, any person on the street would be a better pick to go to heaven, whose light was caressing his shuddering body.
He was a sinner, and he knew that.
He stole, destroyed, and harmed everything around him.
He was a murderer.
A goddamn murderer who would have been killed on sight if it were a human judging him.
"So why!"
He screamed out to the heavens, looking up at the light above him.
"Why have you accepted me!"
"What have I ever done to deserve being treated like this?"
He gritted his teeth at the shadow, making it flicker and take a step back.
With his broken hands, he held up a sword that had been at his side all this time, hidden inside an old scabbard barely visible because of how well its color blended into his trousers.
"Kill me!"
"Just kill me and end this!"
"I don't want your meager mercy!"
He swung his sword at the shadow with all his strength, drawing an arc that seemed it could cut down anyone in his path.
However, the being in front of him was no person.
It was a shadow, something you can't feel or touch, a memory of something that should have been long gone from this cruel world.
The man grit his teeth.
Both at the darkness below and the light above.
"Kill me already and end all of this!"
Snapping at the outline of a person, his blade flashed across the room, cutting the shadow in half through its torso.
Yet the next second it returned to how it was before, standing above him without uttering a single word.
"Wasn't it what you wanted? Chasing me for all these years, making me suffer under your influence and cornering me like this, with nothing and no one to help me!?"
With his last ounce of strength, his weapon whistled in the wind, drawing an arc so perfect that its image stretched out in the air for a brief moment.
The sword drifted to the floor, slowly, scraping against the fallen shards of glass.
His arms dropped to his side, limp, bleeding all over and clearly in no condition to recover.
As his face fell at the approaching doom, he managed a single whisper, his voice cracking.
"Just do it."
Shlink!
And as if to answer his prayers, a rapier was drawn by the shadow opposite him.
He didn't know where it came from, and he didn't try to question it.
A flash of light sparked in front of his eyes, faster than anything he had ever seen before.
His heart came to a stop.
His request had been heard by the heavens, making their luminance even brighter under the full moon of this breezy night.
Suddenly, the cloud of light descended upon him, catching his falling body.
It was as if hundreds upon hundreds of hands were slowly brought down from the stars, reaching for him, grasping for his drifting silhouette, which was merely a shadow.
A shadow that drifted in the wind as millions of holes burst from within it, ending any hope for his revival.
"Ah."
He gasped at the lack of pain, looking at the shadow with his fleeting mind.
It was crying.
A single tear was shining under the moon, unlike its body, which was covered under a veil of inky silk.
Please... stop.
He grimaced at the sight, letting himself get taken by the stars.
Going higher and higher in the air, with his mind drifting somewhere else entirely.
The golden aura surrounded his soul, forming a spherical shape that surrounded him from all sides, mixing pleasure and comfort with the pain inside him, ridding him of it.
He knew this sensation.
His memories were slowly being erased one by one.
"Why?"
He asked the heavens, which responded with an even more intense pain in his head, making him twist and turn in the air.
It wasn't supposed to hurt.
"Agh!"
The pain was agonizing, to the point that he would have preferred to live yet again and suffer his life.
But it didn't stop. It couldn't stop now that it had begun.
The process of erasing memories was absolute, no matter how strong one was physically or mentally. All he could do was try to suppress the ripping sensation in his brain.
His eyes widened as a white mist poured out of his ear, spreading before his eyes, picturing the encounter moments ago.
He watched with his own eyes as the memories of his earlier encounter were erased, discarded like garbage into nothingness.
It hurts.
"Look! Look! I did it! I finally did it!"
Someone exclaimed proudly, holding up something above his head.
A memory of his accomplishment flashed before his eyes; he invented a device that would revolutionise humanity once and for all. In his hands was a newly bought book he received from his professor as a gift.
His face was clean, devoid of any wounds.
He looked like a real child, perhaps because he was.
Crack!
A web of cracks spread out through it in an instant, shattering the memory and discarding its remains into oblivion.
Then his family appeared.
No! Stop!
His mother, father, brother, sister, children, and a spouse.
He didn't look as happy as in the previous one, with a stone-cold face that seemed to not fit into the lively family atmosphere; he was old and tired.
"Stand straight, please! We're going to be taking only one photo today, so let's make it count!"
The entire group stood in a straight line, with the man in the middle, putting on a strange smile.
"Cheese!"
Flash!
As the light of the camera burst out, the memory turned into dust, making his form twist and turn younger.
His mind felt like it was being torn apart, with pieces of information he couldn't have possibly known, to memories far into the future he had sworn he couldn't remember.
In a panic, he turned to the ground, where the house he was in returned to normal, looking as if it were brand new…
...whose house is this?
Crash!
The structure collapsed, turning into ruins that were swallowed by the ground.
His mind was long gone, not needing to see a single fragment of his memory to remember and forget them.
As his consciousness ascended past the sacred brilliance, his mind was scattered through the world, turning into dust.
But...
When one's end comes to pass, another may come to take their place.
Deep within the empty soul, a tingling sensation spread throughout each corner of his mind, being reborn anew under the full moon.
"His mind..."
Was no more.
I…
"Where... am I?"