Time: unknown
Location: unknown
In an unknown place, wrapped in darkness from every side, a young man sat alone on an old wooden bench, its faint creaking blending with a heavy silence that choked the air. His lips moved slowly, whispering in a voice barely audible:
"Is it hard for you?"
It seemed as if he were speaking to someone… yet no one was there.
Then, another murmur echoed through the air, just as faint, but in a different voice—a strange voice, like embers igniting the letters:
"No… but we must do it together."
The voice also came from him—from his body.
And as one drew closer, the unbelievable became clear. The source of the second voice… was his left eye. But that eye was far from ordinary. It looked as if it did not belong to him. Around it were black, charred marks, as if a fire had blazed within it, leaving behind an unerasable tattoo. Its gaze was still, pitch black, staring into the void, while whispers emanated from it… as if it possessed a soul of its own.
Then the eye continued its speech, in a voice that seemed to rise from the depths of a smoldering fire:
"We cannot leave this place… unless we find it together."
The young man closed his eyes for a moment, as if silence weighed heavily on his chest, then sighed slowly and said:
"But… can't you see? It took us tremendous effort just to find these two chairs."
The voice fell silent for a moment, as if the fire in the eye had briefly dimmed, then returned with colder force, its tone now firm—sharp as a blade:
"Tharos, you must move now. We don't have much time here."
Tharos slowly raised his head, gazing into the darkness ahead, then at the shadows stretching and intertwining as if they were creatures watching his breath. The black walls could not be seen, but Tharos felt them. He felt that what surrounded him was not true emptiness, but another kind of void… a conscious void. Something was watching him. Not just from around him, but from within him as well.
As if the darkness itself lived inside him, waiting for his next move.
With hesitant steps, heavy as though burdened by years, Tharos began to walk again. Each step echoed without a trace, as if the ground absorbed sound the way it absorbed hope. He was alone… he, and that eye that dwelled within him, moved together through a darkness that seemed endless, as if the world had been folded shut and left them this black void as a deferred fate.
A long time passed — how long, no one could tell. For here, time did not exist as we know it. There was no sun to set, no moon to rise. No breeze, no change—only constant darkness, and a stillness that mocked any sense of continuity.
Fatigue began to creep into him with cruel slowness, weaving a net around his limbs.
But the eye, with its stubborn ferocity, kept whispering in the same burning tone:
"We're getting close."
Again and again, the same sentence, with the same cadence, with the same blazing note. As if it were a spell that never ran dry, closing the circle around him, returning him to the starting point.
He was circling. Over and over again.
And with each turn, his mind began to unravel. He would sometimes see shadows walking beside him, faceless specters, as if time itself had taken form to stroll mockingly at his side. He saw his own reflection above waters he'd never seen before. He saw his limbs crack… then heal. He heard his brother's voice… then forgot it.
And with every hallucination, with every vision, the eye would whisper:
"Don't look. Just walk. This place shows no mercy to those who doubt."
And the last time it said:
"We're getting close,"
Something in Tharos's expression began to shift. It wasn't anger, nor resentment, but that quiet kind of unrest that builds deep within, soundlessly.
He stopped.
In sudden stillness, within a void carrying nothing but merciless blackness, his steps froze. But the eye did not fall silent; instead, it grew more insistent, its voice slicing through the silence like a dry whip:
"What are you doing, Tharos? This is no time for rest. We must leave this place… and quickly."
Yet he did not turn. He did not respond.
His mind had drifted far from everything it said. He was drowning in a question that had been gnawing at him like a worm in the heart of an apple:
"How long have we been here? A year? Two? Ten? A hundred? Is it possible that we're trapped here forever? Is it possible… that no matter what I do… we'll never leave?"
He said it as if talking to himself, but his voice carried something else—something closer to defeat, or perhaps a bitter reconciliation with fate. And in that moment, for a fleeting instant, it seemed as though the darkness itself listened to him… As if the place—with all its void and silence—had paused to hear Tharos admit, for the first time, that he might not survive.
It was as if the darkness was closing in on him.
Not with force, but with a slow seep, wanting to permeate deeper, to become part of his blood, his voice, his thoughts.
And suddenly. Without warning, a searing voice tore through the crushing silence, as if the sky itself had been ripped by a hidden scream.
And in the next moment, Tharos felt something he hadn't tasted in ages…
Cold.
Real cold, stinging his skin like needles, slipping into his bones like a memory from a forgotten world. He opened his eyes.
He was no longer in the void, no longer in the darkness. He was lying on a cold, rocky ground, inside a cave of gray walls, heavy with the scent of damp and solitude. The roar of the wind echoed beyond the entrance—a storm battering the land and clouds, howling behind the stone curtain like a ravenous beast. He sat up slowly, surveying the place with eyes teetering between bewilderment and caution.
A long moment passed before his expression changed—not fear, but shock… as if he couldn't believe what he saw. In truth, he didn't want to believe it.
He clutched his head with both hands, his eyes darting warily across the walls and the mouth of the cave:
"Is this… real?"
He whispered it, but his voice echoed back, a faint murmur inside the cave, as if the cave itself had no answer.
The eye… was silent. For the first time, in immeasurable time, it made no sound. No whisper, no orders, no reminders to flee. The void that had always been filled with its voice… was now haunted by its silence.
Tharos did not move. In truth, he could not. His body was stiff, as if time had passed through him mercilessly, leaving him petrified in the same position, upon the cold floor of the cave, his eyes fixed on the stone ceiling—no blink, no breath, to signal a living soul.
He didn't know how much time had passed… Seconds? Minutes?
Or was he still in that non-place,
merely transported from one darkness to another?
The shock hadn't left him. The stupor lingered in his gaze—like that of a drowning man surfacing, only to find that air does not mean salvation.
And in a hoarse voice, barely leaving his chest, he muttered:
"What do I do?… Answer me, Vilmer."
He was speaking to his eye. As if that long moment, which had separated him from the void, had not yet ended. As if Vilmer—that old voice that had once dwelled within—was still there… waiting for the chance to whisper once more.
But the cave remained still.
And the eye… remained silent.
Tharos was not just alone—he was suspended between two existences:
One striving to rise from the ice,and the other not yet gone.