Years passed. Years that felt like decades, centuries even, compressed into a single, silent scream.
When the chance for his next trial finally came, he entered the arena with the desperate conviction that he had almost succeeded last time. The memory of the doppelganger's defeat was a fresh, tantalizing victory in his mind.
He was beheaded within minutes.
He awoke back in the temple, the phantom chill of the blade still searing his neck. The Unnamed was there, a brief, starlit apparition. "You lost. You will spend your time serving the Limbo." Then, gone.
The process repeated. Again. And again. Each death was a fresh fracture in his sanity.
There is only so much a man can take, the endless, empty waiting, the profound isolation with no task and no one, the relentless cycle of dying only to see his own face as the last thing he would ever see.
It was a special kind of hell: given a sliver of hope to live, only to have it snatched away each time by the one person he should have been able to trust, himself.
He began to regret his atheism. Perhaps if he had believed, he might have earned a paradise. But with the blood on his hands, he was certain he'd be in hell anyway. This, he decided, was probably it.
Now, he sat on the cold temple floor, his body trembling not from cold but from the cacophony in his skull. The voices had become his only company.
"Dash, slash, kill. Easy. Yes, very easy."
"No, listen to me, it's very easy... we can't lose this time."
"No, that's what you said last time."
"No, what you said was that we might win. This time, I think we can win."
"No, I don't think we can win... Do you remember that guy you killed? The father of young kids?"
"Well, that guy was a murderer who wanted to do things to kids... he deserved it."
"What about the mother that—"
"Stop reliving the memories! I won't feel bad!"
"Have you ever felt love? What about hate?"
"You've never had family. What is family? Who cares?"
"Well, your uncle tried to molest you as a child, and you killed him."
"We don't care! My family is shit! Focus! We can win!"
"No, we can't!"
"We can win! Kill him!"
"Why kill him? Kill the Unnamed bastard instead!"
"Who is Limbo?"
The voices overlapped, argued, condemned, and justified. They were all him, every fractured piece of a mind shattered by timeless repetition.
He rocked gently on the stone, a solitary figure in an infinite void, his only conversation a civil war within his own crumbling consciousness.
The tenth trial was coming. He wasn't sure if he was preparing for a fight or a final, welcomed execution.
Iskar finally mustered the strength to scream, "SHUT UP!"
For a single, blessed moment, it was quiet.
Then, the whispers slithered back. "Who's he talking to?" "He's crazy, hahaha crazy!" "Naananananaaaana crazy!" "Mad man shut up!" "Who's he telling that to?"
He clutched his head, fingers digging into his temples as the cacophony swelled, threatening to crack his skull open from the inside.
Suddenly, a voice cut through the noise, calm and absolute. "Your time has come."
Iskar looked up. It was the Unnamed bast— no. The Unnamed person. The being stood before him, its form a swirl of captive starlight. Iskar could feel the voices in his head recoil, hurling silent insults and curses at the figure. But the Unnamed gave no reaction. Iskar's internal torment was as insignificant as dust motes in a cosmic wind.
"I will repeat," the being said, its tone devoid of impatience or malice, a simple recitation of cosmic law. "There are no rules. If you die, you come back and remain here, until your next chance comes again."
The being repeated the same words it had told him every time, a ritual as unchanging as the void itself.
Finally, it stretched out a hand giving him the rock "When you are ready... crush the rock and you will be transported to your trial."
It disappeared, leaving Iskar alone once more.
The silence was instantly devoured by the voices.
"He won't do it. He's scared."
"A pussy. He's just going to die here."
"Didn't you say he'd live last time? You liar!"
"Crush it crush it crush it crush it!"
"No! Throw it away! Throw it into the nothing!"
"Maybe if we sing a song, he'll feel better? La la la, we're all going to die..."
Iskar looked at the small, smooth stone that now lay in his palm. It felt impossibly heavy.
'How many times can I try,' he thought, the question a fragile raft in a storm of insanity, 'before I can't even think coherently in the fight?'
He could imagine it clearly, the madness progressing so far that his fingers would forget how to clench, that his arm would forget the motion needed to crush the stone.
He pictured himself standing in the arena, not fighting, but simply listening to the screams in his head while a doppelganger, a perfect copy of a self that no longer existed, calmly and efficiently cut him down.
A copy that didn't share his centuries of solitude, his mental fatigue, his shattered psyche.
It would be a fight against a ghost of who he used to be, and he was no longer sure he could even throw a punch that ghost would recognize.
He closed his eyes and crushed the stone.
The familiar, nauseating lurch, and he stood once more in the sandy arena. The same disembodied voice recited the same rules, the words now a meaningless chant. The door in the center of the room groaned open. The weapons materialized on the ground with a soft glow.
And his doppelganger stepped out.
It was him. It was the man he had been a thousand years ago.
Iskar didn't move. He just stared, a slow, twitching smile spreading across his face.
"Hello, old friend," he whispered, his voice a dry rasp. "Are you… are you still in there?"
The doppelganger said nothing, its eyes already scanning the weapons, calculating the first move.
"He's not listening," Iskar muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Of course he's not. He's the quiet one. The smart one." He took a shuffling step forward. "But I know a secret. I know what you're going to do."
The doppelganger's eyes flicked from a sword to Iskar's face, its expression unchanged.
"You're going to lunge for the sword," Iskar giggled, a high, unnerving sound. "Because that's what I would do. But what if… what if I don't?"
The doppelganger's muscles tensed, ready to spring into the familiar, deadly dance.
Iskar spread his arms wide in a welcoming, manic gesture. "What if I just want to talk?"