"You cannot trace the path while you walk it; only when you turn back through the shadows will the scattered steps reveal the design that fate carved in darkness."
I stood at the edge of the world. Ahead of me was the place the spirit had called the "Church of Mortius," the False God.
A False God? The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
Back on Earth, in my home city, "God" was a word people only whispered in the dark. Our government had spent decades making sure we forgot about heaven and hell. They tore down the old temples and built tall, grey towers of concrete. They put up posters in every street: "Will God save you? No. Only the State provides. Work for us. Pray to us." I never questioned it. I was just a student, living a quiet life. But standing here, in a body that wasn't mine, I felt a hot, burning anger. What else did the government lie about? Did they know that the "Creator" of this App was playing with human souls like they were toys?
"My parents..." I whispered. The thought of them hurt more than the heavy armor on my shoulders. They were dead. There was no one waiting for me back home anymore. There were no warm meals, no lights left on for me, no "welcome back." All that remained were memories of despair and the silence of a grave. But then, a thought crossed my mind that made the darkness feel a little less heavy.
Even if I am in hell... my parents are in heaven. The idea that they were safe, far away from this twisted game of souls and "Creators," brought a small, sad smile to my face. It was the first time I had felt peace since the switch.
"Thank you, Mom and Dad... for everything," I said quietly, the words drifting into the void. "I never got the time to say that before. But I'm saying it now."
Thinking about his family rian suddenly In a fit of sudden rage, he balled his hand into a fist and punched the jagged black rock next to me.
CLANG!
"I have to survive until the time is right," I whispered. "For them."
The sound of metal hitting stone was loud, echoing into the empty void. My hand stung, and the vibration traveled up my arm. The rock didn't even chip. I was weak. I was small. I was nothing but a pawn in this game.
"I can't go back," I said, my voice shaking. "Not yet. I have to survive until the time is right. I have to find the person who did this."
I turned my eyes back to the castle. It was more than a building; it was a monster made of stone. The bottom of the castle was pitch black, carved from a rock that seemed to eat the light. It looked like it had been pulled out of the deepest part of the ocean. But as the walls went higher, they turned into a deep, glowing purple. It looked like a massive, bruised heart beating against the sky.
The castle was sitting on nothing. To my left, there was only darkness. To my right, there was only darkness. The only thing connecting me to the castle was a single, narrow bridge. It was a thin, winding staircase of black stone stretching over a bottomless hole. There was no ground below, and no sky above. Just an abyss that seemed to breathe, rising and falling along the edges of the path.
Is this really a church? I wondered. I had seen pictures of old churches in books—places with golden light and warm wood. This place was the opposite. This was a place of silent, unknown power but these is making me feel like The closer I got, the more my skin started to crawl. This didn't feel like a holy place. It felt like a trap. The air felt empty, like the castle was sucking the breath out of my lungs.
Is it really a place where people prays to god and told about their suffering to them.
I took a deep breath. I moved my right leg forward and stepped onto the path. My metal boot made a sharp click against the obsidian stone.
"No destination is fixed, Rian. You are the one who makes the path."
The memory hit me like a physical blow. It was my mother's voice. She had told me that when I was a child, long before the Soul Roulette took my life. Back then, I thought she was talking about my future career. Now, I realized she was giving me the only weapon I had: my will to keep moving my hope.
I started to walk.
Every step was a battle. I didn't look down. I knew that if I saw how deep that darkness was, my heart would stop. I swallowed the dry spit in my throat, my pulse thumping against my chestplate like a hammer.
I thought about everything I had survived to get here. I had walked past thousands of rotting bodies. I had almost died in a lake of black shadows. I had survived a forest of monsters and a world of ghosts.
Why am I still alive? I asked the void. What are the chances of a normal kid like me surviving all of this? I wasn't a hero. I wasn't a warrior. But I was still standing. I was here, in front of this impossible castle, while so many others were just dust.
As I got closer, I felt smaller and smaller. The castle doors were so tall that they seemed to reach the stars. The iron on the doors was thick and red, looking like it had been dipped in blood and left to dry for centuries.
I finally stopped. I was standing right in front of the gate.
Up close, I was nothing. I was a tiny, helpless creature standing before a power I couldn't understand. The air was freezing. The silence was so heavy it made my ears ring. I was standing at the front door of the church.
A strange feeling washed over me. It wasn't just fear, and it wasn't just cold. It was something else—something "unknown" that crawled under my skin and gripped my heart. My instincts were screaming at me. Every part of my body told me that if I took one more step, I might never come out.
Was this terror? Or was it the feeling of a predator watching a tiny prey?
I looked at my trembling hand against the dark, bloody iron of the gate. I was scared for my life. More scared than I had ever been in the forest or by the lake. But I had nowhere else to go.I don't know anything about this world.
[USER: RIAN]
[09 YEARS | 362 DAYS | 20 HOURS | 35 MINUTES]