The cave was silent, but not in the peaceful way silence should be. It was the kind of silence that breathed, that pressed against the skin like invisible hands, whispering things that were not meant to be heard.
A man sat within it alone his figure half-swallowed by the darkness that surrounded him. Before him stretched a labyrinth carved into the stone floor, endless and winding, a maze that seemed to pulse faintly with a sickly light. The energy it released was wrong unholy, almost godlike in its intensity. Every breath he took carried the weight of that power, heavy enough to make his bones ache.
He stared at his hand. It was wet.
Blood.
No—something that looked like blood.
He tilted his hand slightly, watching the liquid glisten against the faint orange light of the campfire beside him. It was not red. It shimmered with a deep, otherworldly hue. Purple.
He frowned, quietly.
Could you even call it blood if it was purple?
If it came from a person, didn't that still make it blood?
He sighed. "Yeah… it's blood," he muttered to no one. "Just not mine."
The man was young at least his face said so. His hair was black, darker than the shadows clinging to the cavern walls. His robe was strange: part futuristic, part ceremonial. The outer coat draped around his form like smoke, while the inner layer clung like a second skin, giving him the appearance of both priest and soldier. The fabric was seamless, as if woven from a single thread of darkness. A gray coat rested over it, worn but refined, its edges scorched.
His eyes black as a dying star carried no reflection. They were deep, endless, like someone who had stared too long into something that had stared back. He looked broken in a way that didn't show on the surface, as though grief had been carved into the shape of his soul rather than his face.
The fire crackled weakly before him, painting soft gold across the cave walls. The sound of burning wood was the only thing alive in that suffocating stillness. Beside him lay a white gun, clean and silent, its surface glinting like bone. Next to it rested a dagger, faintly glowing, releasing a low heat that rippled the air around it.
Ash drifted lazily through the cave. It fell like snow, silent and unending, but the moment it touched the ground, it vanished absorbed by the stone as though the earth itself drank it in.
Strange. Even the world refused to keep its dead.
The man's gaze shifted to something glinting faintly beside the fire. A key.
It lay motionless on the cold stone floor, old yet pristine, carved with symbols no human hand could have crafted. He didn't move to touch it immediately. Instead, he reached for a dry log from the pile beside him and tossed it into the fire. The flames stirred, rising higher, and for a moment, the light illuminated his face completely.
He was beautiful almost unnaturally so. A face that could belong to a fallen angel, too perfect for the world he sat in. Soft, calm, unreadable. But his eyes… they ruined everything. There was no light in them. Only silence.
He sat there for a long while, unmoving, watching the fire crackle and consume the log. His thoughts, if he had any, were somewhere else buried deep beneath the surface of what could no longer be called peace.
After a while, he glanced down at his hand again. The purple blood was beginning to dry, leaving faint stains against his pale skin. His jaw tightened. He reached into his coat though from where exactly, no one could tell and pulled out a bottle of water. It appeared in his hand as if the air itself had given it to him.
He opened it and poured the cold liquid over his palm. The water ran down in dark streaks, washing away the unnatural color. Steam rose faintly where the blood met the water.
Then, quietly, almost to himself, he spoke.
"Why, sister…" His voice cracked—not from weakness, but something far worse. A fracture that words alone couldn't hide. "Why do something like that… just to stop fate and destiny?"
He chuckled softly, though it didn't sound like laughter.
"You didn't have to go that far."
No one answered. Only the fire, whispering and hissing, as if mocking him with the sound of its own life.
He leaned back against the cold rock wall, letting the silence press down on him again. His gaze returned to the key. The metal shimmered faintly under the firelight, its edges humming with the same energy that filled the labyrinth before him. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he reached out and picked it up.
The metal was cold sharper than ice, smooth like something alive. It pulsed faintly in his hand, responding to his touch. For a moment, his expression softened, almost nostalgic.
"Still waiting for me, huh?" he whispered.
He closed his fingers around the key. His breath slowed. The air around him seemed to hold its own. Then, with deliberate calm, he channeled essence into the metal. A low hum filled the cave, rising in pitch until it became a ringing echo that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The fire bent toward the key, as if drawn to it. Shadows warped. The labyrinth's faint light flickered violently, reacting to the surge of power that now radiated from the man's hand.
The key lifted from his palm. It hovered, spinning slowly in the air, shards of violet light flaring from its surface. Its shape began to shift metal stretching, curling, transforming into something unrecognizable. The sound it made was unlike anything human, like glass breaking under a whisper.
The man's black eyes reflected the glow. There was no fear there, no surprise. Only resignation.
"Another door," he murmured. "Another mistake."
He watched as the transformation completed a faint gust of energy rippling outward, brushing his face like the breath of something divine. The new shape shimmered faintly, suspended before him.
Then, silence again.
The man exhaled slowly, the weight of the moment pressing down until even the fire seemed to burn quieter.
He closed his eyes. "So it begins again."
The light dimmed, fading into the dark. Only the sound of the fire and the echo of his words remained, swallowed by the endless labyrinth before him.
And somewhere, in that endless dark, something ancient stirred something that had been waiting for him.
But he didn't move. He just sat there, staring into the dying flames, with purple blood still on his fingertips and a key that no longer looked like a key floating before him.
The cave was silent again. The kind of silence that remembered.