Honestly, if I'd had a choice, I would have preferred to stay unconscious right then and there. Never wake up again.
But I did wake up. I woke up because I was freezing.
It was the kind of cold that sank into your bones. Not the simple chill of forgetting long johns in winter, but more like having your whole body pressed against an enormous, damp slab of ice. Half-awake, I opened my eyes, and the first thing I smelled was a strange blend of odors: the mustiness of old wood, some pungent spice that stung the nose, and a faint, barely-there… metallic rust.
Then I saw the dome.
A dome so high it made my neck ache just looking at it, packed with reliefs so intricate they made my eyes swim. Light spilled in through impossibly narrow windows on both sides, shattered into fragments by stained glass, and scattered into mottled patches across the floor.
It took me several seconds to make out that the stained glass seemed to depict people, but every single one of them wore the same grim, embittered expression. They were dressed in armor so heavy it looked like it could crush a man, and in their hands they held either swords or some bizarre scepters. The overall vibe, how do I put it? Gloomy. Oppressive. A kind of sick, monumental grandeur.
Everywhere I looked, there were soaring pointed arches and ribbed vaults layered upon layered, vanishing into darkness above. Thick stone pillars—so massive it would take a dozen people to wrap their arms around one—held up that sky of stone.
The pillars were carved with endless reliefs, ornate to the point of vertigo. Most of the scenes showed armored warriors with savage faces, wielding exaggerated weapons as they fought all manner of grotesque monsters. And between those carvings, one symbol kept repeating…
Skulls.
Skulls everywhere. The kind without lower jaws.
Holy hell… this place was nothing but skulls. I felt my skin crawl. Skulls on the pillars, skulls on the walls, and I swear there were probably skulls carved across the unseen ceiling overhead, too. How much did the owner of this place love the things? It was like some fanatic with a pathological obsession. My first thought was: what kind of Gothic-themed haunted house spends this much money on set dressing? Or maybe I got drunk and wandered into some medieval-style cathedral?
Something was wrong with this place. Very wrong.
"What kind of place is this? What film crew has art direction this hardcore?" I muttered under my breath, not sure whether I was thinking out loud or trying to calm myself down.
It looked like the set of some dark fantasy movie—big budget, with a very particular taste. I sat up and shivered. I was still wearing yesterday's outfit: a plaid shirt and jeans. In a place like this, I stuck out like a sore thumb, like a lost tour-group tourist. I scanned my surroundings.
Everywhere I looked were stone pillars carved with skulls, wings, and double-headed eagles. The pillars were terrifyingly thick—each one like a small building, stretching up into the blackness where no details could be seen. The whole space was absurdly vast, making me feel as tiny as an ant.
Along one wall of the hall, at the center of a cluster of stone benches, stood a statue at least four or five stories tall. It wore full armor, a hooded robe draped over it. Beneath the hood was a skull-like face. The light up there was dim, and I couldn't make out the details, but I still felt as if its hollow, black eye sockets were quietly watching me.
I tried to remember how I'd ended up in this hellhole, but my mind was blank. I couldn't recall anything at all.
Was this a dream?
I forced myself to stand, bracing against a pillar that was ice-cold to the touch. A knotted pain twisted through my stomach, and only then did I realize how hungry and thirsty I was—dizzy, hollow, desperate. I needed to figure out where I was, find something to eat, and call the police. I looked down at my hands—still my hands. But when I patted my pockets… my phone was gone. My wallet, too. Aside from the clothes on my back, I had nothing.
As I staggered around with my hand on the pillar, scanning the place like a lost ghost, heavy, synchronized footsteps echoed from deep in the darkness.
Clack. Clack. Clack…
The sound rolled through the empty hall—uneven in places, but carrying undeniable authority, that metallic, disciplined weight. My heart tightened. Instinctively I looked for somewhere to hide, but this place had nothing but pillars and more pillars. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to vanish.
First I saw a few beams of flashlight glare. Then a squad emerged from the shadows.
Several blinding beams slammed into me at once. The white light was searing. I couldn't see a thing. Panicking, I threw up an arm to shield my eyes. Scenes from action movies and cop dramas flashed through my head, and my mouth ran away with itself.
"Don't shoot! I'm a good guy!"
"Don't move! Identify yourself!" A muffled male voice roared from behind the light, like sandpaper grinding against steam pipes. He spoke a language I had never heard in my life, but somehow, bizarrely, I understood every word. The tone was rough, cold as ice. "Identity. Origin. Purpose."
"I… I'm just passing through," I replied nervously, trying to force a friendly smile—then remembering my arm was still up in front of my face. I lowered it and squinted hard against the glare. "I think I got lost. Where is this? Who… who are you people?"
Silence.
Then the flashlights shifted away. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. My vision was still full of swimming afterimages, but before I could recover, something hard and round pressed into my forehead—heavy, cold metal, reeking of oil.
In an instant, every hair on my body stood on end.
My instincts screamed at me: that wasn't a prop. That was a gun muzzle. The real thing.
"I… I don't know!" My throat fluttered. My voice came out tight and warped, like a duck being strangled. I had never been shot at in my life, but that didn't stop the pure, animal terror of having a thick metal cylinder shoved against my skull. "I… I don't have any money…" Damn it. If I ever made it out of this, I was carrying cash everywhere.
"Who the hell is this idiot? What nonsense is he babbling?" A voice came from the back of the squad—flippant, crude.
As my eyes adjusted, I finally saw the people surrounding me.
Hard. Cold. Overwhelmingly intimidating. That was the first impression that hit me.
At the front stood a burly man like a SWAT officer, except he wore a full suit of matte-black plate armor and a half-mask helmet that made him look like some kind of cyborg lawman. On his left shoulder sat an enormous golden pauldron.
He looked like a black knight out of a fantasy novel, except he was holding a pistol almost the size of my head, aimed at me without the slightest tremor—like he'd been cast in bronze. Beside him were several soldiers in the same black armor, carrying bulky rifles with squared-off profiles. One of them lugged a heavy riot shield the size of a door. Their armor, too, bore those ever-present double-headed eagles and skull motifs.
I was stunned.
What was this?
My first thought was: did I do something huge and finally get caught? This looked like a police raid—getting "checked by special forces," as people say. Except what kind of special forces wear plate armor instead of riot gear? Some kind of cosplay event? But this texture was too real. The weight of the armor, the scratches, the scorch marks, the way it smelled—rust, gunpowder, sweat—that wasn't something a normal prop department could fake.
"Silence, trooper." Another voice spoke—the man standing beside the one aiming at my head.
This one also wore black armor, but on his chest hung a golden badge shaped like a codex and scales. The lower half of his face was exposed beneath the mask, his features stiff as carved stone, his mouth set in a line colder than ice.
"Under Lex Imperialis Statute 2339-8, Clause Seven, all unidentified persons discovered within a reconnaissance zone must submit to questioning. State your identity, your occupation, and your designation number."
"I… I don't have a number," I said, even more bewildered. "My name is… uh, I'm just a normal geek, I work in tech, I—"
"Who are you talking to?" A sharp, thin female voice suddenly cut in, strange and sing-song in the way it carried, interrupting my stammering answer.
The squad—and I with them—turned toward the voice.
From the shadows behind the group, a gaunt figure stepped forward: a woman in a robe festooned with all kinds of bizarre trinkets. Her eyes were covered by a strip of red cloth, and she moved toward me slowly, her skin frighteningly pale.
She kept turning her head this way and that, as if listening for something. An embroidered golden eye symbol sat on her blindfold. In her hands was a long golden staff, and from its head hung a small bell that chimed with every step—ding, ding, ding. She looked like a wizard from a cheap stage play.
"We're interrogating some lunatic who came out of nowhere…" A soldier who looked less like the black-armored officers and more like a regular military trooper answered in a flippant, vulgar tone. Compared to the others, his kit looked more "army" than "police."
Then his words stopped short, as if he'd realized something.
"What are you getting at, spark-head?" His voice dropped. "You didn't see… I mean, you didn't feel it?"
The robed woman "stared" at me for a long time—though I had no idea how she was doing that with a blindfold on.
Then she murmured in confusion, speaking as if to herself.
"I… I can't see it. There's nothing there. It's empty. A stretch of… void. I can hear you speaking, and I can hear a human voice coming from there, but there's no light, no shadow, just… blank."
(End of Chapter)
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