To the left side of the manor was the lake of the district, to the right was an empty space where a building should have been.
The space was not big, roughly three metres. It stretched inwards like a small alleyway, tidy bushes surrounding the outer ridges.
After Selvar left, Oren had done nothing of interest, hovering down the streets, speaking to the locals as though he had known them for years.
Waving at strangers and smiling faintly.
"Have a good day," he would frequently say.
They would turn around suddenly, then turn back, continuing on with their day as though he was invisible. It happened often and was very much an odd cycle, but he was used to it.
After greeting the people a few more times, Oren wandered down the bustling street and only got a few replies.
A mixture of small nods and maybe a "thank you" or "you too." But that was much rarer.
If anything, the humans seemed flat, both their words and reactions, even the way they smiled and spoke. They repeated themselves in ways that felt unnatural.
But surely that was only his mind playing tricks on him.
He was, as always, just looking too deeply into it.
The sky above Erdream had begun to darken, the clouds drifting away like ships across an endless sea, fading above the village as the last remnants of sunlight faded away.
The flowers of Erdream remained scattered throughout the streets and gardens, despite the changing season.
Artillas were among the most recognisable, their lilac petals standing out against the greenery that surrounded them.
Yet they were far from the only flowers that grew throughout the city. Others bloomed in colours and shapes Oren had never cared to learn the names of.
Flick! Flick!
The lanterns sputtered on, their warm lights spreading throughout the streets one after another.
Voices soon followed, rising above the growing bustle of people.
"Everyone, come visit the puppet show! It's mythical!"
"A puppet show is on tonight?"
"But isn't the play usually around Sunwane?"
There were usually a handful of events throughout the year, with one or two taking place in each season.
So another major event so soon after the play was unusual, when the people of Erdream were accustomed to having a single celebration around that time of year.
But the Sunwane had no fixed date.
Nobody knew exactly when it would arrive.
They could only wait for it and hope that it would come, bringing with it seven days of darkness and, afterward, the Light Festival.
It could come after years had passed, or sometimes even decades, and autumn had been considered its season.
That same night, beside the puppet show, the manor was booming with activity.
Merchants, farmers, businessmen, and all kinds of other people had arrived, filling the manor with voices and movement.
Many had come for drinks and food, expecting to remain there for the night.
With the event taking place so late, some would undoubtedly become drunk enough that returning home would no longer be worth the trouble.
The manor's rooms were equally impressive, immaculate living quarters prepared for both permanent and temporary stays.
If the evening went well, perhaps the event would permanently improve the manor's business.
After all, there were few things more convincing than delectable food and fragrant wine in the village.
Despite the night, Erdream remained fairly bright.
Oren moved along with the crowd, surrounded by groups of people who gathered around the manor, bustling around Mirror Lake and moving through the crowded streets.
Tonight, unlike the play of O'Resen, people from the other districts of Erdream came from far and wide to attend.
They straightened their postures, put on smiles, and made their way toward the Lake District, drawn by the promise of an evening unlike any other.
"Are the puppets ready?" a worker yelled at the top of their lungs.
"Yes, yes. Start now, everyone get ready," the director of the event replied quickly.
With those words, children stopped playing with their friends, their drunken parents calling them over to watch the show.
Their little legs carried them as fast as they could as they hurried toward the gathering.
Most of those who gathered already knew one another.
The Lake District was not large, and with only a hundred people living in the district, it was difficult for strangers to remain strangers for long.
Families, friends, merchants, farmers, and neighbours gathered together beneath the lanterns.
The elderly came first, then the parents with children, and eventually the teenagers, and last but not least was Oren.
He was unnoticed, moving with the growing crowd.
As invisible as he had been the night of the play.
Finally, he reached the back of the gathered men and women, watching from a distance, and because he was taller than most, he still got sight of what was happening.
A large stand had been set up in the empty space beside the manor. At the very front stood a large wooden screen, and behind it were several people.
They were the puppeteers, moving unseen behind the screen, guiding the towering puppets above it.
The puppets were large, standing around five and a half feet tall.
The puppet's face and body had been crafted carefully, while cloth robes covered its frame. Countless scars and cuts filled its face. Black hair fell around its face, golden eyes glimmering like nebulous stars.
It was not as detailed as Oren would have expected.
Even so, he could still tell what it depicted.
He knew exactly who it was.
The tale they were retelling was none other than his own, the tale of the Immortal Demon.
Oren's body stiffened as he heard it.
"The immortal demon was born in the depths of the first mountain, blessed with a life beyond that of any ordinary human.
He could not grow old. He could not wither with time.
And whilst those around him changed with the passing seasons, he remained the same."
'That's a blessing...?'
Oren squinted his eyes, then dismissed it as the hook of the show.
"Yet immortality did not make him a monster. In his earliest years, he lived among humans as one of them. He laughed with them, spoke with them, drank with them, and learned the customs by which they lived.
He was loved by the people who surrounded him, and for a time he loved them.
In the first mountain, the immortal demon experienced love for the first time, and eventually he learned its ache."
Oren's eyes remained fixed on the puppet as it moved.
There were now two puppets moving side by side. The number was growing. Here and there, they came to the stage and left.
As the narrator continued, the audience grew quieter.
"The people around him were bound by the limits of human existence. They grew old, they aged, and could only live on through lineage. They were all afraid of death and feared pain.
They followed the customs and morals handed down to them, finding brief meaning in the short lives they had been given.
The immortal demon, on the other hand, did not share those limits. He did not share those fears and griefs, those fears of judgment for sins and virtues."
Oren tilted his head.
"He came to hate human existence, for he did not belong among their kind.
He could live while generations died around him and not shed a tear. He could remain happy while everything he knew disappeared.
And as the years passed, the distance between himself and humans only grew."
'No! I... didn't. I did weep, I didn't want them to go...'
Memories flashed before his eyes and his thoughts ceased.
"He began to resent the people who loved him. Not because they had done anything wrong. Not because they betrayed him.
Not because they were bad."
"Why would he do that?" he heard a child shout from the front of the crowd.
"Maybe they were just too good for him."
The narrator's reply was seamless, continuing on with the show effortlessly.
"Or maybe it was because he knew that they could never truly see him as one of their own.
To himself, the immortal demon was something greater. He was something greater than the mountain itself.
And so, rather than walking the virtuous path laid before him at birth, the demon surrendered himself to his malefic nature and rejected everything that once made him human."
'I did... I did, but... I had reason, had reason. If the world really knows so much about me, why leave it out? I didn't choose any of this!'
"To him, love was weakness, and so was kindness. Everything good was bad to him, and everything evil was great."
'Love and kindness aren't weaknesses, I didn't dispose of anything...'
"The more he rejected the goodness of humankind, the further he descended from the people who loved him.
And eventually he came to hate humanity itself.
He hated their weakness, their love, their feelings, their morals, and their mortality.
He hated humanity and the rules they placed upon themselves. Most of all, he hated that he could never be one of them.
And so, consumed by these conflicting emotions, the immortal demon returned to the place where he was born, his first village, and attacked his family, his lovers, his friends, everyone.
Even strangers whom he had never met."
Oren's body trembled as the crowd roared, and the show continued.
"There, in his home, he killed them all.
He made no distinction between the innocent and the guilty, the kind and the cruel, the old and the young, the weak and the strong, those who loved him and those who feared him.
He took pleasure in it all.
All who stood before him became his victim. All those innocent lives were lost.
And when the village had fallen silent of all human voices, the immortal demon did not mourn what he had done.
He simply continued onward to the next village."
A scoff came from the back of the screen.
"He even brought a slave here!"
A figure wearing a gray robe appeared from beneath the wooden screen. Blonde hair framed the wooden face, grey eyes staring forward at him.
It was Selvarius, but something was wrong.
An arrow was protruding from his puppet's neck.
And at that moment, to Oren, the puppet show stopped being entertainment and transformed into something else entirely.
'That is false...' he insisted.
'Lies, that never happened to him. That was me, that happened to me...!'
His thoughts raged as he inhaled slowly, taking a look at his own puppet.
'It's wrong, but how do they know this? Did Selvar tell them how they met...?'
As he thought this, the little characters travelled from one side of the screen to the other again and again as his story was told.
"The immortal demon met Selvar in Erdream Forest. The archer was severely wounded in the fight that had taken place. It was a miracle he had survived with an arrow lodged in his neck.
But the Immortal did not care. He could not die, and so he could not understand the fear the archer felt at that moment.
Regardless of his injuries, the immortal demon forced him into submission.
He beat him and made him travel through the fog, a death zone to us humans. Even for the Enlightened, traversing it is a challenge."
'I didn't touch a single hair on his body... so why can't I remember?'
Oren stepped back.
'We made a deal. I went against it... but did I really? All I did was hesitate whilst speaking.'
The voice said coldly.
"To the end of his story, the immortal demon remained a figure in history who had not changed.
He was still a monster. He was heartless."
'I have a heart, I'm not heartless.'
Everyone in the crowd slowly turned towards him.
And then came the words that froze his very being.
"But none of it matters now. The immortal demon only means well, doesn't he? He is only here to help us. He's... going to save all of us from despair. He is an omen of prosperity, we should be thankful."
The movements of the crowd slowly halted, growing a faint unease within him.
They had turned so suddenly, looking behind and past Oren with their strange, peculiar movements.
A strange uncomfortableness slowly grew in the depths of his heart as he became more keen to see what they were really looking at.
Turning his torso to see what was behind him, Oren saw nothing.
He twisted further, looking again.
But there was no one.
No silhouette looming in the distance behind him.
No group. No more gathering people.
They were all...
He looked at the people again.
They were all looking at him.
They were staring at him with their empty, dull, lifeless eyes and pale faces.
But only now could he no longer discern their features.
His neighbours, his admirers, his haters, the people who filled Erdream, malefic and righteous.
He could not discern them at all.
They no longer had faces.
Oren stepped back again.
'What? What happened...?'
He moved back slowly, turning around and looking throughout the crowd.
Dozens of them, faceless men, women, and children, staring at him as though their faces were but a blur in the midst of night.
As though what he was seeing was a play, a puppet show at its finest.
Small, little, insignificant people, with undetailed features and expressions, as though the artist simply could not give them enough time to properly detail them.
Oren's crooked smile slowly faded.
"Who are you people?" His voice cracked as the words escaped his quivering mouth.
No one answered.
He doubted they could even speak. He doubted what he was seeing was real. He doubted himself more than ever at that moment, even more than he had during his argument with Selvar.
Oren continued backing away from the people.
And they began following.
'Do they believe this? This shit show. I never did that. But I did. I killed them, but I didn't want to. I wanted peace here in Erdream before finding the Erol of mortality. What they said, it was filled with false truths.'
The crowd closed around him like a sea raging against a storm.
He began moving through the crowd, searching for a way out.
An exit, if there was one.
He wanted to leave. He needed to leave now. He needed to get to the border, to the fog.
His body moved faster and faster.
He barged past the people, tall and small, pressing against their warm and cold bodies.
He forced his way through the crowd.
His eyes jumping from lantern to lantern, from house to house as he finally made it to the border.
The guards weren't there.
Everyone in the Lake District had been at the show. Why would they do that? What if someone with ill intent were to come?
But at last, at that moment, he was completely alone.
He stumbled through the field, the bristles of grass poking his ankles.
He let out a heavy breath.
'I'm here.'
Between the jagged border and the billowing wall of frosty fog, Oren stood at the cliff.
Rocks tumbled down the steep slope, disappearing into the ominous forest below.
There was little knowledge of what existed beyond the it. No creatures or Erols dwelled within it, nor anywhere near the embrace of the towering trees.
From where he stood, he could see the first mountain, the second, the third, and the fourth.
Oren's eyes settled on the valley between the second and third.
It was completely empty, but he could have sworn there had been a fifth mountain there.
'It can't be... is what Selvar said really true? No, he just hadn't seen it surely, my home in the centre of the mountain chain. Unison City.'
Oren's mind raced as he slowly looked down in the abyss of the mountain chain.
There was nothing, no building, no outskirts, no people. Just mud, dirt and grit, a mixture of grass and rocks filling it out.
His heart beat.
Faster, and faster.
'Where is Unison City?'
He could have sworn it was there. He knew he had been there not long ago. A city populated by the Enlightened, the poor, and the elderly.
The outer districts.
He knew it existed, he knew all of it.
So where was it?
Memories flashed before his eyes as he remembered every inconsistency, every failure, every horror and atrocious deed he had committed.
He looked down at his own violently shaking feet as his breaths hastened.
He felt like he was suffocating...
'What even is the date today?'
But no one knew it, not even him.
No one knew the year. No one knew anything, and that was the problem.
The lady he had seen the previous night had adamantly said she was the keeper's daughter, yet the keeper seemed to have no recollection of having a child.
Then the Erol, it had come far too quickly.
How come everyone he came to meet knew more about himself than him? They knew his past and manipulated him into some sort of game.
'Do they know my future too? They know so much about me, they might as well be me. So does the world know me so well?'
'How is that possible?' He pleaded.
Even if he had been a myth, Oren had a never visited Everdream before, how did they know his real identity?
How did they know he was the Immortal Demon simply from his face?
He jumped from thought to thought.
Recalling each and every out of place detail.
Every interaction he had felt two-dimensional. Everyone's reaction felt monotonous, as though they had repeated it too many times.
Everything, everyone lacked depth, the people.
They were so one-sided, black and white, in no other words, flat characters, puppets of human life.
The only person he could call a real human was Selvar.
'This cant be real...' Oren implored.
He did not belong in a world like this.
His body slowly began to sway.
But he forced himself to remain standing.
His thoughts flashed behind his eyes as he took a hesitant step forward.
'No,' his eyes widened.
The memories he had experienced were not real.
He was not really the Immortal Demon.
He was not nameless.
He had a name.
He was Oren Xianrath.
And this was his Trial of Longing.
Had he only just remembered it?