Memory Passage 1:1
"This world shall bring you down to your knees until you beg for the one thing that does not exist—and that is death."
---
What would you do if the only fear you could feel was stripped of every extension of itself, where light could not be savored by dark? Until the essence of life fled in small drips of blood, where you could only stare at the moment when time itself truly stopped. Where your heart turned ice cold, and you felt the entrapment of your inner self with no shell to soften the impact—a meaningless death with no context, nor purpose.
It was dark. No—it had always been dark here. It was just that if you never followed closely, you would never grow accustomed to its rhythm. There was no blue moon, only a red eclipse hanging in the sky. It had a peculiar yet terrifying appearance, like a hollow creature howling in visceral pain. From its eyes, two waterfalls of crimson blood ebbed and flowed—this was the moonlight.
I had not moved for days; my body was paralyzed. Was it fear? My hands were cold, my face pale as ice, yet I could not understand what my body was signaling me. I felt my pupils dilating, enlarging, the beating of my heart spreading through my entire body—a constant, never-ending thump.
After several days, my body began to ache. Dark lumps were growing beneath my abdomen. From them, a strange sensation sprouted. As I lay there, I could only observe the world and contemplate. It had a rhythm. It was not like Earth; everything here served a purpose—from the shifting terrain to deaths and lives. All followed the rhythm of the world, like Morse code. Something you could almost understand with even a surface grasp of codes, except the attention span demanded was far more extensive.
In the southern sky, staring menacingly and interchanging with the eclipse, a colossal Eye constantly surveilled the world.
Every five minutes, it blinked, and each blink carried a change—or rather, death itself. Each movement reflected in its vast pupil, but it did not notice me. I was weak and still. After some time, I realized that the strange sensation I felt came from the dark lumps. Inside them was a yellowish-black orb. Whenever I allowed fear to overcome me, it sprouted into a pitch-dark oak tree with only branches. It was painful; sometimes the branches penetrated my skin if they grew in unlucky positions.
---
–.. . .- - …. / – .. -- . / -.. .- ... .... . ... / .- ... / . -.-- . / -... .-.. .. -. -.- …
It was this rhythm I caught. Every five minutes, without fail, something changed. If it was near, I could observe it—they were dying. That realization petrified me. It was the oldest emotion in history: fear, especially the fear of the unknown.
The Eye was biblical. It was grand, majestic, yet its entire existence served one purpose—to intimidate and impose order. But this Eye was different; it radiated a malevolent aura. Each time something died, it revealed an almost mocking amusement. Its depth grew darker, like a black pool that swallowed you the moment your gaze lingered too long.
It had no muscles to smile with, yet its amusement was visible. From its expression, one could imagine a dark, eerie grin. It did not pity the world. It loathed it.
For six days, I did not move. In those six days, I witnessed 1,728 intervals of five minutes—1,728 deaths. Each blink, each gaze, mocked the futility of life. It carved a void into the concept of value and meaning. Travelers searching for food or shelter died miserably. Their decaying corpses were devoured by others, who too met the same fate.
My body grew malnourished. I questioned whether I was hallucinating. Fear became repetition—a routine. What counters fear? Confidence through conditioning. Yet my body was weak, my senses dulled.
Fear numbs the senses. It creates paranoia—you hear sounds that are not there, your mouth dries, your vision sharpens but tunnels on specific movements until you are certain they are harmless. Your blood rushes, intensifying your sense of touch. But there was one more sense I had never considered before: balance.
Fear had always been tied to death, but fear itself was worse—it was the pain of living. I remembered a line from Earth:
> "Fear arises from attachment. Once we let go, there is nothing to fear."
What was I attached to? Perhaps my former life. To me, this world was no different from Earth. On Earth, those who spoke against fear were often the ones who spread it. Fear was hypocrisy. It was learned, nurtured, conditioned toward a single being: God.
But here, fear was raw. It was annihilation.
Fear ruled history. It drove kings to slaughter kin, emperors to wage wars, and tyrants to cloak themselves in lies. Fear created torture, exclusion, trauma. It twisted civilization into obedience. And yet, at its root, fear was always something to fear itself.
It changed people, reshaped the body, and molded survival. In a world consumed by fear, there was no rest. Even without hope, humans still clawed at the illusion of it. Survival was the body's final defiance. Desperation, however, was fear disguised—a fear of rejection, of abandonment.
Hope was absent, but survival endured.
---
When I was younger, I heard a story. It has circled my heart ever since.
There once was a nameless man who lived deep in the mountains. Pale, frail, and sick from birth, he was scorned as a failed successor of his clan. His mother endured seven days of agonizing labor. Each night, the moon turned pale blue, and by day the horizon burned crimson.
On the final day, the father entered the room, only to see his wife wavering between life and death. He grasped her fading hand, felt its warmth, and wept. She opened her weary eyes, eclipses dim yet hopeful. The child, wrapped in blood-stained robes, was unveiled.
Dead.
Heartbroken, the man threw the lifeless child into the wilderness.
> "Oh, why have you forsaken me, God? In soul, in heart, in mind, I have served obediently. To what avail? My wife lies cold, and my heart grows colder. Why allow this suffering? What crime have we committed? Will you punish me for the hatred now carving into my heart?"
As if in answer, an imposing presence descended from the heavens. A red-veiled woman, her sleeves like angelic wings, smiled as she reached for him. He, broken, reached back in ecstasy and delusion. Their hands overlapped—but her touch passed through him like a ghost.
Then came the cold. His body shattered, his heart crushed, blood spreading into a sickly hue. What remained was only his mutilated corpse.
The truth? The child was already dead. That had always been the truth. The story was a lie.
The woman in red was no savior, but a cause. Fear given form. Seductive, lethal, and without reason. A cause requires a goal. Humans exist for causes—civilization itself was born of them. Some attainable, some impossible, all binding. Causes were religion, sin, blasphemy, and suffering intertwined.
Was his suffering justified? Or was it simply the nature of a cause?
---
It has been nine days since I arrived here. Three days since my last coherent thought. Today, the rhythm shifted. The five-minute interval faltered. Fatigued, I realized I had no choice but to act.
Each blink of the Eye carried a three-second delay, shifting the rhythm forward. By building a mental metronome, I aligned with its timing. Over countless cycles, I learned exactly when it would blink—and when to move safely.
"The issue is… where do I run? What exit exists? No, no… I cannot despair. I must not allow negative thoughts to seep in, or they will bury me deeper into this grave."
The black lumps receded.
"These lumps appear only when emotions are disturbed. Despair and fear feed them. A double-edged sword. Forced positive thoughts will only leave cracks for them to sprout again. I need movement. If I could just stand, I could observe the terrain. Damn it! What to do! What to do!"
At that moment, a thought struck me.