There was always a question in my mind.
What is the purpose of life?
I asked myself again and again, but the only conclusion I ever reached was that life is about survival. My life has always been about survival.
In the past, survival depended on one's own hands. You had to hunt for food, build your own shelter, and protect yourself from the wild. But now, with the rise of communities and systems, survival is divided into parts. Everyone does a little, and somehow the whole survives.
Because of that, the purpose of life feels diminished. More time is left in our hands. More emptiness lingers in our hearts.
To escape that emptiness, I became an actor. I threw myself into every role I could find, living as many lives as possible. Hero, villain, king, beggar—becoming everything at once to fill the void.
That was how I spent my life…
Until that unfortunate day.
The curtain closed as the theatre fell silent. My role was finished. Tonight, I had played the Jockey, a man broken by the death of his horse, a man who was supposed to cry his soul out in front of the crowd. I had given them everything tears, anguish, rage, until my body was empty.
Exhausted, I lay my head on the worn table of the dressing room. It was quiet here. Too quiet. Today the room was empty; the other actors had gone home straight away. It was the last day of the run, and they wanted their costumes. Some had asked for permission, but most had taken them without it. Others had simply walked away with their pieces, pockets heavy with silk and cloth. No one stopped them. No one said a word. Stopping was not a choice tonight, and no one cared enough to intervene.
The air was thick with the scent of sweat and greasepaint, mixed with the faint sting of candle smoke. Somewhere beyond the walls of the theatre, the city moved on, people laughing, drinking, sleeping.
But here, in this little room, time had slowed.
Or at least, that is what it seemed to me.
Playing various roles, I had always felt satisfied. I was in control of my fate, or so I told myself. Yet something never sat right. No matter how well I acted, something lingered at the edge of my mind, whispering that this was all an illusion. As if I was still performing, even when the curtain had fallen. Not living but acting.
Do I have to truly become a jockey, a beggar, a thief, or a king to feel it? To bridge the gap in what I was missing. To fill the emptiness inside me?
The thought lingered around me like fog near a lake during winter, impossible to escape.
I took off my costume and dressed myself in my own clothes again. I usually wore a black hoodie with jeans, cheap, convenient, and easy to wear. It hid me well. My face, my shape, even my presence when I wanted to disappear.
The streets were quiet as I walked back to the dorm, the faint scent of mist and dust lingering in the air. My mind wandered, replaying the night's performance, the applause, and the weighty silence that came after.
Caught in the swirl of voices in my mind, I kept turning over the dialogue, questioning who they were, their roles, their motives, goals, and conflicts…
And then, out of nowhere…
A screech. A sound that tore through the air. The grinding of tires, the sharp cry of metal against metal.
I tried to save myself by hurling myself aside.....
But it was already too late.
A blinding light swallowed my vision.
Everything went white.
When I woke, I was lying on cold ground. My clothes were filthy, stained with grime and something gooey and slimy. My body ached as if I had been dragged through stone. My head throbbed.
I felt something foreign pressing against the back of my neck.
Instinctively, I reached back with my hand. My fingers brushed something hard and slightly raised. A heavy seal pressed into my skin, engraved with strange runes.
Then it pulsed just as my hand brushed against it, and a faint light spilled forward.
The walls and my hoodie reflected it, bathing everything in an eerie glow. The color was unmistakable, a sickly, pale green.
I sat up. Around me was nothing but darkness and the faint scent of decay and rot.
The air felt thick, heavy, and unusual. I struggled to breathe, my head growing heavier with each inhale of the dense air filling my lungs.
I tried to curse the green seal. But the moment I spoke, it pulsed and began to glow.
The light was unnatural, sickly, like something alive.
It coiled like serpent.
It spread across the dark walls, and slowly, the shape became clear.
It was a skull.
The skull was narrow and stout, its shape oddly aerodynamic, as if made for moving through water. It was elongated and cone-like, tapering to a blunt point. The surface seemed smooth but lined with faint ridges. Two large crescent-shaped hollows formed where eyes should be. At its base was a porous ring, as though it once held a beak.
The pale green glow was faintly translucent. Thin, ornamental ridges traced the shape like veins. The light felt cold, harsh, and shadowed.
It felt as though the seal itself was alive, its form shaping the skull of an ancient creature from the depths of the sea, something long forgotten and never meant to be discovered.
It brought to mind a novel by some famous author describing an underwater city that housed such a creature.
I tried to recall the name of the unnatural creature, but in the end, I failed.
Just then....
A sudden chill ran down my spine as the air got more denser around me, almost forming a dark mist.
My voice wavered, and I could sense its gaze upon me.
Was it him?
The ruler of the underwater city.
I shook my head, desperate to believe it wasn't real. Even biting my lower lip, the sharp metallic tang of blood on my tongue, couldn't pull me from this sinister reality.
I looked around, trying to push this strange sensation to the back of my mind.
I saw the floor; it was unlike anything I had ever seen, completely macabre.
They were uneven, made of cracked stone slick with grime. Centuries of dirt had piled up, interrupted by darker stains that might have been dried blood.
My boots crunched quietly on the debris, the sound quickly smothered by the dark silence.
Was the floor eating the sound? I do not know, but that is how it seemed to me.
I looked to my side.
Towering walls stretched upward, carved from ancient stone that seemed to pulse with a life of its own. They were darkened, smeared with grime that clung in slimy patches, giving them a damp, glistening appearance.
Deep, jagged cracks marred the surface, like scars etched into the flesh of something vast and primordial.
As I walked further, I noticed skulls scattered along the sides of the hall. Some were partially buried in dirt, while others were piled haphazardly in uneven stacks. Their hollow eye sockets seemed to gaze at me, unblinking, as if to warn me away.
They weren't all human, some were short and wide, others stretched unnaturally long, with cracked, yellowed bone surfaces that bore the marks of time. The faint, sour stench of decay lingered in the air, creeping into my nostrils.
I moved forward carefully, each step feeling heavier than the one before, like the air was pushing back against me. My breath came in quick, shallow gasps. My hands clenched tight at my sides, knuckles pale. I kept my eyes on the path ahead, but the hall seemed to shift as I went. Shadows danced just out of sight, and I could almost hear faint whispers, distant and echoing through the stone.
The ceiling was low here, arched like the hull of a drowned ship. Black stains clung to it in irregular patches, and thin, web-like cracks ran along the stone ribs. Somewhere far ahead, the hall seemed to curve, vanishing into deeper darkness.
I took another step, and my boots struck something hard. A skull, smaller than the others, rolled slightly underfoot. It came to rest with a hollow click, as if laughing at me.
Fear rose in my chest. It was slow, creeping, like cold water winding through my veins. I could not stop, though every instinct screamed for me to turn back. My body moved forward on its own.