The two boys, disoriented and weightless, kept soaring toward the top of the hill.
The wind tore at their faces, light twisted around them.
Everything felt suspended, unreal.
Then, a voice screamed across the sky:
> "THAT'S NOT FAIR!!! YOU'RE CHEATING!!!"
The voice of the mountain echoed like a tolling bell.
An enormous boulder ripped itself from the slope and hurled straight toward them.
The world slowed down. The stone spun through the air — majestic, merciless, inevitable.
Hastur and Ban could only watch it approach. It was the end.
> "It's always the same…" Ban thought quietly.
---
Flashback — Seven Years Earlier
The scene blurred. Memory rose like smoke, familiar and unwanted.
The same unmoving sky. The same bench. The same eternal play.
As a child, Ban had learned to recognize the pattern — the man in the black coat, the bell, the fall, and then… again. Always again.
The repetition crushed him.
He wanted more — a world that changed, a sea that moved, a horizon that didn't loop endlessly.
One day, weary of the cycle, he stood still and whispered into the wind:
> "If everything is false, then I want to see what's real.
Even if it's ugly. Even if it hurts."
The wind stopped. A crack opened in the sky.
And through that rift, for the first time, he saw something vast and alive — a sea that truly moved.
From that day on, Ban no longer feared death.
He only feared going back.
---
Back to the Present
The massive stone kept coming.
Time stretched thin. The roar of the mountain faded into a distant echo.
Yet, in that stillness, Ban felt something ignite inside his chest —
a warmth, born not from fear but from the stubborn will of a child who refused to repeat the same ending.
He thought of that sea he once saw, of the promise he had made: to see the truth.
Without thinking, he raised his hand.
It was a small motion, almost meaningless — just a simple twist of the palm, as if brushing away a speck of dust.
But in that suspended instant, the gesture roared like thunder.
The boulder didn't simply break.
It cracked in perfect silence — like air folding in on itself — then burst into glowing dust, scattering into the wind.
The sound was delicate, crystalline — not destruction, but release.
The world exhaled.
The Theater trembled.
Ban smiled — not in pride, but in quiet rebellion.
For the first time, he had broken the rule of repetition.
Light tore the sky apart.
A blinding flash swallowed them whole.
And then, nothing.
---
A cheerful voice echoed through the void:
> "Finally! You took your time — what kept you so long?"
The boys blinked.
Their feet touched solid ground.
Hastur, still dazed, murmured:
> "Are we… in heaven?"
A bright laugh answered him.
> "I don't know if we're talking about the same heaven, but right now, you're standing in...
THE PARADISE OF SCIENCE!"
A man stepped forward — white lab coat, wild hair, round glasses, and a smile that felt both brilliant and childlike.
> "Ah, excuse my manners.
My name is Albert Einstein."
---
The two boys stood frozen, still processing what they'd just lived through.
Einstein clapped his hands suddenly.
> "Well then, where's Doran? And my potato delivery?"
Ban stammered,
> "So… this is the top of Alenver Hill, and you're the scientist?"
> "Exactly!" Einstein exclaimed.
"Come in, come in! We'll discuss everything inside."
Floating chairs glided silently toward them.
> "Please, take a seat."
Their hearts were still racing.
They had escaped the mountain's wrath — only to enter a place where reason itself seemed to play by new rules.
And above them, somewhere unseen, the Theater watched — quietly rewriting its next act.