The heat of the fire battled with a freezing wind one could only find atop a mountain in the heart of winter. The flames crackled even as the harsh gales buffeted them. Despite the unfavorable weather, the fire was determined to consume everything, as if it were feeding off the hatred of the last one left alive.
They watched as everything they had ever loved burned to nothing. The place they had grown up and the people whom they loved. They were all leaving this world, never to return.
Only a few steps.
Accomplishment. A righteous sense of pride that made them want to scream, "This is what you all deserve".
That is how they should have felt. Those emotions were undoubtedly there, but there was something else mixed in. Something black and heavy. Was it grief or shame? To that, they had no answer. It no longer mattered. Tears rolled down their cheeks even as their mouth split into a massive grin.
Just lift one foot in front of the other and walk forward.
The orange glow from the inferno was the only light in the deep dark of night. Snow, normally purist white, reflected the light of the fire, turning the entire world orange. The massive stone structure in front of them, the place they'd spent their entire life, was now a hollow shell.
Walk forward, and it will all finally come to an end in flames. It would hurt a lot, but it would be over soon enough.
In front of the massive stone facade, the bodies of their loved ones lay, arranged in an almost neat line. They hadn't fallen in such a manner, of course. Someone had placed them there after carrying them from the inferno.
A young girl whose white hair was almost invisible amongst the snow. As pure in death as she was in life. They hated her for replacing them.
A bespectacled young man, who, in sharp contrast to the girl, had ginger-red hair that seemed to imitate the surrounding flames. They hated him for being so dependent on others.
A blond-haired young woman who had curled up into a ball in her last moments, a reflection of the pathetic way she had lived. They hated her for being a coward.
There were others of less value. A greed-filled noblewoman, a great general brought to shame in an era of peace, and an old abbot. There really were quite a few victims of their massacre.
So many people dead by their hands.
As they cast their eyes from one beautiful corpse to another, eager to imprint the memory of the fallen onto their own dying mind, a figure emerged from the flames.
He had long, shoulder-length hair that was now charred and untidy. The features of his face were sharp, now half hidden in the shadows of the flames. His shoulders were heavily slumped, and he staggered rather than walked out of the flames. His rich clothing had been burnt so thoroughly that it resembled rags, and his skin fared no better. In his arms was a young woman with mousy brown hair and pale skin, now covered in severe burns.
The young woman they hated for being so violent. The young man, they hated him most of all. A hero who had failed to save them. No, a hero who had given them everything, only to take it all away.
Once he had put some distance between himself and the flames, he dropped the young woman in the snow with the others before looking at the one who was watching. He smiled at them with an infuriatingly kind smile, one that was full of relief. Then, they collapsed onto the snow, joining the others in what would soon become an eternal sleep.
They watched the heroic but futile attempt to salvage the disaster with an expression even they couldn't begin to describe. Did they love him for his heroism or hate him?
Such a pointless action. The ones whom they had rescued first had either died from their burns or would soon die from exposure, just like everyone else. So utterly pointless.
It no longer felt cold. They couldn't feel the snow against their face. Wait. When had they fallen to the ground? Had mere seconds passed since their hero had emerged from the flames, or had it been hours?
Ah, that must mean it would soon be over. They hadn't thrown themselves into the flames as they had planned, but this was good enough. They would be at peace, and nothing would matter anymore. Death was the ultimate escape. Once you had passed beyond, nothing bad could follow you. It was, in no uncertain terms, the greatest peace.
Wait.
No. No, I don't want this. I don't want to die feeling so alone, so cold.
As their sight darkened and their mind shut down, an intense feeling of regret and fear overwhelmed them.
They wanted more. They wanted to go back. Go back to a time when they were happy and their friends were by their side. They wanted to say they lived happily at the end of it all.
Another tear trickled down their cheek. This one felt different from the tears they had shed before.
"I-I'm sorry."
Emptiness. Loneliness. Regret. Why did these emotions have to manifest at the very end, just as they were making peace with themselves? Why want more when all they sought was nothingness? They truly were the worst.
Death couldn't come soon enough. Yet at the same time, they dreaded it.
"Wow, it's so rare to find a toy with a soul so black, hehehe."
A voice in their mind, surely a sign of their impending doom. A fever dream. Or had someone actually come to save them? Perhaps there was a chance they'd still be saved.
"You want to play with them forever, don't you? You want to be happy with those you love and hate more than anything."
Yes, they really wanted that. Desperately. If only they could be with them forever.
"Say, let's make a deal. Tell me, what would you do if you could create your own endless reality? If you had full control over the stories of life itself? Sounds tempting, right?"
They heard something fall onto the snow right next to their ear. With their last ounce of strength, they turned their neck only to see a black book with golden patterns adorning its leather cover.
"Wow, a book is it? Now that's interesting. Take it, make a deal with me, or disappear forever with your regrets."
Their answer didn't need to be uttered. They willed their weak left arm to move and placed their hand on the book's cover.
*
A dream, perhaps real or perhaps not.
Those were the vague thoughts of the young man as he viewed the terrible scene drenched in flames. Those he might have known or might not have known lying there in the cold snow, and a single person watching from a distance with a strange mix of satisfaction and despair.
No, nothing but a dream.
Even so, the building aflame and the people he saw were both vaguely familiar. The familiarity was warm, and it brought vague memories to mind. Someone sitting beneath a tree, happily reading a book. A group of children happily playing in the seemingly endless garden on a long summer's day. A version of himself leading those children, now slightly older, on a grand adventure through the endless forests and mountain ranges surrounding that building, now free of the flames. It was a monastery. Yes, that's what it was. A place he traveled to every summer. A place associated with happiness, if the familiarity he felt was to be believed.
Flash
The monastery, now in the distance, was growing smaller and smaller. A feeling of loss and fear. The great civil war, turning brother against brother, friend against friend. A massive army besieging that same monastery. Despite the promise of death and violence, it was captured without bloodshed. If the monastery's capture was so peaceful, why was the memory so bitter that it made him want to end his own life?
That's right. It must have meant the end of everything, the end of those happy days. The monastery had survived the siege but had still burned in those flames some time after. Or had it all just been a dream?
His mind was weak, and his will empty. It was difficult to parse thoughts as everything felt so unreal.
There was only one thing that remained true. His desire to see a return to those happy days, those long summers playing in the garden beneath the round tower or in the vast forests.
Impossible. Death was the ultimate end that allowed no going back. You could try with all your might to recreate the past, but death gave nothing back. It was over for them, now and forever.
Faced with such hopefulness, what was one to do?
The answer was simple: live in the present and carry the weight and responsibility. Try to build something new and never look back. Live happily.
That was how he had chosen to live his life.
*
The young man's eyes fluttered open.
A mote of white light hovered above him before fading away into nothingness. Memories of a cruel inferno fresh in his mind, he felt a hard surface on his back. Realising that he was lying on the floor, he sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked around.
The first thing he noticed was the massive size of the place he had found himself in. Second was the drabness, as if all intensity had been sucked from the colors, leaving the place looking muted and dead. Impossibly tall shelves filled with books that had no perceivable top. A massive library with no end in sight that made anyone standing in it feel like little more than an ant. It was still, too still. It felt as though nothing had moved here in centuries.
Normally, a person would feel unpleasant in such a place, but this suited him just fine. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes roughly. Exhaustion. No matter how deeply he slept, or for how long, it never seemed to leave him. The invisible weight on his shoulders was ever-present.
This was a place with endless possibilities and yet, like him, was stagnant.
He felt like moving. To where he could not say, but he simply couldn't stay still. Slowly, one foot in front of the other, he passed between the countless massive bookshelves, looking up and trying in vain to catch sight of their tops. Between the shelves were open areas filled with desks and chairs. Shadowy figures sat reading, but he paid them no mind. There was someone he needed to see. The only other living being in this universe.
Despite the gargantuan scale of the room, it didn't take him long to find a doorway. Cautiously, he opened it and peeked inside. An impossibly long hallway that seemed to twist around until the floor was the roof and vice versa awaited him. Sighing, he stepped inside and began making his way towards the far door.
At no point did he feel like his orientation was changing, but when he looked back, he found the open door to the library upside down. Shrugging his shoulders, he continued on his way.
Now and then he would stumble upon a door on his left or right, all of various, impossible sizes. The first door he opened led to a room small enough that only a mouse could have made use of it. The door itself was the size one would expect of a door made for humans, and yet the room behind it was impossibly minuscule.
Despite its size, the room was fully furnished and looked as if someone were using it. No, it went beyond that. It was extremely messy, with clothes and various objects scattered haphazardly on the floor and furniture.
Seeing the state of the room, he recoiled as a bitter memory he couldn't make sense of assaulted his mind. It wasn't a vivid memory or anything. Rather, a feeling. A memory of a person he might have known in the past. He hurried on, wanting nothing to do with it.
The next door he tried opened into what he could only call a space, not a room. He could see the opposite wall but no floor or roof. A strong gale blew upward, and he saw various pieces of furniture flying in the same direction as the wind, disappearing into the darkness above and beyond his sight. He closed the door.
The next door was a study. He might have seen a figure of a red-haired young man desperately writing in a notebook, but the image vanished just as he was trying to make sense of it. He felt tears form. Wiping them away, he could see his arms and hands. They were slightly transparent, the ground below being perceptible through them.
Who was he?
At long last, he reached the door at the very end of the hallway. He opened it and looked outside.
A courtyard covered in snow with a beautiful fountain in the center, surrounded by white flowers. He eagerly stepped outside, glad to be out of the long, twisted hallway.
Where did he come from?
The snow crunched beneath his feet. He had a feeling that snow was supposed to be pure white, but in this drab, washed-out world, it had lost that purity and was tinted gray.
Looking around, he could see buildings towering over him, surrounding the courtyard and the hill to his right. The buildings of hewn stone had pointed-arched windows of stained glass and towers supported by flying buttresses. It was a grand sight once again brought down by muted colors.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two bodies lying together in the snow. The surrounding snow had been dyed crimson. It was the first time he had seen bright colors since waking up. He clenched his teeth together to stop himself from screaming.
Why was he here?
He hurried onward, away from the bodies.
Random objects filled the courtyard and its surroundings. A grandfather clock here, a rusted swing set there. None of it made sense, and yet he walked on, paying the objects no mind.
As he stepped past the flowers and the fountain, the shape of a person with long white hair appeared in his peripheral vision.
"Where are you? Where are you, Dean?"
Feeling his heart skip a beat, he looked around frantically. However, no matter where he looked, there was nothing but snow and random objects. The place was just as still and dead as it had always been.
"Apprentice-" he muttered.
They were the first words to escape his lips. As for what meaning they held, he couldn't say.
Beyond the courtyard was a vast forest of snow-covered trees. Beyond the forest, reaching up to the colorless sky, were tall mountain peaks. Even with the muted colors and unnatural stillness, they were majestic, and he stopped to look at them for a moment before heading into the forest.
A vague memory told him that he should have heard the sounds of birdsong and rustling leaves, and yet in this place, there were none. Just dead silence. Even the forest was a lifeless husk.
He lost track of how long he had walked. His mind was like that. His awareness drifted in and out, and most of the time, he moved on instinct alone.
He eventually found himself in front of a cave nestled into a cliff-side. He entered the cave and walked down a narrow, natural corridor until he came to a man-made room. There, furniture carved from the very rock itself imitated something akin to a living room crossed with a bedroom. Small cubes of stone that resembled chairs and a large, flat slab that looked something like a bed. He walked to the other side of the room, towards the only other doorway.
He opened the door, revealing a study with more typical furniture, though it was on the rich and gaudy side. The natural cave walls were mostly hidden by bookshelves with books stored neatly on each shelf. A grand, finely carved desk took up much of the remaining space and had a cushioned chair in front of it. Sitting on that chair was a cloaked figure.
The scratching sound filling the room came to an abrupt halt as the figure put down their quill and turned towards him. While a large hood hid most of their features, he noticed her pale, scarred skin and painfully red lips, cracked and oozing blood. Her right eye was missing, with a large gash running down the right side of her face. She looked at him with a smile before standing up and making her way to him.
He felt her skeletally thin arms wrap around him in a hug that felt much colder than it should have.
"You've returned, Dean. How I have missed you. For a time, I thought you had finally moved on and left me alone."
Dean? Was that his name?
He opened his mouth, intending to speak. However, beyond opening his mouth and taking in breath, he had no idea how to produce words. The only sound that escaped his lips was a low mumble.
The woman let him go and took a step back. He noticed that she was holding a black book decorated with gold patterns, and his eyes widened.
"Silly of me, really. You'd never leave me alone now, would you? There is no way you'd try to escape your punishment. Isn't that right, hmmm?" she asked, her voice tense and face uncomfortably close.
Punishment.
That word. What did it mean? It meant something to him. Of that he was sure. He tried to speak again, but failed. Vague memories rose to the surface within his mind. Some warm and reassuring, many painful. Two memories solidified into images and sounds.
A girl sitting under a tree with a book in her hands.
"Do you like books?"
A cloaked figure reaching out in a desperate plea for aid.
"Get away from me, beggar!"
He staggered, bringing a faded hand to his forehead and panting. The pain was great, forcing him to grit his teeth.
The woman's single yellow eye widened in delight.
"Yes, that's it, that's it! You remember, don't you? I knew you would. This is so very important to you, after all. Go on, hate yourself. Despise yourself more and more!" the woman giggled, bringing a blistered hand to cover her mouth. Her black, braided hair, slung over her shoulder, swayed as she shook.
Yes, he was here for an important reason. He could not leave. And the cloaked woman, she was his judge, or perhaps executioner. She was irreplaceable to him, as was the book.
Without thinking, he reached his hand out towards the book in her hands, but she smoothly stepped out of range.
"This one is not for you, Dean," she chided with a smile. "Do not worry. Perhaps it will be yours in the near future if all goes well."
She looked down at the book and gently stroked it with her bony fingers, a calm smile on her face.
"With this book, you and I both can remain in the past forever. A book that lets you create any world you desire. Beautiful, isn't it?"
Her voice trailed off into a whisper as she spoke. After a moment of silence, she looked back up at him, her expression unreadable.
"After all, why should we move towards the future? Everything you attain. Friends, love. They all wither away in time only to be replaced and forgotten."
She placed the book back down on the desk and turned to face him once more. It felt as though her single yellow eye was looking right through him, revealing all the ugliness inside. He knew who she was, and he both feared and needed her in equal measure.
Her name was Tatiana. The master of this world.
"Moving on is something we don't deserve nor desire. Is it, Dean?" Tatiana asked, taking a step towards him.
She reached out her hand.
He nodded.
This awful, drab world. It had been created just for the two who stood in this very room. He needed nothing else.
"Do you still wish to atone for all the horrible acts you've committed?" she asked.
He nodded, more enthusiastically this time.
"Then take my hand and never let go," she said, reaching out her bony hand to him.
He took it without hesitation.
There was a flash, and in the next moment Dean found himself in a rather ordinary-looking bedroom. His hand still held Tatiana's as he looked around, taking in his new surroundings.
The room contained some basic furniture: a bed, a bedside table, a desk, and a chair. Not finely made, but sturdy and reliable. On the walls hung various scientific drawings of plants and animals. Reference books and encyclopedias lay haphazardly on the desk and near the bed.
Some small medicine bottles littered the bedside table along with some bloody cloth and a black leather-bound book. This one lacked the gold decoration of the one he saw in the cave, and yet, it called to him all the same.
"Tell me, Dean. If someone is fated to die young and in great pain, does that give them the right to treat others with cruelty? Should they be forgiven for their crimes when their circumstances are taken into account?"
As she spoke her question, Tatiana moved towards the book and picked it up.
"B-book-" he rasped.
Tatiana laughed.
"Yes, my new book. I know how much you've been looking forward to it, Dean. Just so you know, I've placed all my love and feelings towards you into these pages. Be sure to suffer them well, alright?"
He reached out quickly, attempting to grab the book from her hands. Once again, she pulled it away quickly, and his fingers missed it by an inch.
"Not quite yet. While I'm flattered you think so highly of my work, I can't help but be concerned. You're becoming more hollow, Dean," Tatiana said, looking at his semi-transparent form. "Do not forget why you are here. You aren't allowed to rest or to leave my side. Not now, not ever."
Her single eye was wide with madness as she seemed to stare directly into his soul. The reason he was here. He knew the reason. It was the only thing he could remember.
She reached out, her hand appearing from her cloak like a flash of lightning. The strength of her grip surprised him. He could not resist as she thrust the book into his hands. Despite his hands being transparent, the book did not fall but rested in his grip.
"Read it and do not forget who you are, or you will be lost to me forever," she hissed. "I've made this one a little more personal, so it should help you remember your past and bring you back. Just don't get too comfortable. This is still a punishment above all else."
He looked down at the book in his hands. Only pain lay within those pages. Of that he was certain. However, that was exactly what he was looking for.
"Witness the sins of those who once called this place home and remember who you are. Above all, don't forget. I'll be watching, always watching."
With those last words from Tatiana, he opened the book, and the world was engulfed in light.