Noctis stepped through the door. The moment he entered, control of his body returned to him. He looked around in fear but saw nothing. He tried to go back the way he came, yet the door was gone—as if it had never existed. Noctis focused his eyes and whispered. Or at least, he thought he did.
"...There's nothing."
For a moment, Noctis thought he had gone blind. He didn't know what to do. He simply waited for several minutes. When he tried to take a step, he realized he couldn't feel the ground beneath his feet. There was no surface—nothing under him. Slowly, he took a step forward.
He was moving, yet it felt as if he stayed in the same place. Still, he kept walking. It was as if something inside him whispered go on, but Noctis was disgusted by that feeling. The longing inside him was growing stronger with every step.
'Where am I? Where am I going?'
Noctis felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He realized that time wasn't flowing. Normally, a person couldn't feel time passing—but when its burden vanished, he could sense the difference.
As the longing grew, his thoughts began to blur. He didn't know where he was heading or why. Step by step, Noctis's mind quieted. After a few more steps, his thoughts were completely gone.
The darkness around him surged toward him like a living tide. Noctis felt something strange deep within. The unseen, unheard, and untouchable opened its arms to embrace him. Yet the last fragments of his self resisted that embrace.
He took a few more steps and realized he wasn't blind. In front of him stood something—something impossibly dark. Its darkness clouded his mind. Its shape was unclear. It didn't move, and its distance was impossible to tell. It felt both near and far, existing everywhere and nowhere at once.
Noctis tried to focus on it, but a sharp pain pierced his chest, forcing him to his knees. The pain brought back his sense of self, his memories, his thoughts—but it was too intense to allow him to think. The agony wrapped around his entire body. He felt it from the tips of his toes to every strand of hair on his head.
Slowly, the pain in his chest intensified. He could feel something forming inside him, pushing his organs aside. The pressure on his heart was unbearable; it felt like he suffered a heart attack again and again. His lungs tore open. His other organs shredded apart.
Despite the countless heart attacks and unbearable pain, he didn't die. He was consumed entirely by the existence of pain itself. His brain shook violently, splintering again and again. His eyes turned blood-red and burst. His bones shattered continuously. Each time they broke, they healed again; every torn organ repaired itself.
Noctis felt his entire body crumble and be reborn over and over. He didn't know if a second or an eternity had passed, but at last, the pain began to fade. Slowly, it drained away from his body.
Noctis tried to breathe, but there was no air—his lungs didn't rise. He only stared with empty eyes. There was no expression on his face, no emotion left within him.
He placed his hand on his chest and felt something inside. Just as he was about to think, the pain returned—but this time, it wasn't in his body. It was in his soul. He couldn't comprehend the pain he was feeling. His knees were on the ground, arms hanging freely, head lowered. The pain within his soul was far greater than what he had felt in his body, yet it was beautiful.
He felt his soul. For the first time in his life, Noctis truly felt it. To feel one's soul, one must be forgiven by magic. Noctis didn't know why he had been forgiven, nor why the spell hadn't announced it.
The only thing Noctis could feel was his soul. His soul was becoming beautiful through the agony. He felt both joy and endless torment. Slowly, he could sense his soul taking form and growing stronger.
The pain in his soul was immense. His body wanted to die, but his soul longed to live. After what felt like an eternity, the pain began to subside. As it faded, his thoughts returned.
Noctis came to his senses but did nothing. He simply remained on his knees. He touched his face, rubbed his eyes.
Noctis felt nothing. He was hollow inside. He lifted his head. The dark silhouette was still there. He looked at it, expressionless. Slowly, something stirred within his soul—a feeling he knew all too well. It was the same feeling he had seen in the eyes of every person who had ever looked at him as a child.
That dark thing pitied him.
A quiet fury began to rise within Noctis. His pupils shrank. His mouth parted slightly. The pity and the rage within his soul tangled together.
The idea of something he didn't even understand pitying him drove Noctis mad. He tried to stand, but couldn't. The pressure radiating from that being forced him back to the ground.
His rage grew even stronger. Noctis wanted to scream at it—an impulse bursting out of him—but his voice didn't come from his mouth. It came from his soul.
"Who are you to pity me?"
The moment he said it, the pressure vanished. His soul was drowned in serenity. His mind grew silent, calm. Every muscle relaxed. For the first time, Noctis felt at peace. He stared blankly at the being before him.
Then he heard a sound—not with his ears, but within his soul. He didn't even know the language. The sound resonated deep inside him, and his soul felt both tranquil and filled with hatred.
[ I Am That I Am ]
"I Am That I Am" the voice said. The words seeped into every part of Noctis. Pain, fear—everything vanished. The voice echoed through his mind and soul. He didn't know the sound or the language, yet his mouth opened slowly.
" I Am That I Am "
Noctis repeated the phrase over and over. Slowly, everything was swallowed. His gaze locked on the dark figure—it still stared back at him. Then, that figure too was swallowed.
Noctis slowly opened his eyes. His midnight-blue eyes flickered open, and before them appeared the face of his mother. A faint smile crossed his lips at the memory of her gentle beauty.
For minutes, he stared at the moldy ceiling. His soul and mind were empty, though his body felt strange sensations he couldn't name. He didn't care.
Cramps spread through his body. His muscles rippled like waves. His lungs burned, as if breathing for the first time. His heart stopped, then started beating again.
Noctis didn't care about any of it. After all the pain he had endured, he could no longer feel it.
Some time passed. The weight of time settled on his shoulders once again. Time itself couldn't be felt, yet once it left, its absence became undeniable. Slowly, Noctis regained awareness.
He stood up and looked at his hands. He couldn't see any difference, yet he somehow felt stronger. There was a broken piece of mirror in his room; he picked it up and looked at his reflection. His face, of average attractiveness, was the same as before.
Everything seemed normal. A few seconds later, the memories of what he had seen flooded back into his mind. The moment he remembered that nightmare, his breath caught. He collapsed to the floor, cursing under his breath. Cold sweat ran down his back, his stomach turned, and his head pounded as if struck by a hammer. Yet his soul—his soul was happy. Happy, and filled with hatred.
He took deep breaths, forcing himself to forget the nightmare, to forget that darkness. He tried to remain calm, focusing on stillness. After a few minutes, he managed to recover. When he did, he drank the clean water his uncle Sylen had brought a few days earlier, gulping it down as if he hadn't tasted water in years.
Finally satisfied, Noctis left the room and checked on his grandfather. The sunlight touching the old man's white hair made his pale skin glow faintly.
Noctis returned to his room and stared at the runic letters that had never left his mind. He had noticed them before but never paid attention. Now that his mind had cleared, his curiosity stirred.
Noctis was seeing these letters for the first time. Their shapes resembled none of the alphabets he knew. Within a dark frame lay strange, blacker-than-black symbols. He didn't know their meaning, yet he could read them effortlessly. Magic had its own peculiar language of communication.
'Was I forgiven? But the spell never told me anything... How is that possible?'
Each time Noctis looked at the runic letters, his eyes widened. He didn't wait any longer—curiosity consumed him, and he focused on the darkness-reflecting script.