The Threshold felt different this time.
As Danny stepped through the invisible veil between worlds, the air grew heavier, laced with a metallic scent of blood and burnt dreams.
The marketplace was alive with unsettling energy. Vendors peddled souls in glass globes, tiny screaming faces pressed against the glass walls. Black-winged creatures with burning eyes soared above, and skeletal figures bartered hunks of flesh and whispered sins like currency.
But none of that mattered now.
Danny had completed the impossible. He had found someone willing to die for nothing more than a final moment of kindness.
And now… it was time to claim his wish.
He approached the High-Value Transaction Chamber, the massive black tent with its jagged, living maw still twitching at the entrance.
The moment he stepped inside, the towering figure from before appeared again—wrapped in swirling black smoke, crowned with antlers, its face a swirling starfield of endless nothingness.
Danny's knees buckled under the oppressive weight of its presence, but he forced himself to stand tall.
The voice slithered through his mind.
"Agent Wong. You have fulfilled the request. State your wish."
Danny's cracked lips quivered.
The words were simple, but his heart felt like it was being torn apart as he spoke them.
"I want my freedom… from this curse. I want my life back. No more marks. No more whispers. Just… my life."
Silence.
The void-faced being remained motionless for a long, agonizing moment.
And then, it laughed.
A terrible, echoing sound that shook the very fabric of the Threshold.
"Foolish human. Did you truly believe freedom was an option after the first deal?"
Danny's blood ran cold.
"But… the contract… the wish…"
"Indeed. You are granted a wish. But every wish… carries its price."
The being stretched out one long, clawed hand, and with a single touch to Danny's forehead, memories—his most precious memories—began to flood out of him.
He saw them slipping away—
His mother's smile.
The sound of his father's voice.
The warmth of his first love's embrace.
Gone.
Like someone blew out the candles of his soul.
Danny collapsed, gasping for air.
The mark under his eye faded… but so did everything that made him Danny Wong.
He stood up… but couldn't remember why he wanted freedom in the first place.
His heart felt like an empty husk.
He walked out of the Threshold a free man—
But free of what? Of his curse… or of everything that ever made him human?
His phone buzzed one last time.
📧 FROM: Fate Exchange
"Congratulations, Agent Wong. Your wish has been fulfilled. Your memories have been accepted as payment. Please enjoy your new life… if you can remember how."
🎬 [End of Chapter 11]