The choices of windows to succeed closes down as you walk further away from your destiny.
Feeling the heat entering through holes in the base of the floating castle, the wanderer bathed under one of these with daylight. His fear stricken state crawling away from him.
Gradually he believed he saw the crystal floor descend except he could tell it wasn't descending downwards.
Rather the descent was inclined.
His brown overcoat stayed still matching his stillness. Would it have matched his awe as well if it could showcase that? He did not think in that way.
The boy hesitated to step in any direction. His mind running thoughts and queries he had not thought of long.
'Will I ever get to know what is willfall?'
'Will I ever get to know what does the word poster means?'
'What is that yellow patch that circles around the continent from the south I saw?'
Numerous more raised like tides and ebbed under his fear of being crushed to death by something he could not and do not have control on.
The descent went on for couple more minutes. He felt his legs becoming numb due to his inaction in the face of the impossible.
His body wanted to collapse yet he stood still. "No, no, I won't fall not today." He reprimanded himself.
Descent of the crystal floor finally stopped. No sandstorm rose from its landing nor did the wanderer escaped back into the daylight of the desert.
He was neither surrounded nor in danger. Relief exhaled as a sigh.
The wanderer's eyes dilated a bit, he realized how much he was afraid at that moment.
After the long wait, he saw the front of the structure of black crystal. Its silhouette shimmered in his pale blue irises.
It stood tall like a mountain dropping shade as it cut the sky apart. The front had towers jutting out one by one at intervals he could perceive from the vast distance between him the magnificent castle.
A castle more astonishing and sacred than the cathedral of Rigac. "Captivating would be wrong to say of this. No, this is… this is..," his mouth left hung open as the front opened wide.
Two gates equally parted in the middle of the castle of incomprehensible size.
White fog seeped swirling in its wake into the desert from the crack in the gate. It descended revealing the darkness hidden within bit by bit. Yet it called the boy in, he felt it within him.
Grooves and curves brought the fog to dance. Dance in the lines they were made in. Fog couldn't resist as it escaped the crack that widened to be more than just being a crack.
The illustrations drawn over the gate were untouched from the fog. His mind ran to that little detail while his eyes kept following the fog's dance. The imagery vanishing before he could understand what it meant.
Daylight at the edges that stayed away bent. Bent to come to witness the opening of the doors to the black castle.
Yet, the wanderer was the lone alive witness to the event.
Fog vanished while the gate opened wide. The carvings on it turned away as a blinding light crawled along the bottom escaping out in a tunnel into the world of Ashtrim.
His brown overcoat bore witness as well. Its colour became a little brighter than it did in the daylight. Becoming chrome brown, one of a brighter colour than any found in the desert the boy stood in.
Vast distance still laid between him and the gate but it was not enough for the gate, the towers, the shade, the fog, and the light all were massive compared to him. And he knew it.
He knew the castle's length, breadth and height beats any city he had heard of.
"How is such a castle made let alone fly?" his questioned escaped.
Rope and the bone dagger held severely tight in his hands leaving marks of their own on his hands. Did he feel the pain due to his grip? He did not.
All his focus and energy were directed not at himself but at the castle in front. 'What it could be? What is it? Why is it!'
His mind filled with questions that seemed truly obnoxious and wasteful if seen by others perspective. For him, it wasn't. He wanted to know, the answers he seeks or have ever sought.
"Are they in there? Will they be in there?" another thought escaped unknowingly or was it because something compelled him. He may know later or may never.
The light tunnel dimmed ever so slowly after the fog had died. The castle stood in its magnificence letting the light suffuse the surroundings.
The white light did not change but spread out covering the shade cast by the black castle.
For in its presence did the boy's peripherals glance at the corpses around him a little better than he did earlier.
He took a step forward. Towards the castle, thinking in his mind of what could be inside.
He felt within that something matched his step. But where?
He did not see.
He took another. And another.
He was moving closer to the killed patch of sky at the same moment for it lied in the path to the gate of the castle.
Right at his fifth step, he saw it. A being standing in front of the wide open gate.
Its supposed hand-like structure raised, not up, but forward to his direction. The boy dead stopped himself.
'No, I can't risk it. No, not when I know what I am facing.'
Keeping his gaze at the being, he seemed that the being wore something atop itself. One that floated freely, one that the wind could pluck off its body.
"Could that be a bed sheet? Or a shroud?" he tilted his head slightly to the right.
As he kept his gaze on it, the supposed hand moved. Ever so subtly at first as if learning what to describe by its movements. And then, it waved.