His freedom and realization laid in the simple thing he chose to do. His direction to advance was sealed in that mere fate.
Wanderer felt hollow. His decisions that altered his life till now had been always in his hands. …Mostly.
Grabbing onto his chest, he sucked in a shaky breath. One long one at a time. His throat became drier after each one. His tongue did not taste any flavor masked in the air.
'No hallucinogenics.'
All of it was truly real. He believed so when he saw the same mural. "Wherever I am. It sure is not for normal humans." Caressing his cheek, he muttered.
First a slight tremor spread through his lips, to stop it he moved his fingers from his right cheek to his lips. But the tremor didn't stop.
It evolved.
From being a mere tremor to a slight grin. And finally a full blown laughter.
Only to drop into nothingness enamored silence instantly. His glare fell onto the left mural. The details were not so different than the previous part of the same story being told.
The man dedicatedly absorbed into making a new world. One oh so unique than any before yet shadows of the previous ones could be found engraved in every single groove, curve and line.
Just as the man in the mural was absorbed in his creation, so was the wanderer absorbed into the madness he had touched. Suppressing himself from spiraling more, he turned his head up.
Thus he stared, and stared some more. Staring continued and continued for the remainder of his journey in the corridor. Every mural was watched with intent. Every mural remembered.
Each curve, symbol, writing, he glared them to remember them.
At lengths he had mumbled to himself something about how much he felt affected by the story or act painted. But it did not match the way his silence stopped him when he saw the final conclusion to the three murals.
There interconnection only revealed to him and to him alone. 'Would I be able to remember this story? This impossible tale… could I?' A simple thought but one that he had an answer to.
"Of course I will." He crossed the last third archway as his eyes glared holes into the being in the black shroud waiting for him there at the end of the corridor.
"But…what could those symbols? Or were they letters of an unknown language… mean? That was drawn in the very center of the last nine murals?"
There were no more murals in the last three archways. The roof, the left wall, the right wall and the floor all were purest of black.
Light that had been his only way to even see in this castle silhouetted the shrouded being.
Placing one foot after another, the fork in the corridor revealed to him. One path bifurcated from the left of the shrouded being, one path from its right.
Wanderer yet chose to only observe the being in the black shroud. It stood taller than him, but skinnier much more than a human skeleton would be. The boy in his brown overcoat now stood in front of the being in the black shroud.
Without wasting a breath, he asked. "What is this place? Who were those people in the murals?! WHY ME!?"
The words echoed until it died a cruel slow death.
Inaction was the answer by the shrouded being.
"Huh," the boy dejected. He turned around to look back at the corridor he came from. As he did turn by taking a left turn he once again was facing the same shrouded being.
"Huh?"
He turned this time to the right. Again, the shrouded being and the two paths were in focus.
He tried it again and again. He even jumped and attempted to turn mid-air only to not even glimpse the corridor.
No matter where he looked, he faced the shrouded being and the two paths.
The tension and reality he had soothed to forget returned. It did not haunt him. It stood in the form of a being so cadaverous. Every bone like a steel pipe drawn into the world by fingers.
The very same arms of the being that had once rose to signal to him, rose. It rose to point in each direction. To the paths that lead away from the fork in the corridor.
'Is it even a fork anymore? If I can't even know if the corridor exists after I have left it?'
A word laced from the innumerable moving pincers happened in his mind.
"Choose."
It was the second time a spoken word has entered his mind without him ever knowing what was its origin. Instinctively the wanderer had drawn a bone short sword to the ready.
A stare perpetuated between the two unnamed entities in the castle. One a boy in a brown overcoat and the other a mysterious skeletal being wearing a simple black shroud.
The wanderer's neck apple hitched an instant up. He preferred facing his enemies. But the being in the shroud felt to him not of this world or any other. 'Just what is it?!'
Light behind the shroud flickered, plunging the wanderer in total darkness. He quivered in the slightest but the light returned. The shrouded being had not shifted slightly.
A sweat drop traced its path from the boy's forehead to his chin. His instantaneous fear left along with the sweat drop falling.
He looked to the right of the being. A path filled with a suffused soft light and darkness clutching to the walls.
Wanderer glimpsed the left of the being. It was a path obscured by a grayish fog. It seemed to move but at times a light could be seen.
Not having any idea, he voiced out his concern. "Could you…tell me of the …uh, things? You are pointing to?" He half expected no answer.
So he waited, minutes passed. None came. His patience running dry, the boy attempted to fake turn to glimpse the corridor of murals.
Attempt after attempt, he still did not see it. Hundred attempts to turn had passed yet he always irrespective of the direction only had one option.
A low growl escaped from where the mouth of a skull should be for the shrouded being.
"Choose."