Chapter 32 – The Cry in the Display Window
Theme: Desire, children's greed, and the illusion of happiness
A nine-year-old boy named Lior wanders inside an old shopping mall filled with mannequins.
Astral Creature: Faniris, a miniature dragon-like being with a transparent body and silver carapace, who slips into children's desires and grants them "illusory toys" that will eventually rot and wound.
The sound of rattling toys, children's laughter, and flickering lights echoed in the dusty corridors. Lior stood before a display window. Behind the glass was a shining robot, with wings and a sword of light. But no one else noticed that in the glass reflection, Lior's shadow didn't follow his movement. Something else was there—moving his lips from the inside.
Overcome by obsession, Lior stole his mother's money to buy toys. Yet, he was never satisfied. Every toy felt broken, empty, and disappointing. All the while, the astral being Faniris had bound itself to his desire, feeding him with false toys only he could see—while silently devouring his body and soul.
The toys he held were in truth astral tumors, weakening his body, clouding his mind, and leaving his spirit endlessly thirsty for more.
Enver stood in the store corridor. His voice was swallowed by the electronic music and children's cries. Yet as the astral world fractured reality, the solid floor beneath him grew unstable. He saw Lior clutching an invisible robot, whispering to thin air. From the boy's back, a scaled shadow protruded, with eyes glowing inside his spine.
Faniris revealed itself—like a small glass-dragon with cracked, translucent flesh, its wings radiating false light.
"This child only wants to be happy," Faniris hissed.
"What is so wrong with giving him a world that won't break him?"
Enver answered calmly:
"Happiness that grows from emptiness is nothing but a wound without a name."
Faniris screamed. It clawed at the store's ceiling and multiplied its illusions: hundreds of toys burst out of the walls, charging at Enver.
But Enver didn't fight with brute force. Instead, he summoned the Silver Mirror, an astral card that reflects the truth of one's soul. He held it before Lior.
The mirror revealed no robots, no toys, no joy—only a lonely boy, crying in the corner of his house, with a mother who never embraced him.
Lior screamed, desperate to shatter the mirror. But Enver stood still, forcing him to witness it.
Faniris writhed, its head breaking apart into shadowy children's hands trying to cover Lior's eyes. Yet Enver spoke a single word:
"Purificazione."
The world of illusions collapsed.
—
✨ The Purification of a Child and an Astral Being ✨
Lior fainted, trembling. Enver carefully lifted him, not with human affection, but with astral silence that soothed.
Faniris was not burned nor destroyed. Enver sealed it into a card shaped like a broken wooden toy, then locked it within a glass astral box—sending it back to the chamber of spirits.
Lior was laid upon a bench inside the mall, holding only one toy in his hand: a simple wooden robot, without lights or sword, but real. And it would never rot.
Enver walked away, his steps echoing under the fading store lights.
In his left hand, the 33rd card glowed—etched with the image of a child before a display window, and a monster lurking behind the glass.
Above, the stars that had gone dark began to flicker once again.
But the world was still long, and humanity was far from done creating new wounds.
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