The ground still vibrated beneath Elian's invisible feet.
The roots held him with a cruel gentleness— they did not hurt, yet they offered no escape.
Around him, the roofless temple seemed to breathe in rhythm with him.
Each breath was an ancient lament.
The owl stepped closer.
Or perhaps they were not steps at all— she did not walk, she simply appeared nearer, as if the space itself folded to accommodate her presence.
Her feathers were white and silent, but her eyes… those golden eyes remained unblinking, like mirrors of a judgment already underway.
"The tunnels are not paths of stone, nor trails beneath the earth," she said, her voice slow and steeped in centuries.
"They are abysses carved inside you. Each tunnel is a wound. An absence. A death that still lives."
Elian swallowed hard— or would have, if he still had a throat.
The sensation was the same: a knot rising from the chest into the silence.
"Ten spheres," she went on, "forged from the remains of the choices you've made. Each represents a part of the pain that still holds you captive. And each tunnel… will demand from you something you never wished to offer."
"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice faint, as though afraid to understand.
"What… what exists inside these tunnels?"
The owl tilted her head, as if the question was neither new nor unexpected— as if all who came here eventually asked the same thing.
"Mirrors," she said. "But not ordinary mirrors. In them, you will not see the face you wish to remember, but the one you struggle to forget. Each tunnel will show you a version of yourself— not the one you want to be… but the one you fear you still are."
Elian lowered his gaze.
The pitch on his face seemed to throb more violently, as though her words had stirred something within the black substance— something that gnawed at him from the inside.
"And if I fail?" he whispered. "If I can't endure what I'll see?"
"Then you will remain there," she answered without hesitation. "Trapped. Until you accept. Until you understand. Until you forgive yourself."
He clenched his fists.
The guilt burned like acid fire, but there was also… something else.
A spark. Perhaps anger. Perhaps hope. Or perhaps only the raw instinct to survive.
"And where do I start?" he asked at last.
"Which tunnel… or sphere… must I face first?"
The owl did not reply at once.
She turned instead toward the Tree of Qliphoth.
Its roots pulsed, and the dark trunk seemed to split open like a living mouth.
At its center, a crack glowed with crimson light— like a wound waiting to be touched.
"The first is guilt," she declared. "It is always guilt. Because it is the soil where all other shadows take root."
Elian drew a long breath.
For the first time, he faced the tree without flinching.
"And if I choose not to go on?" he asked.
"If I decide to stay here… forever?"
The owl watched him, and for an instant, there was a silence so deep it felt as though the universe itself had stilled to hear the answer.
"Then you will die a third time," she said. "And this time… there will be no return."
Across the temple, Arthur narrowed his eyes.
He wanted to shout, to run to his son, to protect him as he once had when Elian was small and afraid of thunder.
But he knew— this moment no longer belonged to him.
Elian stepped forward.
The crack in the tree glowed brighter.
The air grew heavy, as if time itself hesitated to move.
"If this is what must be done…" he murmured, "…then show me."
The owl spread her wings wide, and a whirlwind of shadow engulfed Elian.
The crack yawned open.
And for the first time, he stepped inside.
He entered the Tunnel of Guilt.
And there, in the depths of himself, the past awaited— not as memory, but as a living wound.
Not as history… but as prison.
The journey had begun.
Rodrigo opened his eyes.
But it was not him who opened them.
It was guilt.
It was guilt that now saw through his eyes— eyes that were his, but without mercy.
The world before him was no longer the temple of endless columns.
It was a curved, suffocating corridor— alive, made of cracked mirrors and pulsing roots.
Each wall seemed to breathe with a low, wet sound, as though the corridor were the inside of some vast living body.
The roots of the Qliphothic Tree pierced the ceiling and floor, dripping a dark, coagulated liquid— thick as congealed blood, hot as shame.
The air was heavy— not with heat, but with meaning.
Each step dragged.
Each shadow carried a memory.
And then— the eyes.
Dozens of them.
Opening in the cracks of the mirrors, in the knots of the roots, like wounds that refused to heal.
Some were golden like his own. Others dull, lifeless.
Some wept. Others only stared in accusation.
Rodrigo was not alone.
He had never been alone.
Guilt had always been there.
And there, at the heart of the tunnel, the first door appeared.
It was not made of wood.
It was made of interwoven bones. Human bones. The bones of those he loved. Bones that wept in silence.
Carved into them, names burned red— not as ink, but as open wounds:
Luciana.
Maria.
Arthur.
Rodrigo tried to back away.
But the tunnel groaned— a wet, deep sound, like a contracting womb.
"You promised," said a child's voice.
He froze.
The sound came from nowhere and everywhere— from the ceiling, the floor, from within himself.
The door opened on its own, as if it had waited for him for centuries.
And inside…
A yard.
Simple. Familiar.
Packed dirt underfoot.
A clothesline with white laundry swaying in the wind.
The scent of coconut soap and fresh coffee.
Children's laughter drifting through the air.
And in the middle… her.
Luciana.
Six years old. Floral dress. Skinned knees. A wide, toothy grin. The sunlight caught the light brown of her hair.
It was her. Untouched. Innocent. Before everything.
Rodrigo stopped.
His body— or what remained of it— went still.
"No," he murmured. "This isn't real."
"Of course it isn't," the child-Luciana answered without moving her lips.
The voice didn't come from her.
It came from everything. From the swaying laundry, from the shadow underfoot, from the pollen in the air.
It was as if the scene itself spoke.
"This is what you destroyed."
Rodrigo ran to her.
He wanted to touch her.
Hold her.
Breathe in her scent, hear her voice.
Beg for forgiveness.
But the moment his arms wrapped around her…
She dissolved into ashes.
The ashes hung in the air for a moment— dancing like dark snow— before falling to the ground and turning into glass.
Glass that cut him.
Rodrigo's hands began to bleed.
The blood ran dark and thick— not red, but the same pitch that coated his soul.
And he did not scream.
He only looked at his wounded palms, as though he had long since grown used to pain.
"You promised," the voice repeated.
"You promised you would protect me."
The yard trembled.
The sky darkened.
The laughter turned to muffled screams.
The laundry on the line began to bleed, the droplets staining the dry earth.
And in the middle of the yard… another image began to take shape.
And at its center… was him.
Kneeling.
A weapon in his hands.
The air was thick, heavy with the metallic scent of old blood and damp gunpowder.
The grass, once alive, was blackened— as if it had absorbed every filthy memory of that moment.
A suffocating heat hung in the space, like a room where death had only just arrived.
The sky— if it could be called that— was a ceiling of endless gray.
Rodrigo froze.
His feet sank slightly into the ground— not from water, but from guilt.
It wasn't just an image.
It was him.
But younger.
Eighteen. Hair shorter, face leaner.
Eyes… hard. Empty.
Hands stained with blood— both dry and fresh.
Teeth clenched in a look of shameful pleasure. A perverse thrill in his veins.
The reflection rose. And smiled.
"I killed for you," it said.
The voice was identical to his own, but steeped in something that hurt to hear.
"And you… died anyway."
Rodrigo's stomach twisted.
"I avenged you. I brought justice. I tore out eyes. Teeth. Nails. I drove in needles. Burned flesh. Made them all scream. For you."
Behind the reflection, the shadows began to take shape.
Like smoke gaining weight.
Like memories condensing into flesh.
Human forms, trembling.
Made of fragments of memories Rodrigo had tried to forget.