He yawned, stretching his stiff body until his bones gave a few satisfying cracks. A dull ache lingered in his limbs. As he stood upright, his gaze slowly traveled upward—his eyes drawn to the enormous obsidian dome above him, smooth and dark like a mirror dipped in night.
"Well… first things first," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've gotta get out of this place."
He turned slowly, scanning the strange chamber. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen—vast, echoing, built entirely from polished black stone that shimmered faintly under a cold, sourceless light. A hollow silence hung in the air, too still, too perfect. He wasn't even sure if this was a room or some illusion cast in a dream.
"Where the hell am I?"
There was no answer, only the whisper of his own voice bouncing off the walls.
With a resigned sigh, he spotted a hole up high in the wall—barely large enough to crawl through. It looked like a possible exit, or at least somewhere to start. Determined, he walked toward the nearby platform and tried to climb. His fingers gripped at the smooth stone edges, but just as he reached the top, his foot slipped.
He fell.
Again and again.
"Come on!" he growled in frustration. "Don't tell me I'm stuck here! I already died once, burning in some soul-piercing fire—don't tell me I'm going to starve to death now!"
Still panting from effort, he slumped against the wall, sweat dripping down his temple. His chest rose and fell rapidly. As he tried to calm himself, something shifted in the corner of his vision.
A small, narrow hole in the far wall.
It was half-swallowed in shadow, almost invisible. If he hadn't looked at just the right moment, he would've missed it entirely.
"Am I imagining things now?" he whispered, blinking. "Great… I'm losing it."
But hallucination or not, it was worth a try. Anything was better than staying here, rotting in a black dome.
He pushed himself up and moved toward the opening. As he stepped forward, the air grew denser. Cold. The darkness seemed to press inward, wrapping around his body like a second skin.
His hand found the edge of the hole—yes, it was real. A cold stone frame. Inside, he could feel space. A passageway. He reached out slowly, his fingers brushing rough stone walls, and found a narrow staircase descending into the abyss.
He started down, one step at a time.
The deeper he went, the thicker the air became. Then something soft and sticky clung to his face.
"AHHHHHHH!" he screamed, flailing wildly. "WHAT THE—!?"
His voice echoed across the stone, a wild scream that bounced through the chamber again and again, each time more warped, more distant. His spine shivered. The air tasted of dust and age.
"Stupid spider webs," he muttered, wiping his face with shaking hands.
He held his breath and kept going, one trembling step after another, not even knowing where the staircase led. Every nerve in his body screamed for him to stop. Danger. Turn back. Run. But curiosity—or maybe stubbornness—pulled him deeper.
After what felt like hours, his foot hit level ground.
The stairs had ended.
He was now walking across a flat surface, uneven and hard. Glass crunched underfoot. Wood creaked. As he took cautious steps forward, his foot caught something—he fell flat on his face.
"AHHH—"
He groaned.
"What the hell was that?"
Slowly, he pushed himself up. His palm landed on a broken chair leg. All around him lay shattered furniture—tables, chairs, frames—scattered like bones across the dusty floor. Fragments of broken mirrors glittered like stars under the faint light.
And then he saw it.
A faint glimmer.
It came from a narrow, stained window high on the far wall. The glass was cracked and covered in a thick coat of dirt, but it still shimmered faintly, letting in soft golden sunlight.
He walked toward it.
He tried opening it, but it wouldn't budge. He slammed it with his fist, then his shoulder. Still nothing. Growling in frustration, he grabbed a nearby wooden plank and struck the glass repeatedly until it finally shattered, sunlight bursting into the room like a tidal wave.
He squinted against the sudden brightness.
As his eyes adjusted, he turned around to take in the room fully.
Dust floated through sunbeams, settling on everything like snow. Long-hanging spiderwebs dangled from the high ceiling. At the center stood a massive statue of a woman—headless, cracked down the middle, her marble skin veined with time. Despite the damage, there was a strange elegance to her posture. She stood tall, arms gently outstretched as if offering something that had long since vanished.
Even broken, she glimmered faintly under the sun's touch.
"Who… was she?" he whispered. He had no idea. She looked like a figure forgotten by time.
He turned and noticed something else.
Large portraits lined the chamber's curved walls, but each canvas had been violently slashed. Torn open, shredded by something with massive claws. Only the frames remained whole. The faces had been ripped out entirely—as if someone had tried to erase the people within them.
He felt a pang in his chest.
"What happened here…?"
He stepped closer to the broken window, brushing away debris and dust. Outside, a balcony stretched a few meters beyond the wall. Thick vines coiled around its rails and columns, some even reaching in through the broken window, slowly creeping along the floor.
They moved so slowly it was almost imperceptible—like watching time grow.
He frowned and bent to examine one. A tiny leaf, soft and green, curled around his fingertip in response to his touch.
It was gentle. Almost childlike.
He let out a soft chuckle. "You're trying to eat me?" he whispered. "Cute."
Brushing the vine aside, he climbed through the window and stepped out onto the balcony.
A cool wind swept across his skin, filled with the scent of stone, moss, and sky.
He walked toward the edge.
Then he stopped.
His breath caught in his throat.
Below him stretched a void so vast it defied reason. He stood thousands—no, tens of thousands—of feet above the earth. The tower he occupied was impossibly tall, its base hidden in misty clouds far below.
He looked upward.
The obsidian dome where he had first opened his eyes glistened far above like a black mirror. From it spiraled a structure of smooth, twisting stone—like a staircase made for giants—rising endlessly into the sky.
He felt both awed and hollow.
"Where am I…?" he whispered again, but this time the question didn't feel frustrated or desperate.
It felt like a beginning.