Basim awakened in a place of impossible geometry and blinding color. The ground was composed of shifting, interlocking geometric shapes that expanded infinitely beneath his feet. A cathedral whose stained-glass windows depict his sins, unfolding backwards in time. They were the memories of his life, preserved in the most exquisite detail. Each one a portrait of a moment he'd forgotten or chosen not to remember.
Every mistake, every misdeed, every transgression, every act of cowardice and cruelty.
There were so many.
His stomach roiled in disgust. He wanted to look away from the images that flashed by him, but they were everywhere. Every pane of glass showed another part of him he hated, another reminder that despite all the good he'd tried to do in the world, there would always be these stains upon his soul.
"Insight is Invitation," his mother used to say, just like Madame Horloge. And now here he was: invited into his own private hell. The one he had created for himself through the sum total of his failures. Of his weaknesses.
He could hear her voice calling to him. His mother. Her voice, sweet and soothing, as if she were singing to him. She sang, but her lips did not move.
She'd told him tales of djinns and angels and devils, and of mortals who had been lured from the path of righteousness by their wiles, by their promises of riches and power. She'd told him stories of the heroes who fought such beings and triumphed over their temptations, and of those who'd succumbed to their corruption and fallen from grace.
"Basim! Basim!" his father screamed. But his father wasn't really screaming. No. It was something much worse.
And now... Now, Basim knew the truth.
It wasn't that his mother had died, or even that his father had killed himself out of grief. It was that both of them, together, were a part of this place, a part of his punishment, and that he had been born to witness it.
He hadn't just been born to suffer.
He'd been born to watch.
To see her burn. To see his father break. To see, and never look away. That was the real sentence.
This place was a reflection of the worst of humanity, of all that was evil in mankind, and of his own nature as well. For in seeing what he had seen, and hearing what he had heard, and experiencing what he had experienced, he had become complicit in its existence.
He reached out to one window—his hand passed through the glass like water—and he was back in that alley in Alexandria. Ten years ago. The boy was being beaten and brutalised. The man who was his father cowering against the wall as two men held him fast and two more beat his son mercilessly, until blood ran down his face and pooled on the ground.
But, Basim wasn't held by his fear anymore. Instead, he lunged at one of the thugs and broke his nose, then his jaw, and kicked him between his legs, and when he doubled over, he slammed his elbow into his back, knocking him unconscious. The second thug rushed forward, but he slipped in the pooling blood, falling to the ground.
The third and fourth thugs tried to attack him, but they, too, fell to his superior strength and skill, their bones breaking as easily as twigs.
"Why would I fear shadows, when the darkness is within me?" Basim asked the unconscious bodies, before stepping into the cathedral and letting the doors close behind him.
The stained glass was different, no longer showing scenes from his past. Now, it depicted images of a life that might have been: a beautiful woman holding a child, her husband embracing her from behind.
"From my regrets to yours," a voice called from the darkness.
A figure emerged from the void, his body covered in a hood and robes.
"Your friend, —————————-," the hooded man began. "Do you know what he fears?"
"He's not scared of anything."
"Wrong." He waved his arm, and the image shifted to show a boy crying. The same boy from earlier. But older, stronger, angrier. "Everyone is afraid of something."
"So, you've said."
"Yes." The figure looked up, revealing a face that was not quite human. His skin was too smooth, too perfect. As if he were made of marble. His eyes glowed with an unnatural light that seemed to shine through his eyelids.
Basim tilted his head on the side. "Are you an Ancient One?"
"If I were an Ancient One, then your life would have ended long ago." The cloaked figure's tone was neutral. "But no, I am not an eldritch entity, or a djinn. Nor am I a prophet, nor a seer." He paused for a moment, as if considering how much to reveal. "I am neither man nor god, mortal nor spirit. I am a Witness of the Witnesses. In truth, I have no name, no identity. Only purpose."
"What is that?"
"To help you achieve your goals. "
"By showing me illusions?" Basim laughed. "That seems rather pointless."
"Perhaps," the man conceded. "Insight cannot replace action. Yet, without insight, action becomes futile."
"And insight is gained from suffering." It wasn't a question, and the stranger acknowledged this. "Well, I'd love to chat with you, but I have two friends to find." He moved forward, passing by the apparition.
"Do you not want to see his deepest fear?" the cloaked man called.
"Not interested. I have better things to do," he responded. "Besides, it doesn't concern me. If —————————- wants me to know, then he will tell me." With these words, Basim disappeared into the labyrinthine corridors of the Cathedral, leaving the strange creature behind him.
"You will die alone," he whispered after the young man.
Basim didn't look back, his feet taking him further and further away from his old life and memories. Further away from his regrets and pain. He didn't turn when the other spoke again.
"Who would have thought? That a man so weak could have such courage. Or perhaps it was a madness that gave him strength..."
The young man's lips curved into a slight smile.
"Only a fool fights demons without knowing their weaknesses," Basim muttered.
As the last echoes of his footsteps faded away, the shadowy figure chuckled.
"Ah... I see... This one, he truly believes in his victory." The laughter died down, replaced by a low hiss. "How delightful."
Basim sighed as the cathedral flipped itself upside down. It had been doing this ever since he first arrived, changing the gravity and twisting its layout in new ways every five minutes or so. At first, it disoriented him, and he would fall to his knees, unable to move until everything righted itself, but now he was growing accustomed to it.
His mother would've scolded him if she saw him walking around aimlessly, searching for an exit. He chuckled at the thought. His parents had always told him that curiosity kills the cat, but satisfaction brings it back.
"If only they knew that curiosity leads to the best stories," Basim mused aloud.
Suddenly, he found himself facing the edge of a cliff, overlooking a sea of fire and brimstone. On the other side was a city of spires, its towers stretching high into the sky. He blinked twice, trying to understand what he saw. This wasn't possible. No city could reach so far into the heavens. Not even a mountain could rise above such an infernal sea. It defied all logic, all reason.
"Then again," he mused, "what about the rest of this place makes any sense?"
He looked behind him. The path that led him to this place had vanished, replaced by sheer cliffs and jagged rocks.
"Alright, then..." Basim removed his top, letting his bare torso breathe. It wasn't cold or warm in the cathedral, yet the humidity still clung to him, making it hard to breathe. After tying the piece of clothing on his hips, he turned back to the impossible view in front of him.
"Here goes nothing..."
—He leapt—
Not like a man escaping, but like a soul choosing damnation.
The fire rose to meet him.
And the Cathedral smiled.—
When he hit the surface, however, the flames parted around him, swallowing him without a single trace.
And in the last blink before the flame took him,
he saw Jean-Baptiste,
bleeding,
smiling—
as if he'd painted it all.