Hell is the others.
I, myself, was once locked in that hell—suffering without end.
Not because I was a devil, not because I was holy, but because I let their eyes define me. My mother's pity. My lover's shame. My father's judgment. The more I looked at them, the more I became what they saw. A monster. A jealous child. A coward.
Their eyes built my cage.
The prisoner inside gave everything meaning. The ticking clock on the wall wasn't time—it was only gears, only movement. Yet the prisoner said: This is time. This is your chain. He linked things that were never linked. He gave me chains and called them meaning.
What if you could free him?
What if you could silence him?
The prisoner is why you stay stuck in the loop, running in mud. You tell yourself: I've done my best. And yet nothing changes. Because "best" is another link, another lie.
If you tore the prisoner out, maybe—just maybe—you could leave the loop.
And then—he came.
A figure in a black coat.
A badge crooked on his chest: CINICA. No nickname.
Stained with blood.
Red hair, but not the kind that burns. Red deeper than rust, heavier than wine. His face had no mouth to speak, no nose to breathe, no eyes to judge. Only a blank oval, pale as death.
Around him, shadows walked endlessly, never stopping. He did not join them. He stood alone, thinking.
No smile. No mask. Only silence.
Perhaps destined to suffer.
Even in his heaven, he suffered still.
Prayers to the chosen one.