Chapter One – The Door Between Worlds
They never see me at first. I walk among them as any other young man, another face in the crowd, skin bronze, bones strong, eyes hazel. But where they see flesh, I see truth. And the truth of him is unbearable.
His aura bleeds through the walls of every place he enters. Black rivers seep outward, pulsing with crimson veins like blood gone sour, like meat left to rot in the sun. He shakes hands with merchants, with priests, with neighbors who call him brother—and none of them see it. None of them smell the rot in his spirit the way I do.
I have been watching him for weeks. It is not enough to strike when suspicion first rises. I must know. I must see his life as it really is, peel back every layer of his pretense until the stench cannot be mistaken.
And so I follow.
By day he wears his mask well: the generous patron, the man of influence. Coins pressed into the palms of beggars, blessings spoken over children he would not hesitate to break behind closed doors. By night the mask slips. I've seen him—my eyes turned inward, my sight slipping through the cracks of his soul.
I've seen the ledger he keeps, the bribes, the lies, the names marked down like cattle ready for slaughter. I've heard his curses muttered against his own kin. I've felt the shuddering cries of those silenced, buried under his cruelty. There are shadows I will not name aloud, not yet, because to speak them feels like giving them breath again. But they are there. They cling to him. They define him.
When he passes in the street, people step aside with respect. Some bow. Others whisper his praises. And I—
I wonder how blind men choose to remain, how willingly they drink from poisoned wells.
I am not here to hate him. Hatred is easy, too easy. No, I am here because this is what I have taken upon myself: to weigh what no one else dares weigh, to see what no one else dares see.
He is among the worst I have witnessed. Not for the scale of his crimes alone, but for the depth of his corruption—because he enjoys it. He smiles in the faces of those he wounds. He cloaks himself in righteousness while feasting on rot.
And still, I must give him a chance.
That is the burden. Even when my sight is certain, even when his aura all but screams of decay, I must step forward. I must offer my hand and see if there is even a flicker left inside him worth saving.
For that is the law I follow. Not the laws of men, not the laws written in ink and guarded in stone halls. Mine is older. Harder.
I watch him laugh with friends tonight, his voice rich with lies that no ear but mine will ever hear. Soon, I will step from shadow into light. Soon, I will speak to him as man to man.
And when that moment comes, it will not be my hand that destroys him. It will be his own heart.
The night was heavy with warmth and the smell of spilled ale. He sat at the back of the tavern, surrounded by laughter that sounded hollow to me. A man like him always draws a circle of eager faces—those who crave his coin, his favor, his false light.
I walked in as though I belonged, as though I too sought nothing more than drink and laughter. My skin was flesh, my eyes hazel, my steps ordinary. To them, I was just another young man seeking shade in the smoke. To him, I was different. His gaze snagged on me almost at once, the way a wolf notices another predator.
"Sit," he said, voice smooth, inviting. "A new face among us. Come, drink with me."
I sat across from him. His smile was wide, his teeth bright. To any other eye, he was a generous host. But I could see the way his aura flickered with suspicion, the way his heart whispered another one come to take what is mine.
He raised a cup. "To prosperity," he said.His lips shaped the word prosperity.His heart murmured to greed, to dominion, to more.
I drank nothing. The taste I swallowed was not from the cup, but from the truth bleeding through him.
"You're young," he said, eyeing me with curiosity. "You carry yourself like someone who knows the weight of things. What business brings you here?"
I let the silence stretch between us. Then, softly:"I've been watching."
He laughed. A deep, belly-rich sound. "Watching? Then you've seen how a man prospers, how a man builds his place in this city."His lips: a builder, a provider.His heart: a thief, a breaker, a devourer.
Images slipped across my sight unbidden—the flash of a young boy's face, bruised and tear-streaked; a woman turning her head in silence, shoulders trembling; the ledger again, filled with names marked for ruin.
I studied him. "And those you've stepped on to climb—do they prosper as well?"
He leaned back, eyes glinting. "The strong rise. The weak fall. That's the way of the world. You can't change that."His lips: truth of survival.His heart: I take because I can. Because I enjoy it.
The table between us might as well have been an altar. His friends laughed and drank around us, blind to the trial unfolding inches away.
I spoke low, only for him to hear:"Every man has a choice. Even you. To speak truth. To turn from what corrodes you. Or to let it consume you."
He watched me, wary now, his smile thinning. He tilted his head, pretending not to understand. But his aura quivered, pulsed darker, as if recoiling from light.
"Friend," he said, voice smooth as oil, "you speak like a preacher. But you sit here with me. That tells me you're no different. We all do what we must. We all sin. Don't pretend you're above it."His lips: shared sin, shared weakness.His heart: I am untouchable. None can stop me. This boy is nothing.
I leaned closer, my voice quiet as breath."I hear your words. And I hear your heart. They do not match."
For the first time, the smile faltered. He looked at me as though I were a mirror showing him something he dared not see.
Soon, I would give him his chance. But first, he needed to know he was seen.
The walls of his home muffled the laughter from outside. Here, behind shut doors, the mask slipped entirely.
He had drawn her in with the promise of coin, of food for her family, of debts relieved. She was young—too young—and trembling, her back pressed against the carved table. His voice was no longer charming but venomous, honey curdled to rot.
"No one will hear you," he whispered, pressing closer. "You'll thank me when you see what I give you."
That was the moment I stepped through the threshold.
The door did not creak. My shadow stretched across the floor before me, and when he turned, his eyes widened. Not from shame, for he felt none, but from the sudden knowledge that he was seen.
The girl gasped, seized her chance, and fled past me into the night. I did not look after her. My eyes were only for him.
He snarled, straightening his tunic. "Who are you to walk into my house? Do you know who I am?"
"I know exactly who you are," I said. My voice was calm, but in the stillness of the chamber it rang louder than his threats. "And I know what you were about to do."
His aura writhed—black coils thick with hunger and pride. The stench of it filled the air until even the candles seemed to flicker uneasily.
He laughed, harsh and cold. "She came willingly. They always do. I give them more than anyone else would. That is not a crime. That is power."
His lips: justification.
His heart: enjoyment of fear, delight in domination.
I stepped closer. "Even now, you could turn back. Even now, you could choose truth."
"Truth?" His voice rose, mocking. "Truth is for the weak. For fools. Men like me make truth. Men like me decide who eats, who starves, who bends, who breaks."
I reached out my hand and looked into his eyes, hazel meeting dark, and spoke the words that weighed like iron:
"No. You decide only what you do with your soul."
The silence after that was thick enough to choke. For one instant—just one—I felt a flicker, the faintest hesitation. His hands twitched. His eyes wavered. Perhaps he saw what I saw: the door still open, light still waiting. He reached out and shook my hand.
His smile returned, twisted and sharp.
"I choose me."
And with those words, the door closed.
He had chosen. And with his choice, the world seemed to hold its breath.
"So shall it be…"
At first, it was subtle—a tremor at the edge of his smile. His hand clenched and unclenched, as though some unseen weight pressed down on him. The candles wavered, not from wind but from something deeper, a distortion in the very air.
Then it began.
His aura, once a dark coil of hunger, started to fray like rotted cloth. Black tendrils unraveled from his chest, spilling outward into the room, writhing like smoke made of shadow. He staggered, clutching at himself, eyes wide. "What—what is this?"
"This is you," I said quietly.
The tendrils thickened, becoming shapes—faces twisted in anguish, echoes of those he had broken. Their mouths opened in soundless cries. They clung to him, crawling up his arms, his throat, his jaw. He tried to tear them off, but his fingers passed through their forms as though clawing at mist.
He stumbled backward into the table, knocking over a goblet. The wine spilled, red like blood, spreading across the floor. The shadows drank it up greedily, darkening further.
His laughter broke then—not triumphant, but shrill, desperate. "No! I am strong! I am the master here!"His lips: defiance.His heart: fear, naked and raw.
The nightmare surged. His skin crawled with cracks of darkness, as if something inside clawed to escape. His eyes rolled white, his mouth opening in a silent scream as black smoke poured from him like a storm. The chamber shook. The carved walls seemed to breathe with his corruption, swelling and groaning as though they too bore witness.
I did not move. I did not strike. I only watched, as was my duty.
The final moment came slowly, dreadfully, like the last toll of a bell. His body collapsed inward—not falling, but folding, consumed by the shadows he had fed all his life. The faces swarmed, pulling him down into nothingness, until only a hollow husk remained, crumbled like ash upon the wine-stained floor.
The silence that followed was heavy and absolute. The chamber reeked of burnt iron and sorrow.
I closed my eyes, bowed my head.Death is not an end, only a door. But some doors do not open to light.
When I left, the candles flared once more, steady, as though nothing had happened. Outside, the world laughed and drank, unaware that one of their "great men" had been devoured by the truth of his own soul.
And so my work continued.