Little Jack sat at the table, holding a baby girl in his arms. His father lay on the floor, motionless, and his mother lay on the table, blood gushing from her throat. She tried to tell him something, but she couldn't.
All she could do was choke on her own blood as her son watched her final moments.
Little Jack saw the light leave his mother's eyes little by little, until her gaze became dark and cold. Even as young as he was, he understood what she was trying to say. She wasn't apologizing for the things she did or didn't do. She was saying,
"Help me, please."
How selfish, how heartless, how greedy.
Those words echoed in Jack's heart. Rage filled him for what his parents had made him do as a child, yet his heart never let him forgive himself, and his mind punished him endlessly.
...
Jack stood at the heart of the world, surrounded by countless stars and galaxies. Even though they were billions of miles away, he felt close to them. He could feel their warmth, their love, their very essence. He had never felt so connected to the world as in that moment.
A single tear fell from his eyes into the vast darkness, and he heard a voice whisper,
"Push the wheel, Jack."
Tears still in his eyes, he walked toward the enormous wheel. It took all his strength to move it. This was the heart of the world; if it stopped, the world would cease, and Jack would burn. This was his punishment.
The creaking of the wheel echoed through the void. Jack had been pushing it for so long that his clothes were rags, his hair long and unkempt, his beard covering most of his face, and his skin and flesh clung greedily to his weary bones.
His past memories replayed like a broken tape. He was trapped between two worlds: one of childhood memories, the other of endless toil. Eternal punishment.
In his memories, good and bad days twisted together, creating a sick, twisted version of love—a love he had once accepted as normal. Meanwhile, in this world, he pushed the impossibly heavy wheel, the weight of billions of lives pressing down on him. The guilt was unbearable.
He stopped, as he had countless times before.
"Do I deserve this?"
The voice gave the same answer:
"Push the wheel, Jack."
He placed his hands on the wheel again, ready to continue his punishment for the hope of eventual forgiveness—until another voice spoke:
"Stop, Jack."
He turned, but no one was there. The voice came from nowhere, like his tormentor, but it was soothing and pleasant.
"This is my punishment for what I did."
"It's okay to forgive yourself. You do not deserve this. The hearts of humans are wicked. You are not the monster they said you were. You deserve to be happy."
Those words made Jack feel alive again. He stopped pushing the wheel. Slowly, instead of the creaking, the quiet sobs of a lonely child filled the void.
And then he screamed his heart out.
"Push the wheel, Jack!"
"No!"
"Push the wheel, Jack!"
"I said no!"
"I do not deserve this. I did nothing wrong. I am a victim. I have been a victim all this time. They should be the ones in this hell, not me!"
The voice remained silent. Jack felt the warmth and life of the world fade into darkness as his body burned from the inside, his flesh turning to dust and his bones to charcoal.
"Thank you."
"
Are you sad?"
"No, not at all. I was going to crumble away anyway, right?"
His body turned to dust, but his cries still echoed.
.....
Everything fell apart, descending into a terrible darkness. A horrifying nightmare hid itself there, feeding on pain and despair.
Little Jack floated in the darkness.
His stomach was sliced open, spilling his intestines, and his skull was cracked open, devoured by both heads of the monstrosity.
"You must be quite full now."
The two-headed monster turned angrily to see what disturbed its meal. Its eyes brimmed with hate, but what it saw was a nightmare more horrifying than itself.
"A creature like you exists only to devour and cause pain. You cannot be called life."
Its voice was no longer soothing but hateful. The two-headed monster tried to run, but it had already lost its legs to the nightmare. It tried to crawl, but it had lost an arm. All it could do was squirm on the ground, screaming in pain.
"That's it. Try to preserve your worthless existence. You do not get the pleasure of death. If you are a monster that devours, it should only make sense for you to be devoured."
....
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