Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 72: Diary (1)

Chapter 72: Diary (1)

I, who had always wandered endlessly, driven by a brutal instinct, hunting relentlessly to survive, killing to subsist, losing myself aimlessly in the darkness of this merciless world.

I, who had known only the hunger that devours, the solitude that oppresses, and the fear that gnaws at the soul.

I, who had been reduced to a mere existence of survival, without hope, without a future, until all of that shattered.

I, who had been made a slave. A thing to be traded, a worthless object, a broken body, promised to the Lord of Kharz’Gorath as a mere tribute, a sacrifice to a power greater than me, greater than anything I had ever known.

I had become a tool, a pawn in a game I had never wanted to play.

And yet... on the road, something had changed.

A being had appeared, emerging from the void, as suddenly and silently as a shadow taking form in the night.

There had been no warning, no sign, just a presence that manifested there, in the heart of the vastness.

This being belonged to no race I had ever known, nor to any group or creature I could have identified.

It seemed alien to all reality, like a living dissonance in the natural order of things, a rupture in the very fabric of the world.

Its presence, as silent as it was imposing, destabilized everything I believed to be true, everything I had been taught.

It was both there and nowhere, a riddle that defied my senses and my understanding.

It had spoken with my jailers, its words mingling with theirs in a murmur I had not tried to understand.

And then... it had turned to me, slowly, as if each movement was a calculated decision.

Its eyes, of unfathomable depth, had met mine.

A suspended moment, a cold shiver ran down my spine.

And then, it had spoken.

Not in a foreign language, no, but in my language. My language. The one no one had ever used, the one I had thought forgotten, lost in the meanders of time, even by the dead stars.

Its words were like a door suddenly opened onto a past I thought was over, a past I never believed would see the light again.

And yet, in the strange softness of that voice, it offered them to me, like an echo of a time when everything was possible.

I lived reclusive within myself, locked in an icy silence, detached from all warmth, from all hope.

My heart beat only to get through one more day, an existence marked by pure and simple survival.

I had learned to accept the void, to settle into that indifference where pain blended into habit.

And I had resigned myself to the idea that the next life, perhaps, would be a little less cruel, a little less devoid of meaning than this one.

But he... he had appeared.

He had reached out his hand, not as a savior, but as a simple being offering a chance, a faint but real light in the darkness.

And, in that forgotten language, he had asked me a simple question, a question that, in its strangeness, resonated like a call: a reminder of what I had lost, a memory of a world I thought forever gone.

"Do you want to live?"

I remember the silence that followed, heavy and imposing, like an endless wait.

The wind, cold and biting, caressed my bruised skin, each brush seeming to revive the invisible scars, like a cruel reminder of what I had endured.

And within me, a gaping emptiness spread, larger than the entire universe, an unfathomable chasm where hope and pain mingled in an endless dance.

I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t even know if such a thing was allowed for me—to live, to feel, to exist.

I, who had known only suffering.

I, who no longer knew what that simple word meant: to live.

But, despite the confusion and fear that overwhelmed me, deep down, a fragile spark flickered, like a flame ready to go out, but refusing to die.

I had accepted.

Not with words, nor with promises.

Silently, heart emptied, chains still on my wrists, but somewhere deep inside, I had made the choice to believe that there was still another path, a path I could take, even if I didn’t know where it would lead.

I had seen him rise, straight and unhesitating, a smile forming on his lips, as if nothing, no one, could reach him.

He stood there, indomitable, like a rock in the storm.

And he had murmured, in a foreign language, his words floating in the air like echoes from another world.

The language was unknown to me, but something inside me vibrated, a confused resonance, as if the syllables struck directly at my soul, without filter.

"I will take her with me."

Those words, simple but heavy with meaning, seeped into my thoughts, marking the beginning of a turning point I had not anticipated.

I didn’t understand everything, but the intention slid into me like an ancient secret, heavy and inescapable, a future opening up to me despite the confusion.

Then, they had all charged, in a blind fury, my jailers, my torturers.

A pack of hungry dogs, unleashed before the unknown, ready to devour anything that stood in their way.

Their movements were synchronized, brutal, without thought, driven by primal hatred, blind obedience.

And I... I had resigned myself.

The weight of the truth suffocated me, paralyzed me.

Of course they would kill him.

Of course hope, that ephemeral glimmer that had crossed me, was just a mirage, an illusion born of suffering, which would be extinguished before it even shone.

After all, I had never had the right to live.

Nor to choose.

Nor to dream.

I was a shadow among shadows, doomed to wander in a world that rejected me with every breath, a world where even hope was a luxury I could not afford.

But when the captain’s blade—a warrior of elite rank, more brutal, faster, more precise than all the others—pierced his side, a strange and terrifying truth was revealed.

It was not blood that gushed out, but a black, thick, almost viscous substance, splashing into the air around them, like poison escaping from the body.