There was no sky, no earth.
Only a city suspended in nothing.
The buildings? Columns of polished bone, bleached by centuries of solitude, twisted like frozen pleas. They hung over the void, held by strands of dried saliva, still pulsing with an absent breath. Each sidewalk panted like a living ribcage. The ground rested on nothing. The air vibrated to the rhythm of a distant, irregular, weary heartbeat.
Too slow.
As if the city itself was waiting.
For something.
Or someone.
And Rays was there. Blind. Eyelids closed, his world erased. He saw nothing. But he felt. Oh, he felt everything.
The shiver of the walls.
The wet rattle of the lampposts, bleeding incomprehensible sounds.
The floor groaning beneath each step, as if someone else walked beside him.
This was Rex's inner world.
And somewhere, deep within that monstrous anatomy, a call rose.
A child's cry.
⸻
Freyer.
The Listener.
A forgotten name, whispered by the oldest nightmares.
A being even the abyss had cast out.
An endless neck, dragging across the ground like a conscious noose.
No head. Just a gaping, hollow throat, scraping along the walls with a filthy rhythm. Each strike produced a deep, warped note. A melody that belonged to no world.
And with each impact, Rays felt his legs ignite. His nerves scream.
Then, without warning, he understood.
It wasn't his pain.
It was Rex's.
"Make it stop... MAKE IT STOP!" Rays screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the sticky wind.
And Freyer... heard.
He turned. Slowly.
His lack of a face was no lack of awareness. He didn't need eyes to see.
He listened to fear.
And Rays had just screamed.
⸻
The Hunt.
Freyer lunged.
His neck trailed behind him like an aborted fetus.
From his torn flanks erupted bony spikes, long as spears, whistling through the air like divine verdicts.
One pierced Rays' shoulder. Another his thigh. A third his side.
Pain crucified him.
He collapsed.
His blood — black and oily — spilled onto the organic pavement.
"Not now... REX!"
On all fours. Gasping. Limbs trembling like a beaten dog. He forced himself up. His legs refused. He pushed. They cracked. A bone snapped with a dry pop.
He walked.
He ran.
He screamed.
And each scream splashed the living walls with his suffering.
Another spike. Right leg.
He crumbled.
He thought he'd die.
Freyer approached.
And with an abyssal groan, filled the entire city.
A howl only a dead dog could understand.
A song of agony spat from a thousand hells.
The walls bled.
The air shattered.
Rays' eardrums burst.
But within that sensory void...
Rays whispered:
"Rex... show me what you lived through... every day..."
⸻
Memory of the Blind Pup
The world tilted.
Everything vanished.
Silence.
A garden.
A three-year-old child. Blind. Standing, fragile. Arms outstretched toward a sun he had never seen.
His tiny voice:
"Can I... play with you?"
Laughter. Far away. Too far.
Footsteps fading.
A ball never thrown his way.
A mother who looked away.
A father who sighed.
And then... nothing.
Nothing.
Until two paws approached.
A warm breath against his hand. A cold nose. A timid lick.
Then a head, gently resting against him.
A puppy.
Not like the others.
A husky, with silver fur and eyes of unnatural blue.
And in that silence no one inhabited, the child's voice:
"You... you won't leave too, will you?"
Silence.
Then a bark.
The puppy stayed.
He stayed.
And every day, he felt the walls of that house breathe indifference.
Every day, he witnessed contempt.
But he never left.
Never.
"That's how we met…"
A soft voice, in the dark:
"And since that day... he never complained. Not once."
"He lived through that... every day... and I never saw it…"
⸻
Return to the Anatomy of Grief
The city pulsed. The world resumed. Freyer howled.
But Rays no longer fled.
He limped.
Shattered leg.
Each step tore a grimace.
Each breath became a burn.
But he moved forward.
Freyer launched more spikes.
One pierced his left shoulder.
Another slashed his abdomen.
He fell. Crawling. His torn fingers dragging his weight across the bony ground.
He dragged himself like a wounded dog.
And he moved forward.
Still.
Always.
"You saved me, Rex... now it's my turn... to walk through your pain…"
⸻
The Trial
And then...
An invisible rift opened beneath him.
He fell.
And collapsed into a white room.
Everything stopped.
No sound.
No breath.
Only blood.
Everywhere.
His body was nothing but an open wound.
Yet he breathed.
He was alive.
A voice — ancient, heavy — rose.
Solemn.
"You have passed the second stage."
A silence.
Then, for the first time, it seemed... moved.
"Congratulations on Doubt, Dreamer. Prepare yourself…"
...for Acceptance.
And in that word, there was no peace.
No comfort.
Only the promise of an even greater sacrifice.