But, despite their incessant demands, Malik remained standing.
His mind was a fortress.
A million blinks had built it.
A million steps had carved it.
A million voices had crashed against its walls, only to shatter and fade into nothing.
They could scream, they could cry, they could claw at him all they wanted.
It wouldn't matter. He had already endured worse.
And so, a thousand years had passed.
By that point, the darkness shifted again, warping, bending, curling in on itself until suddenly—
Zawaya.
His home.
The alleys. The scent of spice, shit, sweat, and sand in the air. The sound of distant bells, of children laughing, of bastards swearing, of life.
For the first time since his arrival in this... place, something inside him stirred.
The illusion didn't attack him.
No, it let him feel.
It let him remember.
And then—
Crack!
It ripped it away.
The city crumbled into dust, slipping through him.
Just like that, Zawaya was gone. Only darkness remained.
