The Apostle snapped her fingers, and the black mist from earlier began to pool around her feet, swirling upward until it formed a massive, looming door of dark wood and intricate carvings. The carvings shifted and writhed as Tilus watched them, almost alive.
"This is your path forward," she said, gesturing at the door. "On the other side, you'll face it—all the guilt, the shame, the weight of everything you've been carrying. It's not going to be pretty. And it's not going to let you walk away unscathed."
Tilus's throat felt raw as he asked, "What's it?"
She smirked. "You'll see. If you make it to the end, you might just find something worth holding onto. Or you'll break, and this house will crumble into nothing, taking you with it. Either way, I've got front-row seats."
He hesitated, staring at the door. The carvings seemed to whisper to him—indistinct voices that were hauntingly familiar. Part of him wanted nothing more than to run, to wake up from this nightmare and pretend it never happened. But not after everything. Not after them.
Taking a deep breath, Tilus stepped forward.
The moment he passed through the door, a wave of heat slammed into him. The air was heavy and oppressive—as if he were walking into a furnace. The landscape beyond was nothing like the crumbling house; it was a barren wasteland, the ground cracked and scorched, the sky a swirling mass of gray and red.
In the distance, a figure emerged. Standing atop a hill of broken mirrors that reflected distorted images of himself, the shadowy figure's eyes burned like fire. Its presence was unmistakably wrong, as if it belonged to no world at all.
As Tilus drew nearer, he realized it wasn't merely standing—it was waiting for him.
The Apostle's voice echoed in his mind:
"This is your guilt given form. Your failure. Your despair. You've fed it so much that it's grown into this."
The figure moved. The mirrors around it shattered into dust as it stepped down from its hill, the ground trembling with every heavy step. Its body was draped in chains that clinked and dragged behind it—grim reminders of every burden Tilus had carried.
"You shouldn't be here," the creature growled. "You don't deserve to be here."
Tilus froze. That voice… it was his own.
In a blur, the creature lunged and slammed him into the ground. Pain exploded through Tilus's body as he gasped for air. The creature leaned in, its fiery eyes boring into him.
"You've failed. Over and over. You've wasted everything they gave you. What's the point of pushing forward? You're only going to fail again."
Each word struck Tilus harder than any blow, dragging him deeper into the pit of his own despair. But he refused to go down without a fight. With a burst of desperate strength, he pulled himself up and struck the creature's chin, sending it staggering backward.
"Do you even remember their faces?" the creature hissed—its voice his own, twisted with venom. "You couldn't even look at them when it mattered. You avoided their gazes, hid behind excuses, and pretended it would all work out in the end."
A memory slammed into him like a freight train. At a dinner table once filled with laughter, the room had turned cold and silent. His mother's face, lined with worry, darted between him and his father. His father's calm voice that night had been razor-sharp.
"Tilus," his father had said, placing his chopsticks down carefully, "how much longer are you going to live like this?"
Tilus had tried to speak, but his throat had closed up. Words had failed him.
His father's sigh, heavy with disappointment, cut deeper than any blade. His mother had reached for his father's hand, only for him to pull away.
"We've given you everything. We trusted you to succeed. To make something of yourself. And this—this is what you've done with it?"
In a burst of anger, Tilus had shouted, "I'm trying! Do you think I don't know how much you've sacrificed? I'm doing my best!"
But his father's voice had thundered in response, "Your best isn't enough!"
The memory faded, and Tilus found himself back in the wasteland, the creature looming over him. Its fiery eyes glowed brighter, feeding on his despair.
"You let them down," it sneered, voice dripping with venom. "All they wanted was for you to succeed, and you couldn't even give them that. You're nothing but a failure."
The weight of those words pressed down on him like a boulder. "So you ran away. Five years now, huh? You can't face the fact that you failed them," the creature mocked.
Without warning, it hurled a bottle at him. The label was a blurred mess, yet its shape and sound were unmistakable. Tilus's chest tightened as the bottle rolled to a stop at his feet.
"Pick it up," the creature demanded, its voice soft yet insidiously insistent. "Pick… it up. You want to, don't you? To end all this suffering."
His hands trembled as Tilus bent down and grasped the cold glass. It bit into his palm, sending shivers up his arm. The label was unreadable, but he knew exactly what it signified.
"Look at you," it hissed, circling him like a predator, its breath hot against the back of his neck. "Clinging to an escape. That's all you've ever done, isn't it? Run. Hide. Blame yourself until the guilt crushes you."
The bottle felt impossibly heavy in his grasp. In its surface, his reflection stared back—a ghost with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, the shadow of the man he used to be.
"You think this will fix everything?" the creature taunted, leaning closer, its fiery gaze piercing him. "You think it'll make up for the years you wasted? The pain you caused?"
Tilus tightened his grip until his knuckles turned white. The echo of his father's words—Your best isn't enough—hammered him.
The creature leaned in and whispered, "They'd be better off without you. All that shame, all that disappointment—it'd vanish in an instant. All you have to do is open it."
His chest felt as if it were collapsing; his knees buckled under the flood of memories—his father's scowl, his mother's tear-streaked face, the suffocating pressure of expectations he could never meet. And then, among those memories, surfaced a faded picture from years ago—a champion from his online gaming days—with a single word scrawled across it.
"Ganbare."
The bottle slipped from his grasp and landed with a dull thud on the ground.
Tilus whispered, "No," the word barely audible even to himself.
The creature froze mid-taunt, its eyes narrowing. "What did you say?"
Tilus lifted his head, jaw clenched, and his voice grew stronger. "No."
It laughed—a guttural, mocking sound that made his skin crawl. "You think saying no changes anything? You're still a failure. Still nothing."
Tilus pushed himself to his feet, his legs trembling but resolute. "Maybe I am," he said, meeting its fiery gaze. "Maybe I'll never be the son they wanted me to be. Maybe I'll never fix what I've broken. But giving up? That's not me. I've pushed myself to the edge more times than I can count—as long as I'm still standing, I'll keep trying. I'll get my shot."
The creature snarled, its fiery eyes dimming ever so slightly. "You're deluding yourself. You'll never escape this."
"Maybe not," Tilus replied, stepping forward. His hand shot out, snatching the bottle from the ground. He stared at it for a long moment before hurling it into the distance. The glass shattered against jagged rocks, shards scattering like broken chains.
The ground trembled beneath him as the creature roared in fury, its form flickering like a dying flame.
"You don't get to control me anymore," Tilus declared, voice steady and resolute. "I've carried this guilt, this pain, for too long. But I'm done letting it drown me."
A searing burn flared on the back of his right hand as a mark ignited—a black, twisting Qliphoth tree whose branches pulsed with an eerie warmth. The creature writhed, its fiery glow dimming further as Tilus took another determined step forward.
"You feed on despair, don't you?" he said with a faint smirk. "Well, I've got bad news for you."
Clenching his fist until the mark blazed brighter, he roared, "I'm not giving up. Not today. Time for you to get the hell out of here!"
With all his might, Tilus swung his fist. A stigma in the form of a tree formed on Tilus' hand. His fist crashed into the creature's chest like a thunderclap, the impact sending spiderweb cracks through its shadowy form. Dark tendrils unraveled like smoke in a violent wind, and a shockwave burst outward, scattering the oppressive mist.
The creature staggered, its glowing eyes flickering erratically. Its form began to collapse inward, dissolving into ash as its guttural growl faded into nothingness.
"Not so tough now, huh?" Tilus muttered, standing firm as the creature disintegrated.
Before it vanished completely, it turned and smiled—whether genuine or mocking, Tilus couldn't tell. It didn't matter; he had to keep moving forward.
Breathing heavily, he stared at his shaking but steady hands. The warmth of the mark pulsed through him, and for the first time in years, the crushing weight of guilt felt lighter. It wasn't gone entirely, but Tilus knew he'd taken the first step toward reclaiming himself.