Chapter 25: The Void Within

The air in the void was cold and thin, carrying with it a strange hum that vibrated in Caelum’s chest. The mansion, now a distant, shivering silhouette, receded into an infinite darkness, its walls splitting like tissue paper against the vast, unending emptiness. Dante stood beside him, his presence as sharp and immutable as a blade, yet somehow distant, as though he were only half-present.

“What is this place?” Caelum’s voice broke, small and fragile against the overwhelming silence.
Dante turned slowly, his eyes gleaming with an inscrutable light. “This isn’t a place. It’s the absence of one. A reflection of your refusal to fill the gaps within yourself.”

Caelum stepped forward, the ground beneath him rippling like liquid glass. Every step sent faint echoes through the void, though nothing solid seemed to exist. The fractured shards of the mansion’s mirrors floated nearby, pieces of his own distorted image hanging in the air like spectral ornaments. He looked at his reflection in one, and it stared back, accusing and cruel.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Caelum muttered. “You talk as if I chose any of this. As if I created... this.”

Dante tilted his head, the faintest smile curling at the edge of his lips. “Didn’t you? A house doesn’t build itself, Caelum. Not unless the architect dreams it into existence.”

Ahead of them, a path began to take shape—cobblestones of light floating in the dark. They led toward an enormous door carved with intricate symbols, some ancient and others eerily familiar. Caelum paused, hesitant, while Dante moved without a moment’s doubt.

“You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?” Dante asked, his voice soft but pointed. “You just don’t remember.”

Caelum’s stomach churned. “It’s just another part of your sick game.”

Dante chuckled, his laughter a quiet echo against the nothingness. “Oh, Caelum. I didn’t make this door. You did. It’s where all the things you’ve forgotten are locked away.”

The words landed like stones, each one heavier than the last. Caelum hesitated but followed, the urge to turn away warring with the pull of his curiosity. He reached the door and felt an unnatural warmth radiating from its surface. His hand trembled as he touched it, and the symbols lit up in a cascading wave of light.

“Open it,” Dante whispered.

Caelum hesitated. The memory of the hospital room, the woman on the bed, and the raw, choking grief that followed threatened to resurface. The thought of what lay behind the door was almost unbearable.

“Why are you so afraid?” Dante pressed. “You wanted to know the truth, didn’t you?”

The door creaked open, revealing a circular room that seemed to stretch infinitely upward and downward, lined with rows of floating memories. Each one played out like a small theater, showing fragments of Caelum’s life.

He stepped inside cautiously, the memories flickering around him. There was a moment of laughter—a young boy running through a field, his hands outstretched toward a woman’s figure in the distance. Then a flash of anger—a shattered vase, and a pair of hands trembling with fury.

“Stop,” Caelum said, his voice shaking. “I don’t want to see this.”

But the memories didn’t stop. A new one emerged, vivid and raw: a hospital bed, the rhythmic beep of a monitor, and the woman’s fragile smile as she reached out to touch his face.

“Who was she?” Dante asked, his tone unusually soft.

Caelum didn’t answer. The memory blurred, and the monitor’s beeping slowed, then stopped. The scene dissolved into a choking silence, and Caelum staggered back, clutching his chest as though he could physically tear the pain away.

“She was everything,” he whispered hoarsely. “And I let her slip away.”

Dante watched him carefully, his gaze inscrutable. “And you’ve been running ever since. Building walls, locking doors. Denying her, denying yourself.”

The floating memories began to collapse, the fragments falling into the void below. The room started to tremble, the door slamming shut behind them. Dante stepped forward, his shadow stretching unnaturally long in the dim light.

“You have a choice, Caelum,” Dante said, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic gravity. “You can stay here, wallowing in the fragments, or you can move forward. But to move forward, you have to stop hiding from yourself.”

Caelum clenched his fists, anger and despair warring within him. “And what happens if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll remain here, forever trapped in the void of your own making.”

The trembling intensified, and the void around them began to split, revealing a deep chasm filled with searing light. Dante gestured toward it, his face calm but expectant.

“This is the moment, Caelum. The one you’ve been building toward all along. Step into the light, or let it consume you. But you can’t turn back now.”

Caelum stared at the light, the shards of his memories hovering around him like specters. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, his mind racing with fear, anger, and an inkling of hope.

“I don’t trust you,” he said, his voice trembling.

Dante smirked faintly. “You don’t have to. Trust yourself instead.”

With a deep breath, Caelum stepped forward, the light enveloping him completely.