The Chamber Of Judgement

The summons came without a sound.

A slip of paper, small, like something you'd find crumpled in a pocket, was handed to me through the bars. 

No name. Just my inmate number: 10485, stamped in precise, ink-dark letters.
Beneath it, one word: “Ready.”

There was no longer a guard outside. No footsteps in the hall. The door was just... open. A quiet invitation, like the prison expected me to find the way on my own.

The hallways had changed.

I’d memorized the layout already, counted steps, tracked turns, catalogued every crack in the stone. Worried for when my next job would be, I had to be ready. But this corridor wasn’t one of them. It didn’t belong to the world I knew. The walls were smooth now, seamless, like something carved out of bone. They swallowed sound. The air didn’t echo.

Light came from above, thin lines glowing where the ceiling should be. Not torchlight. Not bulbs. Just a pale, pulsing thread, like veins under skin.

Every step forward made the air feel heavier. Not hot. Not cold. Just… aware. As if the hallway was listening to me walk.

Eventually, the corridor opened up.

The chamber wasn’t massive, but it felt ancient, like I’d stepped into something older than time. The walls arched upward, narrowing into a dome so high it blurred into mist. Faint carvings traced the surfaces, people, not symbols. Figures curled into themselves, bent in grief, reaching upward, falling.

At the center of the room was a platform. Round. Bare. Meant for one person.

Me.

But it was the statues that stopped me cold.

Six of them. Massive. Unmoving. Seated in a crescent along the far edge of the room. No faces, they were just smooth, towering forms with their heads bowed, hands resting on their knees. They didn’t move. They didn’t need to.

Their eyes burned.

Not with fire but light, buried deep in the stone, pulsing faintly, like something waking from a dream.

Behind me, the door disappeared. 

And then the silence deepened.

Not just quiet. Heavy. Like standing beneath a sky just before lightning splits it open. My heart was too loud in my chest. My breath felt borrowed.

That was when I felt it.

Not a voice exactly. Not words. Just... a pressure at the edge of my thoughts. Like something vast and cold and patient had decided to notice me, and wanted to be understood.

The statues weren’t just watching.

They were waiting.

Listening.

"I’ve been called here?" I asked faintly.

This place made it feel like I should be someone important, but I knew I wasn’t.

Every muscle in my body was prepared to leave in the most forgettable way possible.
To fade into the shadows, where I felt I belonged.

“Inmate 10485,”
the voice boomed, reverberating through the chamber.

"Before we pass your judgment, it is customary to ask:
‘Do you know why you’re here?’"

"Is it because I'm an alleged mass murderer?"

I hadn’t let myself think about that day—not since I arrived.
But the moment the words were spoken, the memories returned, clearer than ever.

"You believe your charges to be true and just, then?"

I hated how condescending the voice sounded.

I wanted to scream out 'I don’t think they're just but what does that matter?
You zapped me here regardless, didn’t you?'

Just then, a thought surfaced.

"It depends. Do the laws of this world differ from my own?" I had to ask. I needed to know.

Am I truly beyond Earth?

"In this 'world,' as you call it, there are no laws, at least not in the way you’ve come to accept them."

"I take it, then, you’d rather not judge yourself, and instead be judged by others?"

Anger began to swell inside me.

"You called me here to be judged! What else should I think?!"

"That I have the right to decide whether or not your bogus claim holds any merit?"

"I didn’t even know any of the people who died. I don’t even know how it happened. I was just told I’d be allowed to pass my courses, no questions asked."

"If you speak the truth… then I ask again, do you know why you are here?"

This time, the voice boomed louder, as if it wanted not only me to hear, but everyone.

Fear overtook my anger.

I didn’t want to think of another possibility.

Was there something I did?
Something I ignored?

Do I deserve to be here?

Wait.

He didn’t even answer my question.

"Where is ‘here,’ exactly?"

"I’ll answer your riddle, or whatever this is, if you answer mine first. Am I the only person here who isn’t from this world?"

"Yes."

"However, I am not obligated to answer you any further.
For knowing you, you’d take what I say…
and pass it off as the reason why you’re here."

"You truly think that you know me?"

Is it just because somehow, time and memories are toys to be played with here? Just knowing someone’s actions doesn’t mean you know them.

"Then I’ll rephrase my question."

"Who are you?"

"You, who have been brought to a prison not from your world.
What is it that you’ve done?
What is it that you are, that has warranted your arrival?"

Silence followed the voice's question.

Who are you?

It was a question I couldn't answer.

Not because I didn’t want to. But because I didn’t know how.

My breath grew shallow. My fingers curled into trembling fists.

Was I supposed to know? Was there something obvious I was missing?

I tried to dig through the haze in my mind, but instead of clarity, I only found cracks.

Hairline fractures forming across the space around me. No, in me.

A memory slipped through.

My sister, standing in the doorway of my room. Her arms folded. Her eyes hollow.

"You can’t keep doing this, Akito."

I hadn’t even looked up from my bed.

I just said, “Doing what?” with whatever strength I could muster, which is to say, none.

She never answered.

I tried walking towards her, to apologize for not caring about what she had to say but just then, The vision vanished. But the crack had spread.

Another memory followed.

My mother standing in the kitchen, her hands wringing a dish towel. My father beside her, stiff and silent.

I fell to my knees, I knew what they were going to say, I couldn't hear it, not again.

"He’s just going through a phase," she had whispered.

"Maybe we pushed too hard."

My father’s eyes lingered on the hallway I stood behind.

"He’s not broken," he said. "He’s just tired."

But the way he said it…

Even he didn’t believe it.

My tears hit the ground.

“I… I didn’t mean to waste their faith.”
My voice sounded small, like it didn’t belong to me.
"I'm... I'm so sorry..."

Then the world around me shattered. Not just mentally, physically.

A deafening crack rang out like thunder, and glass-like fissures spiderwebbed through the floor, the walls, the air.

The courtroom, the pillars, the statues, the darkness, fractured into pieces that were sucked into the void beyond.

And then, I stood the hall of memories. The same place where I learned about Aeris' past.

A kaleidoscope of glowing mirrors hovered around me, each one a scene from my life, playing like cursed home videos.

There I was, skipping class again. Lying in bed as unread messages stacked on my phone. Emails unopened. Calls missed.

I managed a small laugh, there was no way that memory was real. No one ever reached out to me... or, maybe they did...

In another I was telling a professor I had a family emergency, just to dodge a presentation. He looked at me with pity.

Not because he believed me.

But because he didn’t.

And again, my sister, her eyes full of rage.
"You never try. You just wait until the world forces you to move, and then you act like a victim when it’s too late! God! Why do mom and dad even put up with you?" 

I staggered back.
"No... stop it. That’s not... "

Before I could speak on how these aren't real, they're just fear disguised as memory. I turned a corner to face another scene.

My mother on the phone.

"He says he’s okay, but... I don’t know anymore."

I ran away. I can't, I won't. Not anymore, just let me be done with this.

Another memory.

A teacher handing back an exam.
"Akito… this isn’t failing because you’re dumb. This is failing because you gave up before you started." Her voice was just annoying as I remembered it being. She spoke with such pity and sincerity, she was the one who gave up on me.

"Enough!" I screamed.

But the halls echoed it back at me, mocking, endless, relentless.

Enough. Enough. Enough.

The windows closed in.
One of them, the faint smell of oil, the sound of sizzling.

A kitchen.

A quiet voice calling my name.

That memory, the one I was just telling Aeris about.

It was real. No longer was it confined to my mind, it was playing out, again.

"Please! Just let this end!"

I fell to my knees again, clutching my head.
"My past… isn’t me! It’s not all of me! Please… please…"

The lights dimmed. The halls slowed. And from the fragments of memory, only one glowed brighter than the rest,

The kitchen.

Then silence.

"I will ask once more, who are you?"