Question..

Virgilia raised her hands slowly. Her fingers brushed lightly against her own throat, the gesture exaggerated enough to feel intentional, almost theatrical. Then, she fixed her eyes on me.

“What is..,” she asked softly, her voice carrying with echo, “the fate of the unloved and the uncompassionate… if they never knew warmth to begin with?”

The question echoed in the void.

She didn’t demand an answer right way, and simply waited, heavy and patient, as though we had all the time in the world. 

I would only lose if I give the wrong answer or forfeit the duel itself.

I opened my mouth.

Then stopped.

The words that tried to surface but got tangled immediately, tripping over each other before they could form into anything coherent. 

The question kept looping back on itself in my mind, over and over as if searching for a place to settle.

'Unloved..  and uncompassionate..?'

'If someone had never known warmth.. never known kindness, never known what it meant to be seen or valued; then, how could they be expected to be acquainted with it?..'

'Can they really be blamed for not reaching for something that they didn’t know existed?'

This question evoked memories that hit me harder than I expected. Images surfaced on its own out of nowhere, slipping past whatever mental defenses I tried to raise, reminding me the many nights that i had spent drifting inside the same room, not because I wanted to, but because it was easier to manage my emotions than going out. 

Choosing solitude over connection because it was simpler. Because it kept things under my control. 

Expecting anything more felt foolish. I always used to think that the warmth of friendships and bonds were something other people were born with, knowing how to hold onto it with ease. 
It wasn't meant for someone like me.

I had lived that way once, convincing myself there was no other alternative course of life for me. 

My fists clenched at my sides. The void offered no resistance, no feedback, but the tension in my body was real enough. 

'No one ever escapes what they were born into..'

The notion that, fate is absolute.. I reject it.

I exhaled slowly. I have chosen my answer. 

If it's wrong, then it's wrong. I don't have nothing else to say.

I looked back at Virgilia.

“if the answer was simply that those without warmth were doomed by default, then nothing ever changes..” I answered. 

Virgilia’s expression shifted, it was subtle enough that i could have been imagined it, but I did catch it.  

I continued.

“If someone never knew warmth then they never learned what they were missing. You can’t condemn someone for failing a test they were never allowed to take.”

I held her gaze as I spoke, refusing to look away.

“But if they’re shown..” I went on, “even once.. then they can choose to seek it.”

The words echoed in the void. I didn’t add anything else. There was nothing more I could say. Whatever judgment awaited would come regardless of whether I liked it or not.

Virgilia didn’t respond immediately. 

Her gaze moved slowly and the void remained tense around us, held just short of a total rupture.

Then she laughed.

It wasn’t mocking. I sensed a note of quiet surprise, as though she had been genuinely entertained by my answer.

“I see.” Virgilia said. “In your opinion, some people don't belong in the darkness… they just never had a choice to be in the light.”

The void reacted instantly.

“I concede,” Virgilia said. She bowed her head just slightly. “Hero..”

Cracks spread through the void, thin lines of light splintering outward like fractures in glass. The emptiness began to peel apart, layers separating as brightness pushed through from somewhere beyond perception. The void continued to collapse around us, light pouring in through widening fractures as the space unraveled, carrying her words with it as everything began to give way.