Chapter 1:
Chapter 1 : You
THE OATH
Absolute emptiness swallowed everything.
A terrifying silence reigned, broken only by the echo of his ragged, exhausted breaths.
He tried to move his heavy limbs. The clinking of metal chains tore through the bleakness of the place, accompanied by a foul stench that blended rusted iron with the putrid scent of blood.
"W... Where am I?"
His voice came out hoarse and weak. He was trembling violently, his hands and feet bound harshly to the wall. He was half-naked, his bare feet touching a freezing floor that slowly drained the warmth from his body.
Hunger gnawed at his insides, and the biting cold squeezed his bones in a room drowned in pitch-black darkness, impenetrable by even a sliver of light. Questions swarmed his mind all at once: What happened? How did I end up here? But amidst this mental chaos, another question emerged... a question worse and more terrifying than all the rest.
"W... Who am I?"
Deadly silence.
His mind stopped working for a moment as he realized a horrifying truth: he had no answer. The shock hit him like a lightning bolt, and he screamed. He screamed with every ounce of strength he had, so loud that his ears rang from the sheer volume that shattered the silence of the vast room. Through his heavy panting, the answer came:
"Who am I?" What a beautiful philosophical question... hahaha.
It was a sharp, mocking voice that suddenly penetrated his head. He couldn't pinpoint its source due to the vastness of the room, but all he realized in that moment was that the tone belonged to a man amused by his torment. He asked with a trembling voice:
"Who are you!?”
"Who am I!? Well, I can't answer that question for you right now, but I can answer your first one."
"My first question?"
"Yes, have you forgotten so quickly? You just asked: 'Where am I?'"
His breathing hitched for a moment. Was this entity here from the beginning? He hadn't felt its presence at all.
The voice asked in a strange tone, carrying a hidden layer of disapproval:
"Do you really not remember?"
"Remember what?"
No response came. The mysterious presence vanished entirely, as if it had evaporated into thin air or never existed in the first place.
Heavy hours passed. His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, which faded into a pale gray. He realized the rusted, tight chains around his wrists were long enough to allow him to wander within a narrow radius.
The features of the room began to take shape. To his right and left, other sets of chains hung from the ceiling... four sets in total. Three of them were empty, and the fourth was the one binding him. The terrifying part was that the empty chains were stained with dried blood.
He looked up at the ceiling, but it seemed incredibly distant, as if stretching into infinity. The room had no doors, no windows, no logical source of light. Something else caught his attention. On the back of his hand, a strange, dark tattoo had appeared, its features not entirely clear.
"What is this tattoo?" he asked aloud, spontaneously.
"An oath."
He panicked and jumped in place until the chains nearly tore his wrists. The voice was close this time, strangely familiar, as if echoing directly inside his skull. He searched left and right, but the place was empty.
"Are you back?"
**************
Silence.
"Wait! Don't go! What did you mean by an oath?"
"Exactly what I said... It's physical proof that you made an oath."
"I made an oath? I don't know what you're talking about!"
As if it had been waiting for this exact response, the voice answered with biting sarcasm:
"Ho ho, do you want to know?"
He instantly realized from the entity's tone that it would ask for something in return. But his miserable, bound state left him no room to negotiate or refuse. He answered in defeat:
"... Yes."
Immediately and without hesitation, the entity proposed:
"Let's make a contract."
"A contract?"
"Yes, I will give you the answers to your questions, and in return, you will give me... well, what will you give me?"
In that desperate moment, this insane offer felt like a lifeline.
"Anything! I'll give you anything you want from me, even though I have nothing right now. I don't even have my memories!"
"Oh my! You make it sound like I'm blackmailing you, boy."
The young man waited for the entity to ask for his wealth, or years of his life. But the demand came, terrifying in its simplicity:
"Your eye."
The blood froze in his veins. He took an unconscious step back, his back hitting the cold wall, and muttered in fear:
"W... What do you mean, my eye?"
With the same mocking tone, the entity confirmed:
"Just as you heard. You will give me your eye... Oh, and I want the left one specifically."
"Y... You want my eye?! Why?"
" 'Why?' A useless question. Why do you need to know the reason? You give me your eye, and I give you answers. That's all there is to it. Accepting or rejecting the offer is your own business."
His body began to tremble again, and this time, not from the cold. What was this insane demand? Does he accept and lose half his vision forever? But... did he have another choice? Bound, starving, lost in an unknown place; he would die slowly and rot anyway. Despite the frost biting into his bones, he felt a cold drop of sweat slide down his forehead, settling perfectly into his left eye... the very eye this entity was demanding now.
"H... How many questions will you answer?"
After a short silence, the voice replied, as if appraising its goods:
"You're not as stupid as you look, huh? Three... I will answer only three questions. That is the cost of your eye."
Three questions for an entire eye. He stared firmly into the void in front of him, as if gazing into the eyes of his invisible executioner, and uttered the words that would change his fate:
"A... Alright... I accept the contract."
The moment he said it, it happened.
Blood.
Warm, torrential blood burst and splattered across his face. There was no warning, followed by a pain that words could not describe.
He screamed until he felt his throat tearing apart. He fell to the cold floor, writhing like a slaughtered animal. The chains swung, making a metallic clamor that mixed with his wailing and crying.
His trembling hand reached up to touch the source of the hellish pain, but it found nothing. His left eye socket... was completely empty. It was gone.
While he was drowning in his agony on the floor, the voice sighed in boredom:
"What a truly pathetic sight. All this wailing just over losing a human eye?"
He tried to gather the shattered pieces of his collapsing self and slowly stood up. He covered his bloody eye socket with his hand and asked through ragged breaths:
"Ugh... a... are you going to answer my questions now?"
"Hahaha! That's the spirit! Yes, go ahead and ask. But remember! Once you ask the question, you cannot change it. And if you ask me something I do not know, your question will be wasted. So, be careful."
He felt dizzy from blood loss. The vision in his right eye grew blurry. He shook his head violently to clear the dizziness, but what he saw next made him question his sanity.
There was an eye.
His left eye... floating in the air in front of him, dripping with his blood.
"W... What is this????" he screamed in panic.
"Oh, this? It's your eye. I am incarnated inside it now."
His right eye widened in pure terror. A floating eye talking to him! Is it a ghost? Has he lost his mind from the pain? He screamed unconsciously:
"H... How the hell can something like this happen???"
"Should I consider this your second question?"
He swallowed hard, feeling his heart drop into his stomach, and muttered:
"W... What?"
"I just answered your first question a moment ago. Didn't you just ask me: 'What is this?'"
He had been played! A precious question was lost in a trivial moment of shock. A surging anger washed over him, mixed with suffocating despair.
He had paid an eye as a price, and now he had only two questions left. What should he choose? Where is he? How does he get out? Or who is he?
He held his head with trembling hands, trying to focus. He raised his head again, stared at the floating eye that was once a part of him, and voiced his true first question:
"W... Who am I?"
He wished with all his heart not to hear the answer he feared. But the entity replied with absolute coldness, shattering what remained of his hopes:
"I do not know."
His brain shut down. Tears streamed from his remaining eye, and he fell to his knees once more, screaming and crying in total collapse. What was the point now? He would die here as a nobody.
As he surrendered to his hopeless fate, the voice elaborated:
"Vain."
"Huh?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think your name is 'Vain'. I cannot tell you how I know that unless you use your final question."
"Vain"?
The moment the name echoed in his mind, a terrifying headache struck him, as if his skull was splitting open from the inside.
"It's best if you stop thinking deeply about the name," the voice warned.
Vain muttered in a daze:
"Huh? Wh—"
He clamped his hand over his mouth with lightning speed before he could finish the word "Why". He had almost wasted his last question.
"Hahaha! I told you to be careful. Anyway, hurry up and give me your final question."
His breathing accelerated, and blood continued to bleed from his socket. His consciousness was fading little by little. The fear of dying in this dark pit had taken full control of him. That fear morphed into blind rage. Why was this happening to him? Who was responsible for all this torment?
He began to scream hysterically, talking to himself and the void, punching the floor:
"Damn it! Damn it... Damn it!!"
He fell silent for a second, then raised his exhausted head and muttered:
"Who?"
"Huh?!" the entity responded with feigned surprise.
Vain screamed with all the air left in his lungs:
"Who made me go through all this agony????"
A heavy silence reigned for a moment, before the entity answered with a chilling, bone-deep calmness:
"Oh... You."
Vain muttered in disbelief:
"Huh?"
"Just as you heard. You are the one who imprisoned yourself here."
His pupil dilated in a shock that paralyzed his thoughts, and he whispered in a broken voice:
"W... What are you talking about?"
"The questions are over, boy."
He tried to scream again, but his
voice gave out completely. His vocal cords tore, and his throat was as dry as a barren desert. His vision faded rapidly, and his legs could no longer carry him. His exhausted body plunged forward, and his head struck the icy floor.
And just like that... the emptiness swallowed him once more.
and lost consciousness.
A terrifying silence reigned, broken only by the echo of his ragged, exhausted breaths.
He tried to move his heavy limbs. The clinking of metal chains tore through the bleakness of the place, accompanied by a foul stench that blended rusted iron with the putrid scent of blood.
"W... Where am I?"
His voice came out hoarse and weak. He was trembling violently, his hands and feet bound harshly to the wall. He was half-naked, his bare feet touching a freezing floor that slowly drained the warmth from his body.
Hunger gnawed at his insides, and the biting cold squeezed his bones in a room drowned in pitch-black darkness, impenetrable by even a sliver of light. Questions swarmed his mind all at once: What happened? How did I end up here? But amidst this mental chaos, another question emerged... a question worse and more terrifying than all the rest.
"W... Who am I?"
Deadly silence.
His mind stopped working for a moment as he realized a horrifying truth: he had no answer. The shock hit him like a lightning bolt, and he screamed. He screamed with every ounce of strength he had, so loud that his ears rang from the sheer volume that shattered the silence of the vast room. Through his heavy panting, the answer came:
"Who am I?" What a beautiful philosophical question... hahaha.
It was a sharp, mocking voice that suddenly penetrated his head. He couldn't pinpoint its source due to the vastness of the room, but all he realized in that moment was that the tone belonged to a man amused by his torment. He asked with a trembling voice:
"Who are you!?”
"Who am I!? Well, I can't answer that question for you right now, but I can answer your first one."
"My first question?"
"Yes, have you forgotten so quickly? You just asked: 'Where am I?'"
His breathing hitched for a moment. Was this entity here from the beginning? He hadn't felt its presence at all.
The voice asked in a strange tone, carrying a hidden layer of disapproval:
"Do you really not remember?"
"Remember what?"
No response came. The mysterious presence vanished entirely, as if it had evaporated into thin air or never existed in the first place.
Heavy hours passed. His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, which faded into a pale gray. He realized the rusted, tight chains around his wrists were long enough to allow him to wander within a narrow radius.
The features of the room began to take shape. To his right and left, other sets of chains hung from the ceiling... four sets in total. Three of them were empty, and the fourth was the one binding him. The terrifying part was that the empty chains were stained with dried blood.
He looked up at the ceiling, but it seemed incredibly distant, as if stretching into infinity. The room had no doors, no windows, no logical source of light. Something else caught his attention. On the back of his hand, a strange, dark tattoo had appeared, its features not entirely clear.
"What is this tattoo?" he asked aloud, spontaneously.
"An oath."
He panicked and jumped in place until the chains nearly tore his wrists. The voice was close this time, strangely familiar, as if echoing directly inside his skull. He searched left and right, but the place was empty.
"Are you back?"
**************
Silence.
"Wait! Don't go! What did you mean by an oath?"
"Exactly what I said... It's physical proof that you made an oath."
"I made an oath? I don't know what you're talking about!"
As if it had been waiting for this exact response, the voice answered with biting sarcasm:
"Ho ho, do you want to know?"
He instantly realized from the entity's tone that it would ask for something in return. But his miserable, bound state left him no room to negotiate or refuse. He answered in defeat:
"... Yes."
Immediately and without hesitation, the entity proposed:
"Let's make a contract."
"A contract?"
"Yes, I will give you the answers to your questions, and in return, you will give me... well, what will you give me?"
In that desperate moment, this insane offer felt like a lifeline.
"Anything! I'll give you anything you want from me, even though I have nothing right now. I don't even have my memories!"
"Oh my! You make it sound like I'm blackmailing you, boy."
The young man waited for the entity to ask for his wealth, or years of his life. But the demand came, terrifying in its simplicity:
"Your eye."
The blood froze in his veins. He took an unconscious step back, his back hitting the cold wall, and muttered in fear:
"W... What do you mean, my eye?"
With the same mocking tone, the entity confirmed:
"Just as you heard. You will give me your eye... Oh, and I want the left one specifically."
"Y... You want my eye?! Why?"
" 'Why?' A useless question. Why do you need to know the reason? You give me your eye, and I give you answers. That's all there is to it. Accepting or rejecting the offer is your own business."
His body began to tremble again, and this time, not from the cold. What was this insane demand? Does he accept and lose half his vision forever? But... did he have another choice? Bound, starving, lost in an unknown place; he would die slowly and rot anyway. Despite the frost biting into his bones, he felt a cold drop of sweat slide down his forehead, settling perfectly into his left eye... the very eye this entity was demanding now.
"H... How many questions will you answer?"
After a short silence, the voice replied, as if appraising its goods:
"You're not as stupid as you look, huh? Three... I will answer only three questions. That is the cost of your eye."
Three questions for an entire eye. He stared firmly into the void in front of him, as if gazing into the eyes of his invisible executioner, and uttered the words that would change his fate:
"A... Alright... I accept the contract."
The moment he said it, it happened.
Blood.
Warm, torrential blood burst and splattered across his face. There was no warning, followed by a pain that words could not describe.
He screamed until he felt his throat tearing apart. He fell to the cold floor, writhing like a slaughtered animal. The chains swung, making a metallic clamor that mixed with his wailing and crying.
His trembling hand reached up to touch the source of the hellish pain, but it found nothing. His left eye socket... was completely empty. It was gone.
While he was drowning in his agony on the floor, the voice sighed in boredom:
"What a truly pathetic sight. All this wailing just over losing a human eye?"
He tried to gather the shattered pieces of his collapsing self and slowly stood up. He covered his bloody eye socket with his hand and asked through ragged breaths:
"Ugh... a... are you going to answer my questions now?"
"Hahaha! That's the spirit! Yes, go ahead and ask. But remember! Once you ask the question, you cannot change it. And if you ask me something I do not know, your question will be wasted. So, be careful."
He felt dizzy from blood loss. The vision in his right eye grew blurry. He shook his head violently to clear the dizziness, but what he saw next made him question his sanity.
There was an eye.
His left eye... floating in the air in front of him, dripping with his blood.
"W... What is this????" he screamed in panic.
"Oh, this? It's your eye. I am incarnated inside it now."
His right eye widened in pure terror. A floating eye talking to him! Is it a ghost? Has he lost his mind from the pain? He screamed unconsciously:
"H... How the hell can something like this happen???"
"Should I consider this your second question?"
He swallowed hard, feeling his heart drop into his stomach, and muttered:
"W... What?"
"I just answered your first question a moment ago. Didn't you just ask me: 'What is this?'"
He had been played! A precious question was lost in a trivial moment of shock. A surging anger washed over him, mixed with suffocating despair.
He had paid an eye as a price, and now he had only two questions left. What should he choose? Where is he? How does he get out? Or who is he?
He held his head with trembling hands, trying to focus. He raised his head again, stared at the floating eye that was once a part of him, and voiced his true first question:
"W... Who am I?"
He wished with all his heart not to hear the answer he feared. But the entity replied with absolute coldness, shattering what remained of his hopes:
"I do not know."
His brain shut down. Tears streamed from his remaining eye, and he fell to his knees once more, screaming and crying in total collapse. What was the point now? He would die here as a nobody.
As he surrendered to his hopeless fate, the voice elaborated:
"Vain."
"Huh?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think your name is 'Vain'. I cannot tell you how I know that unless you use your final question."
"Vain"?
The moment the name echoed in his mind, a terrifying headache struck him, as if his skull was splitting open from the inside.
"It's best if you stop thinking deeply about the name," the voice warned.
Vain muttered in a daze:
"Huh? Wh—"
He clamped his hand over his mouth with lightning speed before he could finish the word "Why". He had almost wasted his last question.
"Hahaha! I told you to be careful. Anyway, hurry up and give me your final question."
His breathing accelerated, and blood continued to bleed from his socket. His consciousness was fading little by little. The fear of dying in this dark pit had taken full control of him. That fear morphed into blind rage. Why was this happening to him? Who was responsible for all this torment?
He began to scream hysterically, talking to himself and the void, punching the floor:
"Damn it! Damn it... Damn it!!"
He fell silent for a second, then raised his exhausted head and muttered:
"Who?"
"Huh?!" the entity responded with feigned surprise.
Vain screamed with all the air left in his lungs:
"Who made me go through all this agony????"
A heavy silence reigned for a moment, before the entity answered with a chilling, bone-deep calmness:
"Oh... You."
Vain muttered in disbelief:
"Huh?"
"Just as you heard. You are the one who imprisoned yourself here."
His pupil dilated in a shock that paralyzed his thoughts, and he whispered in a broken voice:
"W... What are you talking about?"
"The questions are over, boy."
He tried to scream again, but his
voice gave out completely. His vocal cords tore, and his throat was as dry as a barren desert. His vision faded rapidly, and his legs could no longer carry him. His exhausted body plunged forward, and his head struck the icy floor.
And just like that... the emptiness swallowed him once more.
and lost consciousness.
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