The White Space

"Zekai!" A voice reached me from somewhere in the darkness.

For a moment, I couldn't tell if I was still alive. My body felt strangely light. There was no pain. No blood. Not even the feeling of my heart beating.

"Zekai!" The voice called my name again.

My fingers twitched. Slowly, I opened my eyes. White. That was the first thing I saw. Nothing but white stretched in every direction.

I turned my head in every direction. Nothing but white. I couldn't see any path or even a way forward.

I was kneeling, but I couldn't even tell what I was kneeling on. My breathing was steady. Everything about my body felt different from a moment ago.

There was no pain in my body. Instead, I felt strangely refreshed. I immediately pressed my hand against my heart.

My fingers touched smooth skin. The hole was gone. I froze. Checked again, almost desperately. There was no blood either. I ran my fingers over my chest again. "...Not even a scratch."

The Fool card was nowhere to be seen.

"...How am I still alive?"

Even if this was an illusion, I didn't care. The fact that I had survived was already a stroke of luck.

"Then what was all that? Did it really happen?" I let out another deep sigh and looked around. Just like before, everything was pure white. Above me, below me, all around me, nothing but white.

It felt like I was trapped inside a space made entirely of white. "What kind of place is this?"

"Is this another event caused by The Fool? It's throwing way too many things at me from the beginning."

I couldn't be sure of anything anymore, not even whether it was safe to step onto the floor. What if that was another trap? Here, everything seemed to be connected somehow. Like every strange thing I encountered was hiding something behind it.

"Is anyone here?" I called out as loudly as I could, but nothing changed. My voice disappeared into the endless white space. "This place is even scarier than the palace!"

The moment I thought about the palace, Aron came to mind. "Oh no. Aron. He's still stuck there. What will he do without me?"

My head started spinning. I immediately started running. I had to get out of here and find Aron.

'Damn it. Why is everything completely white? Am I even running in the right direction?' Running blindly through a place like this without knowing where I was going was just stupid.

It felt like someone had blindfolded me and left me alone in the middle of a forest, or somewhere even worse.

I let out a short sigh. "...I can't trust this place. Fine. I'll make my own rules."

I pulled a silver coin from my pocket. If logic wasn't going to work here, I'd let chance decide for me.

"Heads, I keep going. Tails, I turn back."

I tossed the coin into the air. It spun above me, well. For a moment, it suddenly froze in midair.

I stared at it. It felt like something had interfered for a split second, fixed the outcome, and then let the coin continue spinning.

The coin started spinning again as if nothing had happened. "...What touched it just now?"

Tap.

The coin dropped into my hand. "Heads." I looked down at the coin, my jaw tightening.

Then I shook my head. "I have to keep moving, or I'm going to go crazy in here."

I slipped the coin back into my pocket and started walking again, annoyed. "...So I'm just walking down a path you already decided for me."

The deeper I went into this "place," the more it felt like it was changing according to where I wanted to go. Not like I was moving through it. More like the place itself was changing around me.

Then I noticed something in the distance. Blurred shapes stood half-hidden in the white fog.

I narrowed my eyes and walked faster. As I got closer, the shapes became clearer. Not because I was finally able to see them. It felt like they had finally decided to show themselves.

Huge statues stood ahead of me.

My hand instinctively lifted as I tried to count them. But before I could, the number had already appeared in my mind. Somehow, my soul already knew the answer.

"...Twenty-one."

The statues stood in a large circle. And I was standing right in the middle of them.

I felt their gazes on me.

Each statue had a different shape. Their faces were partly visible, yet somehow still hidden from me.

"What kind of statues are these...?"

The moment the realization began to sink in, a chill ran through me. There wasn't even any air here. Yet I suddenly felt cold.

A voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts. *Hey, Fool.*

I froze. My pulse immediately shot up. I turned toward the voice, but there was nothing there. Only endless white stretched out in front of me.

"...Not funny."

*Hey, Fool.*

This time, the voice seemed to come from somewhere far away.

A shadowy figure stood in the distance. I narrowed my eyes and tried to focus on it. But the moment I looked closely, it disappeared. "Who are you?!"

The same voice suddenly came from behind me. *Looking for me?*

I immediately turned toward the voice, alarmed.

*Find me.*

I turned around one more time. And there it was.

The shadowy figure was standing somewhere completely different. Farther away. And somehow, it looked even more wrong than before.

"Who the hell are you?!" The words came out before I could stop myself. I had completely lost my patience.

The shadowy figure slowly tilted its head. It didn't rush. It didn't say anything. Then, it disappeared.

"Hahaha." The laughter spread throughout the entire white space.

My eyes darted around. Another shadowy figure appeared. This one was so close that I could almost reach out and touch it.

Before I could react, it disappeared.

No matter which way I turned, something was already waiting there, as if it had appeared just for me to see.

In the end, there was nowhere left for me to look without seeing those eyes.

I stepped back.

Flash.

One of the figures suddenly appeared inches from my face. Distance itself no longer made sense.

I stumbled backward. Panic took over my thoughts. I ran.

But nothing changed. The figures were already waiting wherever I tried to go. They stood in my path before I had even decided which way to move.

Then the truth hit me. "...Is it trying to hunt me?" The moment I understood it, everything stopped.

"—!"

My whole body froze. I couldn't move. An invisible force pressed down on me from above. The pressure was so heavy that it felt like something was crushing my entire body and forcing me down.

My knees buckled. I tried to resist. I tried to shout. But before I could even get the words out, my body had already obeyed.

Thud.

My knees hit the ground. This was worse than pain. Even then, I refused to give in. The last bit of pride left inside me screamed against the pressure.

'I have never knelt to anyone in my life. I'm not going to accept this.'

The pressure completely ignored my struggle. Before I even had a chance to resist, the decision had already been made for me.

The shadowy figures scattered and disappeared. All except one.

Step.

Step.

I heard slow footsteps approaching. The remaining figure came closer, as if everything had already been planned.

A tall figure emerged from the white. His feet floated slightly above the ground, even though there was no real ground beneath him.

A pale coat draped over his body. Golden threads were sewn into the fabric, shimmering with a strange light that shouldn't have existed in a place like this.

A worn-out bag hung from his waist. His slightly light-colored hair moved around his face, stirred by an air I couldn't feel.

Then I saw the flower. A white flower had grown straight out of the middle of his chest. It was rooted in his flesh.

My stomach tightened. 'What the hell am I looking at?'

The figure stopped directly in front of me. For the first time, I could see him clearly. Even his shadow seemed to arrive a moment late.

He tilted his head and stared at me. His eyes gave nothing away. Then he smiled. There was something strangely gentle about that smile. And something cruel.

"...You finally came."

My mind went blank. 'came?'

He was talking as if he had been waiting for me. As if he knew I would eventually end up here. I had never seen this man before. So why did he sound like he had been expecting me?

"You took so long."

I stared at him, unable to make sense of what I was hearing.

'Me...?'

✦ End of Chapter 6 — The White Space ✦