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“No, Mother, I’m not losing you again!”
“My boy, you mustn’t stay! This is what I deserve, for my soul is forever unredeemable!”
“I will save you, I will!”
There was ash. A mouthful of ash blocked his airway, burning and corroding its way into his lungs. His eyelids weighed tens of tons, leaving him with no choice but to watch the tormenting vision carved onto his retinas repeat. The blinding inferno threatened to devour them as he desperately reached for the woman, but his limbs had turned into embers, burning and crumbling into ash. He couldn’t breathe, nor could he cry out. Foul, mocking laughter pierced his eardrums.
“Every time, you fail.”
Then he awoke, gasping. The Latverian moonlight had lost its tenderness, casting an icy, biting glow across the room. His skin, slick with sweat, burned with feverish heat, a stark contrast to the chill in the air. He sat up, clutching his chest, trying to steady his ragged breathing.
“Every time, you fail.”
The devilish whisper lingered, echoing in his wake. Tears glistened under the dim moonlight, tracing his marred cheeks and filling the scars and dents with sorrow and grief. He knew it was merely an illusion and was well aware of how it would’ve ended. Yet, he could never escape the sense of despair, no matter how many years had passed or how far he’d gone.
He was no longer the helpless boy he once was. Yet, relief eluded him, just as it had then.