The diary lay open in Noir's hands, its final, frantic words seared into his mind. "We're all doomed. I'm doomed." The cold dread that had prickled his skin moments ago now solidified into a crushing weight in his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. Elias gone. Alder dead. Me, here. The horrifying, unavoidable truth had finally clawed its way to the surface.
His fingers, still clutched around the worn leather cover, began to tremble uncontrollably. A cold sweat broke out on his brow, trickling down his temples despite the temperate room. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the silence, so loud he was sure it must echo through the house. Every breath felt like a desperate gasp, shallow and ragged.
This isn't a game. The familiar cynicism, the detached pragmatism that had always been his shield, shattered into fragments. This was not a calculated risk, not a mere inconvenience, but a direct, visceral threat. Alder hadn't just died; he had been taken, his final moments consumed by an all-encompassing dread that now threatened to consume Noir's own soul.
He forced his gaze to sweep around the room, as if the very act of looking might dispel the lurking terror. The shadows beneath the furniture seemed deeper, more oppressive. The faint creak of the old house settling felt like an unseen presence shifting, watching him. He could almost hear the phantom echoes of those "incomprehensible whispers" Alder had described, scratching at the edges of his sanity.
What have they done? What is this? His mind screamed, a cacophony of panicked questions. He was a man of logic, of predictable outcomes, of traceable causes and effects. But here, causality was a shattered mirror, reflecting only fragmented horrors. The "luck increasing ritual"… Alder's final, desperate act. It had not saved him. It had merely diverted the horror, redirecting it to Noir, to the unsuspecting fool pulled across realities.
A wave of utter helplessness washed over him. He was trapped. Trapped in this body, in this house, in this world. A pawn in a game he hadn't chosen, a prisoner in a nightmare he couldn't wake from. The weight of it threatened to suffocate him. He wanted to scream, to lash out, to demand answers from the silent, oppressive air. But his throat was tight, his limbs heavy, pinned down by a terror more profound than any he had ever known.
The Fool's journey into the unknown. The Host's words from the Castle returned, no longer just cryptic poetry, but a chilling prophecy. He was the Fool, truly lost, truly blind, stumbling into a darkness that had consumed others before him. And the path ahead was not merely unclear, but paved with the unspeakable.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the oppressive reality, but Alder's frantic words, the whispers, Elias's unseen fate, still played out behind his eyelids. When he opened them again, the room was still there, unchanged, yet utterly transformed by the knowledge he now possessed.
He needed to think. He needed to understand. But the fear, raw and immediate, was a suffocating blanket. He couldn't flee. He couldn't fight what he couldn't see. He was simply… here. A new target for an old, terrifying pursuit.
Noir sat there, the diary a block of ice in his hands, the terrifying words burning behind his closed eyelids. His entire body felt leaden, yet vibrated with an electric fear that left him trembling. The frantic beat of his heart throbbed in his ears, louder than any external sound.
Trapped. The word was a heavy chain around his soul. He was trapped in a dead man's life, connected to a horror that had claimed its original owner. The "luck increasing ritual" hadn't been a solution for Alder; it had been his end, and Noir's beginning.
A sudden, sharp pain lanced through his head, right behind his eyes, as if a dull spike were being driven into his skull. It was accompanied by a wave of intense dizziness, the room seeming to tilt violently around him. He gripped the arms of the chair, knuckles white, fighting the urge to vomit. Is this... is this what Alder felt? Is it still here?
He forced his eyes open, his gaze frantic, darting around the room, as if the very act of looking might reveal the invisible terror. The familiar furniture, the quiet bookshelves, the heavy curtains—they all seemed to press in, transformed into silent witnesses to his predicament. Every shadow deepened, every creak of the old house settling sounded like a predatory whisper.
Then, through the haze of pain and terror, a detail from Alder's final entry resurfaced, clear and cold: "Elias… he's gone. I saw what happened."
Elias. The friend. The co-conspirator in the initial ritual. If Elias was "gone," what did that truly mean? Was he dead? Vanished? Or worse, altered, like the Black Emperor?
His gaze, still wide with lingering panic, fell upon the empty spot next to the desk, where Alder had a second, smaller chair for visitors, usually Elias. Then, his eyes drifted to a stack of books on a small side table there. They were different from Alder's usual academic tomes. They looked like... Elias's books. A specific one, with a distinctive, slightly tattered blue cover, caught his eye. It was one Alder had mentioned Elias often carried.
A desperate, almost irrational thought ignited in Noir's mind: If Elias was here, if Alder 'saw what happened'... maybe Elias left something behind. A clue. A warning. Something that could explain what 'happened'. The very idea was illogical, reckless even, but the desperate human need for understanding, for control, however fleeting, surged through him.
He pushed himself up from the desk, his legs unsteady beneath him, the headache throbbing with each heartbeat. He moved towards the side table, his eyes fixed on that blue book, a desperate, illogical hope blossoming amidst the terror.
...
He pushed himself up from the desk, his legs unsteady beneath him, a dull ache throbbing behind his eyes. The room, silent save for the ragged hitch of his own breath, felt like a cage, its walls closing in, a sinister presence lurking unseen. His gaze, wide and unblinking, fixed on the side table, on the stack of books next to Alder's empty guest chair. There, perched precariously, was the distinct, slightly tattered blue cover he'd seen in his fractured memory – Elias's book.
If Elias was here, if Alder 'saw what happened'... maybe Elias left something behind. A clue. A warning. Something that could explain what 'happened'. The desperate, illogical hope was a fragile flicker in the overwhelming darkness, but he clung to it.
He staggered towards the table, his hand reaching out, fingers brushing against the cool, worn spine. It felt oddly light. Not a thick textbook, but something else entirely. He pulled it free, turning it over in his hands. It was a diary, similar in size to Alder's, but without the clasp. A personal journal.
He quickly flipped through the pages, his heart sinking with each empty leaf. Blank. All blank. Almost.
His thumb brushed against a single, brittle page near the back, covered in a frantic, almost frantic scrawl. The date, November 4th, stood out starkly. The same night. Elias's last words, perhaps.
He brought it closer, reading the desperate lines etched onto the page:
November 4th:
The history, the past, the distorted reality carved with lies.
This world, isn't just an existence but a setup.
It will happen again, this world is gonna' be gone.
...
Noir stared at the words, a fresh wave of ice flooding his veins. Lies. Setup. Gone. It wasn't just a friend's dying thought; it was a revelation, bleak and absolute. This world… a setup? The whispers and mists—it all coalesced into a terrifying, singular truth.
A history that deceives, a fate that repeats.No simple escape, no turning back, complete.
His earlier thoughts about a "realm of absurdness" felt childish now. This was a grander, more terrifying design. Elias hadn't just died; he had seen something, understood something, in his final moments. This entry was a final, desperate message, a warning scrawled from the precipice of oblivion.
The future is near, the end is so clear.Whispers still haunt, for what I now hear.
He was in a world built on artifice, a stage set for repeated catastrophe. The words hammered at him, stripping away any remaining veneer of normalcy. The Fool. That's what he was, thrust into a hidden play where the curtains were about to fall, and the audience, the unwitting inhabitants of this "setup," would be erased.