The brilliant light fades bit by bit, revealing a place unlike the dark prison or the cold park bench where I drew my last breath…
Hold on… Am I… floating?
No, I'm standing, but my body is incredibly light, as if I've shed heavy chains I carried my whole life…
I forced my eyes open, and there stood a person with a thick white beard before me, his features timeless, unlined despite the aura of dignity surrounding him. His silver eyes studied me intently, not with disgust or contempt, but with calm curiosity.
He then approached me and inquired:
"You don't seem yourself today, Optimism. Did the battle in the valley affect you that much?"
"What… What do you mean? I don't understand."
I stood firmly on my light feet, then roared:
"I was stabbed… I died in the park just moments ago… How did I get here? And who is Optimism?"
A look of concern crossed the old man's eyes. He placed a hand on his bearded chin and said:
"Your memory is clouded, then… This isn't good… You fell in battle, but you've returned now. Wake up… You are Optimism, one of the guardians of this mind."
"What is this old man doing? Why is he pointing at me?"
I muttered to myself before he shifted his gesture towards the horizon, which seemed endless, holding a mixture of shifting colors and lights.
He added,
"And this place is your eternal battlefield."
Oh no! Here we go again!! Guardian? Mind? Battlefield? Is this some kind of personal hell for me? Punishment for… for what I did?
I need to know what's going on… especially as the images of blood, the knife, and the cold ecstasy of revenge flash before my eyes like terrifying signals.
"There's no time for questions now…"
Damn it! This man interrupts my train of thought every time! His tone had gained a sudden sharpness as he said:
"The Demon of Despair exploited your absence and attacked the valley again, but Patience alone fights now. You must hurry to him! And tell them to switch from the first plan directly to the third, because I sensed one of the enemy's allies heading towards them."
The words danced meaninglessly before me, but the sense of urgency in the old man's voice felt real… Something is happening, something more dangerous than I think, and I… I'm involved in it in a way I don't yet understand.
I quickly turned towards the direction he indicated, where vibrant and violent colors danced on the horizon, like a storm of conflicting emotions…
"Who am I, really?"
I whispered to myself, as the name "Optimism" echoed in my mind like an old song whose lyrics I'd forgotten.
I stood still for a moment…
The moment of realization arrived…
The moment that precedes disaster!
Damn it… I'm lost.
Unconsciously, I found my feet carrying me towards that blazing chromatic chaos… One step, two, ten, a hundred… Then I stopped.
Damn it!!
It was like waking from a dream, not a nightmare… Where am I going? What the hell am I doing? That man's words inspire such confidence that I rushed out.
That moment of realization was cold and sharp like shards of glass, piercing the fog of confusion that had enveloped my mind since arriving here… I had rushed towards the unknown, towards a place I didn't recognize, driven by the words of an old man whose meaning I barely grasped.
I've said it several times, but…
Damn it!!…
I'm truly lost in… in this new hell.
In my first few minutes here, a whisper escaped my lips, my voice barely audible in the still air. The name "Optimism" echoes in my mind like a terrifying reverberation.
I am John Abraham, the murderer, the prisoner, the man who died alone on a cold park bench… So how could a rat like me be "Optimism"? And what does that name even mean?
The tension mounted further as I remembered the warning from the first person I met here:
"Battle… Patience is fighting… D-Demon of Despair."
Fear gripped me, that old, sticky companion that clung to my soul throughout my life, began extending its cold claws towards my new being, this entity supposedly called "Optimism."
Am I going into battle? Me?
The one who only knew violence as a victim or a perpetrator, not as a fighter in a war I understand nothing about?
And for the thousandth time, my tangled train of thought, wrapped around my mind, was severed.
A strange, swaying shadow materialized directly in front of me, appearing from nowhere as if torn from the strange fabric of reality in this place.
Its human shape deceived me at first glance, but its radiant, almost explosive aura surrounded it like a fiery shield. Its eyes burned like two blazing embers, and its fists were clenched with such crushing force that its bones nearly pierced the skin.
For some strange reason, a distorted and unsettling familiarity pricked at me towards this entity, as if I knew who was behind this burning aura, not among the humans I'd met, but in the dark depths of my own soul.
"Oh, it's you!"
The words slipped from my mouth without permission, in a tone carrying a semblance of old recognition, a recognition I didn't want to remember.
But as expected… he didn't respond.
Instead, he bent slightly, adopting a clear combat stance, his body tense like a fully drawn bow, ready to pounce at any moment.
There was no doubt about his hostile intent towards me; this wasn't a casual encounter for him… It was a confrontation to decide fate.
My confusion and tension doubled as I tried to grasp my miserable situation…
Who is this?
And why does he want to fight me here and now?
My exhausted mind didn't try to answer these questions; it was still preoccupied with the nature of this world and what I represented to it. I could feel it desperately searching for any logical thread in this insane tapestry.
In a desperate, futile attempt to understand anything, any loose thread, I asked the first question that jumped into my mind, a question that seemed stupid and ridiculous even to me at that moment:
"Where… Where are you going, you?"
I prayed in my heart, this heart that had begun to beat with life again, that he would answer, that he would give me any information, any clue to unravel the mystery of my wretched situation in my new hell.
His reaction was immediate and violent, or rather, the most fitting word to describe it is terrifying…
The entity before me exploded in an overwhelming wave of pure rage, anger so potent it was almost tangible.
Glowing red sparks flew around him like thousands of small, hateful eyes, and his face twisted into a crimson mask distorted by pure hatred, hatred that seemed directed personally at me.
His body began to swell and grow slowly…
H-his illusory clothes, the ones he wore, ripped apart, revealing muscles pulsating with dark red energy.
Damn all this!!
It was as if molten lava flowed through his veins.
What terrified me more was the emergence of thick, hooked horns from his skull, slowly cleaving the air, and his eyes became pools of liquid flame.
A suffocating heat emanated from him as if I were standing before the mouth of a volcano, and the smell of burning sulfur crept into my nostrils.
"Going?"
He chuckled, a deep, hoarse sound like rolling thunder, a sound that vibrated the air around me and resonated in my bones.
"I'm going to crush you, intruder! You dared to stand in the way of Anger! I will make you taste the meaning of eternal torment! You will die a thousand times before your suffering ends!"
Oh, damn it!!
This isn't just an angry person…
This is Anger… personified…
This… This is the demon the old man spoke of? The demon I have to face?
Me??
Before I could even grasp the enormity of the situation, the demon launched himself at me with indescribable speed…
He wasn't running; he was hurtling like a blazing red projectile, leaving a trail of distorted heat wherever his feet touched the ground.
He left me no time to think or even panic. In a fraction of a second, he was upon me, his massive arm like a burning tree trunk raised, then brought down on me with crushing force.
I expected excruciating pain, pain that shatters bones and tears flesh, pain exceeding what I was accustomed to in my previous life…
But what happened was different…
— End of Chapter —