Prologue - A reflection of the other

  Under stiff white sheets, his battered body rested motionless as he gazed up at the hospital ceiling tiles. The gentle hum of machines encircled him as they monitored his vital signs, while each electronic beep reminded him of his continuing existence. His mind was occupied by a different space than this clinical hospital room. His thoughts wandered to another place that was both warmer and full of life.

  He could still smell the old books and pencil shavings in the chess club room and feel the golden afternoon light stretching across the checkered tables. Once strong and steady, his hands carefully unboxed his Avalon Hill strategy game, placing each piece with the reverence of a jeweler setting rare gems. Two whole free periods—his own personal sanctuary, where he could command armies, maneuver fleets, and outthink his opponents. A quiet retreat from the chaos of high school, from the noise of hallways and the endless social currents he had drifted in and out of.

  People used to think he was a loner. Maybe he was, in some quiet way. But he was never truly alone—not back then.

  There were days when music seemed to breathe through him—his trumpet voice rising and falling with the band, each note a thread in something bigger, something bright and alive. It felt like flying.

  And on stage, beneath the warm hush of the drama club lights, he could slip into someone else’s skin—each role a kind of refuge. One night, a father, the next a fool. He moved through those characters like a dancer changing steps, each mask fitting just right, if only for a while.

  Like the games he loved, it had all been about movement, strategy, and adaptation. But those days felt far away now—like a half-remembered dream fading at the edges.

  He wore his yearbook camera around his neck like a silent partner while he roamed the school corridors to photograph spontaneous scenes—the library laughter, the tension of a winning basketball play, and the way afternoon light illuminated the lockers. The quiet observations that no one else seemed to notice became his world in which he lived through the details he captured.

  It wasn’t just the arts that he delighted in—his body also moved with purpose. He was a relentless fullback on the soccer field—reading the game in real time, cutting off passes, and shutting down strikers with sharp precision. On the track, he shifted gears effortlessly, flashing speed in sprints one moment, then unleashing power in the shot put and javelin the next. People didn’t expect it from the quiet strategist, the kid with a dog-eared rulebook in his backpack.

  And then there was the outdoors. His perfect escape. Camping trips under vast, star-speckled skies. The crackle of firewood, the sharp scent of pine, the cool damp earth pressing against his hands—out there, it wasn’t about winning or strategizing. It was just about being. Breathing, feeling the wind rush through the trees, and the universe's weight pressing down in the best possible way.

  He had lived in so many different worlds—some loud, some silent, some scripted, some raw and honest. But in the chess club, in those long afternoons of strategy and focus, he had just been Ethan. The tactician. The quiet thinker. He was the one who played to win, not just moving on the board but in every space he found himself in.

  Now, lying in this hospital bed, his body shattered but his mind still sharp, he wondered—had he won? Had all those moments and the life he had lived led him here for a reason? The game had changed, but the strategy remained the same. He had survived. And now, like always, he had to plan his next move.

  Ethan stared at the ceiling, the muted hum of the hospital machines his only company. His body throbbed, wrapped in bandages and bruises, but the true pain lay beneath—an endless, heavy ache in his chest that no salve could reach.

  He had survived. That should mean something.

  But as he lay there, his mind wandered back, not to the memory of campfires in the woods, or cheering crowds of the soccer pitch, not to the thrill of a well-timed interception or the rush of wind on the track. Those days were gone. What had taken their place?

  He had spent his whole life thinking he was playing the long game, making careful moves, avoiding risks, and planning for a future where everything would somehow fall into place. But here he was, over 30, overweight, alone, and barely able to move without pain shooting through his body. This wasn’t the endgame he had imagined.

  His mind revisited his work in IT services.

  It had made sense then: a stable job, good pay, a logical extension of his strengths. He had a mind for strategy, for patterns and problem-solving. It should have suited him. But all it did was shrink his world—hour after hour staring at a screen, drowning in tickets, systems, and the same broken cycles. He'd let himself be nothing more than a piece in the game—a pawn trapped in a loop where days were all indistinguishable. Meetings turned into tasks, tasks turned into projects, and it all just went on and on. Like pieces in a game that never seemed to have a reason behind them anymore. He played, still going through the motions, but it wasn't advancement. It was just procedure.

  The bad news? He was good at it. Honestly, really, really good. Quick, perceptive, always the one with the answers. People counted on him. He was dependable, efficient—a fixer—the guy who made things work.

  But after all that… what had he actually accomplished? What had he won?

  Along the way, however, the work consumed him. His world narrowed to tasks and due dates, to all-nighters spent futzing around with systems that never really stayed still. It was easier just to stay in, letting friendships slowly ebb away, and trade real experiences for the virtual worlds of strategy games and miniature-painted worlds.

  Miniatures—small, silent soldiers in endless rows on his desk, waiting for the certain stroke of his brush to bring them to life. Hours that once were filled with running, jumping, playing—now hunched over, creased in concentration, painting shadows on plastic soldiers who would never really march.

  Strategy games. Same thrill of careful planning, same thrill of a perfectly executed move, quiet thrill when it all worked. But now, instead of sitting at the table with his friends, he played alone. Against unknown opponents on the internet or, even worse, against no one at all, moving pieces around on a board to watch them move.

  His former wiry, athletic physique was now soft. Too many silent nights spent munching convenience food, too many days indoors, sitting, waiting, drifting. He had thought he was a master planner, a tactician, a strategist. But where had his planning brought him? What war had he been fighting all these years?

  The realization felt leaden in his gut. He had spent his youth preparing for something—always preparing, always looking ahead. And now? Now, he had arrived at a future that felt hollow, a destination that was never a goal.

  A life not well spent.

  Shame crept up his spine, hot and prickly. He had been so many things once—a musician, an actor, an athlete, a photographer. And yet, piece by piece, those things had dropped away, like pictures left too long in the sun.

  Was this it? Was this who he was now?

  His hands shook at his side, hungering for movement, action, anything. But what? What step was left to take?

  Outside the hospital window, the city pulsated with activity. People walking, working, laughing, living. He had been a part of that, hadn't he? He had been more than a 30-year-old man in a hospital bed, attempting to decipher where it all broke down.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  Maybe there was still a strategy to execute.

  But first, he had to decide whether to make a move or leave the board unchanged.

  With a deep breath, he decided to roll the dice—sometimes risk was the only way forward.

  …

  The dim candlelight flickered against the rough, timbered walls of the small chamber, casting long, wavering shadows that seemed to stretch and writhe like tormented spirits. The air was thick with the rancid stench of sickness—sweat, blood, and the sharp, putrid tang of decay. A straw-stuffed mattress, its linen sheets damp and stained with rust-colored blotches, lay atop a crude wooden bed, where a boy of no more than fourteen twisted in agony. His frail body, covered in angry red spots, convulsed with every ragged breath, his limbs gnarled and tense as though shackled by some unseen tormentor.

  With each tortured cough, a spray of crimson spattered the already-soiled cloth pressed to his lips. His screams, hoarse and guttural, echoed off the stone floor, muffled only by the heavy tapestry that hung over the lone window to keep out the cold and the prying eyes of the superstitious. The single wooden chair in the room sat vacant beside his bed, where a brass basin, half filled with bloodied rags, bore grim witness to his suffering.

  Against the rafters above, the dried herbs were strung out in dry clusters, their original pungent smell overcome by the rotting sickness that devoured the boy's body. His fingers twitched weakly on the blankets as another wave of pain swept over him, back bending, breath halted in a coarse rasp. Under the sickly candlelight, his wide, frightened eyes pleaded for mercy, but it would not be forthcoming. Only the slow, merciless march of the disease crawls like a ghost through his blood, claiming him inch by agonizing inch.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The doctor stood at the foot of the bed, wiping his brow with unsteady hands. The sight before him crushed the confidence he once carried. His eyes flickered between the convulsing boy and his parents—faces frozen in fear, confusion, and desperate hope. The weight of their expectation stole his breath, rendering words almost impossible.

  He exhaled, the lines on his face deepening. His voice was barely a whisper when he finally spoke, yet heavy with finality. "It is Eternal Punishment."

  The father’s fists clenched at his sides as he stepped forward, his voice shaking. "What do you mean, doctor?" His question hung in the air, grasping for a salvation that wasn’t there.

  The doctor’s gaze fell to the floor as if even looking at the boy’s suffering was too much to bear. He swallowed hard, his voice laced with quiet bitterness. "It is a curse of the heavens, not of man," he muttered, the words themselves feeling like betrayal. “This disease… it is beyond our reach. Beyond our care,” the doctor said quietly."Eternal Punishment, no healing can touch it. No remedy will arrive."

  The mother, face streaked with tears, ashen, extended a trembling hand, but it collapsed—split by love and sorrow, unable to bridge the gulf spreading between life and the inexorable. The doctor spun on his heel, silent in his condemnation. No cure. No quarter. Only the cold, remorseless closing in of destiny. The screams of the boy were high and wretched, ripping deeper into the heart of the room with every shriek—tearing out the final wispy threads of hope still clinging there.

  The father's grip on his wife tightened as she leaned into him, her wail raw, desperate—a sound that reduced to shards what little strength remained to him. Her howl was not just grief; it was defeat. And in that moment, he knew—he could not bear this. Not the shattering of her, not the pain of the boy, not the finality of the doctor's words.

  There was nothing left to endure. Nothing left to save

  "Come," he whispered firmly, prying her from the bedside. She resisted at first, her fingers clutching the bloodstained sheets, unwilling to let go, but he pulled harder. "Come," he repeated, this time with more force, his voice betraying the turmoil within him.

  Giving a last look to her son—his frail body contorted, lips dry and blood-smeared—she at last let go. Her strength gave out, and she allowed herself to be led out of the room. He took her through the black hall, one step further from the rot-stinking room, from the wheezing screams that kept on tearing at the stillness like a knife.

  Across the house, he stood in front of her. "Go. Sleep," he instructed her, though his voice wasn't as harsh now. "Pray if it will give you peace."

  She raised her head to meet his gaze, red and swollen, her face contorted in sorrow. "I can't—"

  “You must,” he said gently, but with steel beneath the words. “For his sake.”

  At last, after a silence so long, she nodded loosely, her shoulders slumped, and went back into the darkness of another room. The door closed softly behind her, and the father was left standing alone in the faint candlelight.

  He turned back, retracing his steps to the boy’s chamber, where the doctor still stood—silent, unmoving—watching the dying child with the vacant gaze of a man who had long since surrendered to despair.

  The father returned inside quietly, but firmly closed the door behind him.

  For a moment, neither of them stirred. The boy's labored gasping, the gurgle of blood-sticky choking in his throat, filled the air. Finally, the father exhaled through his nostrils, jaw tightening with unspoken resolve. "Tell me the truth," he whispered. "How long does he have?"

  The doctor shook his head. "One night, perhaps two at most. But what remains will be suffering. More than you realize now."He paused, fists crumpling the lapel of his coat as though in preparation to lift the significance of his own words.

  “It would be a mercy to end it now.”

  The father's eyes flickered with an unreadable expression. "You would have me kill my own son?"

  "I would have you save him from agony," the doctor corrected, his voice quiet but firm. "Every hour that passes, his pain will grow. The fever will rise until his mind is lost to madness. He will not die peacefully. It will be long, it will be cruel, and it will break your wife in ways she cannot recover from. I have seen it before. Too many times."

  The father looked down at his son. The boy's body jerked in a spasm, a thin trickle of blood running from his nostrils. His lips spread in a silent scream, but no voice came, only a wet, gurgling breath that sent a fresh wave of crimson spilling down his chin.

  The father clenched his fists.

  The doctor took a step closer. "You are a man of status," he continued, voice measured. "A good father. A husband. What will it do to your house, your name, if this sickness lingers? If your wife is left to drown in her sorrow, if the servants whisper of a cursed child? You have other children to think of." He met the father's gaze. "A quick death is more forgiving than the alternative. For all of you."

  The father turned away, his mind reeling. He had spent years building his name, his reputation, and his wealth. A single whisper of divine punishment, of his house being marked, and it could all crumble. His lands, his holdings, his place in the court—gone. But beyond that, he thought of his wife, of the way she clung to the boy even as death reached for him.

  She would never forgive him.

  But if she saw their son suffer through another night, if she watched him wither into a screaming, writhing corpse—perhaps she would wish he had been spared that horror.

  The father took a slow breath, steadying himself. When he turned back to the doctor, his expression was unreadable. "If I do this," he said carefully, "no one must know."

  The doctor gave a solemn nod. "No one will."

  The father looked down at his son once more. The candlelight was uncertain, casting long, trembling shadows around the walls. His son's breathing was shallow and labored, his fingers twitching spasmodically at his sides.

  He was out of time.

  The father stood over his son, his own hands trembling as he hovered above the frail body. The doctor had placed a small vial on the bedside table, the liquid pale and unassuming—though heavy with unseen mercy. But the father hesitated. The harder he looked at his son's contorted face, blood gathering at his mouth, the harder it became to maintain his resolve.

  Could he do that?

  His breath came in shallow gasps, and his mind was tangled with doubt and hesitation. His fingers trembled above the small glass vial, barely touching its cold surface, when a sudden, piercing cry broke the suffocating silence.

  The door opened violently.

  She leaned in the doorway, panting and blowing, her red cheeks wet with tears. In her clenched little fist, she held a small wooden icon, its saint's face smooth with the decades of passionate prayer. Her body was shaking, but her eyes burned with a stubborn, fierce heat—something imbreakable in her.

  The Veils have spoken to me!" she cried, her voice rough with conviction. "They've heard my prayers, my tears! They've said— " Her breath caught as another sob racked her. "They've said he will suffer, but he will live!

  The father jerked back as if struck. His mouth opened, searching for words—only silence answered.

  The doctor, his face lined with skepticism, spoke, "Madam, please," he said gently, nodding toward the father. "This is grief speaking. Your head is clouded by love, by desperation. The boy—" He gestured toward the bed, where the child trembled with a faint, wet rattle. "He is fading."

  "No!" she snapped, her grip on the icon tightening. "You do not understand. They have explained it to me." She turned to her husband, desperation entering her voice. "He will survive. We cannot interfere."

  The father's fists curled at his sides, caught between reason and faith. He had witnessed men of power, kings, and lords hold onto faith when all hope was lost—but he had witnessed also the savage truth of sickness.

  “Do you not see his suffering?” he asked, voice hoarse. “Would you truly allow this to continue? If there were a way to end it—”

  No!" she shouted, advancing. "I will not let you!

  The doctor took a hard breath, running a tightening hand through his thinning hair. "My lady," he said diplomatically, attempting to talk sense to her, "even assuming you believe in this vision, we must account for the possibility that it is incorrect." If you are incorrect—

  I am not wrong!" she broke in, her words with a flare that could not be smothered.

  She turned from them both and rushed to the bedside, hovering beside her son. The father took a step forward, but something in her posture, the sheer determination of her actions, made him stop.

  Her hands trembled as she reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out two tiny white cubes. Plain and flawless, they glimmered like smooth stones polished by forever-moving seas. She pressed them into her son's yielding palms, her thumbs curling his fingers over them.

  The boy did not stir. His fingers remained slack, his breath still rattling in his throat.

  The father swallowed hard, torn between anger and sorrow, while the sickly whisper of doubt crept into his mind. The doctor scoffed softly, shaking his head in exasperation.

  But the mother simply knelt there, weeping, her hands wrapped around her son’s, holding the white cubes as if they were the only thing keeping him tethered to life.

  A sudden, terrible sound tore through the room.

  The boy convulsed violently, his body arching off the bed in a way that seemed impossible for something so frail. His hands, limp just moments before, clenched into fists so tight the knuckles turned bone-white. His mouth opened in a raw, gaping scream—not just of pain, but something deeper, something unnatural, as though his very soul was being wrested from his body.

  The mother gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth, her prayers forgotten instantly. The father staggered back, knocking over a wooden stool as he stared in horror. The doctor’s breath caught in his throat. He had seen death many times before, but never like this.

  The boy’s body seized, every limb snapping taut, his spine bowed in agony. A wet gurgling sound followed, thick with blood. Then, with a final, brutal shudder—

  He fell back onto the bed.

  Still.

  Lifeless.

  The room was silent, save for the flickering candle, its tiny flame swaying in a nonexistent breeze.

  Everyone was frozen.

  The boy's mother’s sobs were the only sound in the room, her hands trembling as they reached toward her son’s face—only to hesitate at the last moment. The father parted his lips, searching for words, but none came. The doctor turned away, rubbing his forehead as if trying to compose himself.

  And then—

  A sharp clatter.

  Two small items dropped from the corpse-like boy's hands, clattering onto the wooden floor with a dull, hollow sound. They rolled out of sight, unnoticed by the grieving parents and weary physician.

  One came to rest beside the father's boot. The other revolved an additional moment before coming to rest beside the doctor's foot.

  White cubes.

  Marked.

  Two cubes stared up from the floor, their black pips reflecting the dim candlelight.

  And then—

  A ragged, gasping, shuddering breath broke the stillness as the boy's chest rose.

  The mother inhaled sharply. The doctor turned, eyes wide with disbelief. The father stepped forward.

  The boy’s chest rose and fell again.

  The boy was alive.

  Neither the mother nor the father noticed the cube resting on the floor; its twin faces, with six black dots, gleamed like distant stars in the candlelight.