11. The Limits of Hatred (II, 7k)

He did not know where he was, nor could he make out the scene around him. The sky was crimson as blood, yet he had no eyes. He had been unable to see or hear for a very long time. Even so, he knew that someone had placed a mirror before him, and reflected within it was a shriveled husk.

The husk was strange. It had hands and feet but no face; its chest was split wide open, yet there was no heart within. Bound to the ground by things like instruments of torture, it knelt there, unable to move.

As he watched, realization suddenly came to him: it had once possessed these things, but they had all been taken away.

Who had done it? Who had taken them? he thought.

No one answered. The husk in the mirror slowly raised its head. It had no eyes, yet he felt it was weeping; it had no mouth, yet he felt it was screaming.

It was all so bewildering. He did not understand. He did not know. He did not even know how long he had been here.

He turned away, no longer looking at the mirror, and faced this world instead. But this world was nothing but void. The sky was crimson as blood, and the earth was barren, without the slightest trace of vegetation. Everything that had once lived was now gone, and so was everything that had never lived. Even death itself was gone.

There was nothing here except him and it.

So he had no choice but to turn back and look at the mirror again.

The thing in the mirror was still gazing up at the sky. Heavy shackles had sunk deep into its wrists. Black spikes pressed tight against its ankles had pierced through both