The weight of my choice bore down heavily on the scales of survival.
The transparency in my left hand had spread to my wrist, like ink dripping into clear water, slowly but relentlessly eroding my presence. The physician's warning about "turning into nothingness" had been no idle threat. Outside the chamber, the "noise" disrupting the frequencies was growing clearer, laden with greed and malice that made my soul shudder.
I was out of time.
"The first true name." I all but forced the words through clenched teeth, each syllable carrying the agony of surrendering flesh and blood. It was not physical pain, but the sensation of having part of my very existence stripped away.
"A wise choice!" An ecstatic smile bloomed across the physician's wax-melted face. He swiftly pulled a syringe-like tool from his apron pocket, carved from some kind of black crystal and covered in fine measurement marks. "Relax. Don't resist! This process might feel a little... hollow."
He aimed the tip of the crystal syringe at my temple without piercing it. Instead, he began chanting softly, his warped tones obeying no known rules of grammar. As he chanted, the black crystal inside the syringe began to glow, generating a powerful suction that reached deep into my memories.
I clenched my teeth, struggling to stay lucid. In my mind, the long-buried name of my first victim began to surface, along with the scene from that moment: how I had written that name with trembling strokes steeped in fear, excitement, and supreme power; how, in my imagination, that face had contorted before finally sinking into the stillness of death...
Those images, those emotions, were drawn out by an invisible force, turning into streams of dim light that flowed into the crystal syringe. I could clearly feel everything about that memory