[Phase Six: Mirror of the Soul – Minute 30]
The storm passed as suddenly as it had begun. The deep abyss vanished, the smoky dragon evaporated, and the winds that had been lashing me fell silent. The white room returned to what it was: silent, cold, neutral, and illuminated by a light that had no source.
I looked at the digital clock suspended in the air above me. [30:00]. Half the time had passed. Thirty minutes of physical hell, but I had endured. My breathing was steady now. During those past minutes, I had learned how to "detach" my mind from my body's reactions. I forced my heart to slow down through sheer willpower. The bucket in my right hand was steady as a rock; my arm was frozen in place as if it had turned into a statue. The surface of the thick red liquid was as still as glass, reflecting my distorted face.
The child, the "Gatekeeper," who was sitting cross-legged in the air, looked at me intently. His mischievous, boyish smile vanished, replaced by a cold, ancient, and terrifyingly wise evaluative look. "You are strong..." he muttered in a low voice, rubbing his small chin. He descended slowly until his feet touched the white floor and brushed imaginary dust off his clothes. "Your body is strong... you built it in hell. Your nerves are strong... you forged them through death."
He walked slowly around me, his voice echoing clearly in the empty room, like a judge reading the grounds of a verdict: "But... all of you humans fall into the same naive mistake." He stopped directly in front of me and raised his head to look into my crimson eyes. "You think that 'steadfastness' is the absence of movement. You think it is merely clenched muscles and cold nerves." A corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. "True steadfastness, Ray... is to remain standing with your hand outstretched even when your inner world completely collapses."
"Zzzzzzt!" A sharp tearing sound erupted in the fabric of the air, like the sound of heavy cloth being sliced. I took a small step back, struggling to maintain the bucket's balance. Behind the child, the air split open. It wasn't a door of wood or iron; it was a "time rift." A crack in reality, emitting a pale gray light and a faint black smoke that carried a scent I knew all too well—a scent that made my stomach churn. The smell of burning wood and roasted flesh.
The child entered the rift coldly and vanished into the smoke. What now? I thought tensely, the cold sweat returning. Another monster? A new visual illusion?
Moments later, I heard voices coming from the rift. Human voices. Blurred murmurs... muffled coughing... and the sound of hesitant, heavy footsteps. The child emerged from the rift, holding someone's hand and pulling them back forcefully as if he were dragging a heavy bag. "Come... do not be afraid."
Then, the person stepped out. Then another. Then another.
My pupils dilated until they almost tore the iris, and I felt my heart drop to the pit of my stomach, skipping a beat. Three people stood before me in the middle of the white room, trembling from cold and fear.
A man with familiar features etched into my memory, wearing a formal business suit, but its edges were burnt and charred, his tie undone... my father. A woman whose face was as pale as the dead, her gray hair disheveled and covered in ash, her eyes wandering, searching for an exit... my mother. And a young girl, her long black hair covering half her face, her school uniform stained with black soot, her hand gripping my mother's arm tightly... Lena.
I froze completely. I turned into a statue of ice. The bucket in my hand shook against my will, creating a small ripple in the thick red paint that almost touched the rim.
They were looking around in terror and bewilderment, not yet aware of my presence. "Where are we?" my father asked in a trembling, raspy voice, his lungs still heavy with smoke, as he examined his ash-stained hands. "Weren't we at home? Wasn't the fire consuming the stairs? How did we get here?" My mother grabbed his arm, shaking, her eyes full of tears. "I remember the heat, dear... I remember the suffocation... the ceiling fell... did we die? Is this the afterlife? Why is it so cold?" Lena was crying silently, hugging herself, looking at the white void in absolute terror. "I died... I'm sure I died... the fire was so hot."
Then, the child pointed at me. Their gaze fell upon me.
Me... the massive entity, two meters tall. The pale skin covered in protruding scars. The slit red eyes radiating a bloody light. The black claws gripping the wooden bucket's handle.
"Gasp!" My mother gasped and retreated quickly, shielding herself behind my father's back. "My God... what is this thing?" My father looked at me with wide eyes full of terror and disgust, raising his hand to protect his family. "A monster... a demon... stay away from him, Lena!" Lena looked at me, let out a muffled scream, and covered her face with her trembling hands. "No... don't come near me! He smells of blood!"
Their gazes were poisoned daggers stabbing into my heart. They didn't see their son. They didn't see their loved one. They didn't see their friend. They saw a nightmare.
The child laughed, clapping his small hands happily as if he were in a circus. "Oh, no need for fear, dear guests! He's tame... sort of. He doesn't bite... much." The child walked toward me slowly and patted my massive leg, which resembled a tree trunk. "Don't you know him? Look closely... look behind the red eyes."
My father stepped closer, driven by an instinctive curiosity mixed with terror. He stared at my distorted features, searching for something familiar. The nose... the face shape... "Those eyes..." he whispered in a raspy voice, as if a memory had just sparked. "Ray...?" My mother slowly lowered her hands from her face, staring at me with a heartbreaking bewilderment. "Son...? Is that you?" Lena raised her head, her eyes full of tears and shock. She looked at me—not with love, but with disgust and disappointment. "Ray...?" she said in a trembling voice. "How did you become like this? You... you're not human... you're a hideous freak."
I tried to speak. I tried to say, "I'm sorry." But my voice came out as a horrific, beastly growl because of my modified throat: "Fa... ther... Mo... ther... It's... me..."
"Don't come near!" my father screamed, fear reclaiming its grip as he backed away. "Your voice... it's the voice of a demon!"
The child hopped between them with a wicked, wide smile. "Yes, this is Ray... the sole survivor. The brave hero." Then his tone suddenly turned deathly cold, and his smile vanished. "But... do you know why you are dead? Why your bodies are charred and ashen in the real world... while he is alive here?"
A deathly silence fell. My father looked at the child in confusion. "What do you mean?"
The child pointed his small finger at my face as if he were pronouncing a death sentence. "The fire was no accident. Your death was not a written fate." Their eyes widened. They stopped breathing. The child continued with sadistic enjoyment, twisting the words like knives: "Ray is the reason. Your 'dutiful' son decided to play the hero at school. He bullied a boy named Kang, insulted him, and broke his nose in front of everyone just to feed his ego." He looked into my father's shocked eyes and said slowly: "And Kang took his revenge. He burned your house with everyone in it. You burned alive... your skin melted... and your bones charred... all because of him."
My father's gaze shifted with terrifying slowness. The fear of the monster vanished. In its place came a painful realization... then disappointment... then a raging, searing anger. "Because of you?" my father whispered, tears streaming down his ash-stained cheeks. He stepped toward me, forgetting his fear of my monstrous form. He stood directly in front of me and pointed his finger in my face. "I spent my life working... I returned exhausted every night... I was waiting for a promotion just to buy you a car... I was going to give you a decent life!" He struck his chest hard, his eyes gleaming with grief and spite. "And in the end, I die for nothing?! I end up a charred corpse that no one recognizes because of your recklessness and your trivial school problems?!" He spat the words in my face. "You wasted me, Ray! You killed me... and you killed your mother who was preparing dinner for you!"
My mother looked at me. Her look was worse than any scream. It was a look of total, shattered breakdown. "Why, my son?" she wailed in a voice that tore at my heartstrings, falling to her knees. "I carried you through hardship after hardship... I stayed up nights to protect you from the cold and disease... and my end is at your hands? You let us burn while we slept? Is this my reward?"
I looked at Lena, searching for a grain of mercy, for someone to understand me. But Lena was looking at me with cold, dead eyes, full of contempt. "I trusted you..." she whispered in a broken voice, wiping the ash from her face. "On the bus... you said you would protect me. You said we would be okay." She pointed to my distorted body with disgust. "But you are the danger. You are the one who brought death to us. You are a monster inside and out, Ray... no wonder you became like this. This is the true form you were hiding."
"Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
My heart was no longer beating; it was pounding against my chest like a warning bell in a sinking submarine. Adrenaline and guilt flowed through my veins like burning poison. Sweat poured from my forehead and into my eyes, stinging them. My whole body, which had withstood the dragon and the spiders, began to tremble like a tree in the path of a hurricane.
The bucket in my hand was no longer just shaking—it was raging. The red liquid lashed against the edges violently, rising and falling, and small drops began to fly into the air and fall onto the white floor. (A drop... two drops...)
I looked at the timer. [20:00]. Twenty minutes left. Twenty minutes under their gazes. My father cursing the hour I was born... my mother weeping for her senseless death because of me... and Lena looking at me as if I were a disgusting murderer.
And the child... he was holding his belly and laughing hysterically, rolling in the air from sheer delight. "Yes... yes! Look at them! Listen to the truth!" he whispered in my ear. "Shake, you killer... shake... and spill your family's blood with your own hand once again!"