The air inside was heavier than the night outside. It smelled of dust, old paper, and something faintly metallic. I looked around, expecting a church but there was none of that. No pews, no altar, no statues. Nothing familiar.
Instead, it looked like a study, or maybe a library. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books in cracked, worn leather, with symbols I didn't recognize on their spines. Some leaned against each other, some were stacked, as if someone had left in a hurry.
i let my eyes wander across the room, searching for something, anything that could explain what this place was for.
Then, something in the center of the room caught my attention. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light. But as I stepped closer, I saw them.
Dozens of hourglasses, floating silently in the air. They were all different sizes. Some small, some almost as tall as I was, and inside each, sand drifted slowly, like it had forgotten how to fall.
I approached the nearest one. It hovered just above the stone floor. I held out my hand, letting my fingers brush against the glass. It was smooth and cold, lighter than I expected, and when I lifted it slightly, the sand inside shimmered but made no sound.
That's when i saw it. There, directly under the glass, were carvings etched into the hourglass's stand itself. Strange, looping symbols that shimmered faintly in the dim light.
I knelt down to look closer. The writing was unlike anything I had ever seen. It wasn't letters from any language I knew, but it clearly had a meaning.
I lifted another hourglass and saw the same intricate carvings beneath it. Each one was slightly different, but all carried the same energy. The sand inside continued to flow quietly, endlessly, while the symbols seemed to pulse softly, marking each moment as if time itself had slowed inside this room.
Suddenly, the writing shifted, the symbols warping as a dull glow spread through the surface in my hands. What I had been reading moments before dissolved, rearranging itself into something else. The light steadied, and the meaning changed.
Seventy-six. Malnutrition.
What could that mean? Nothing about this made sense. The room itself seemed to react, the atmosphere tightening as if the air had grown heavier.
My eyes continued to drift across the room, and I found myself drawn to the far wall.
On the wall hung a portrait, unusually large, taking up most of the space. A young man looked back at me from the canvas. His hair was very pale, almost like silver, and it caught the dim light softly. His eyes were a deep red, like liquid rubies. A small, quiet smile curved his lips, gentle but hard to read, as if he knew something no one else could.
Beneath the portrait, a notebook sat alone on a small wooden table. Its cover was strange, unlike anything I had seen before. The edges of the pages had a faint golden patterns, shining lightly when the light touched them. In the middle of the cover was a heart-shaped detail pressed into the leather. It looked like a lock, but there was no keyhole, no opening, nothing that showed how it could be opened.
I reached out slowly and lifted it from the table. The leather felt cool and smooth under my touch.
I tried to open it.
Nothing.
I pressed along the spine, eased the cover gently, tilted it, shook it slightly, even tried pushing with a little more force. The notebook didn't budge. The pages remained stubbornly shut, the heart fixed firmly in place as if it were guarding its secrets.
I held the notebook tighter, my fingers tracing the edges of the golden pages and the small heart pressed into its cover. Carefully, I tried again, easing the cover with slow, deliberate pressure.
It didn't budge.
A shiver ran down my spine. The notebook seemed almost alive in my hands, resistant, as if it were testing me or waiting.
Then—a noise.
A soft shuffle across the stone floor.
I froze instantly, the notebook clutched against my chest. My eyes darted toward the shadowed corners of the room. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but then the sound came again. It was clearly someone footsteps echoing through the room.
And then I saw them.
Horns.
Panic surged through me, sharp and immediate. I didn't have time to think. My eyes caught on an old rug hanging loose against the wall, its edges frayed, uneven, as if it were hiding something. I ran for it, barely daring to breathe, and slipped behind the fabric, pulling myself into the narrow space beyond. Cold stone pressed against my back as I squeezed into the cramped darkness. My body trembling as I tried to make myself as small as possible.
My heart thundered in my chest. I forced myself to slow my breathing, afraid even the sound of it might give me away. Carefully, I leaned forward and peered through a thin gap in the rug.
What I saw made my stomach twist.
Two figures stood in the room.
One wore polished leather shoes, spotless and gleaming, the kind only someone wealthy or obsessively careful would own. The other stood barefoot.
His feet were gray and misshapen, the toes bent at unnatural angles, skin stretched tight over bone. It was wrong. Inhuman. Less like a person and more like something dragged out of a nightmare.
"Are you sure making a bargain won't anger him?" The voice was low and rough, clearly belonging to the creature with the twisted feet.
"That's the fun of it," replied the man in the polished shoes. "Proving him wrong. He still has faith in them, yet they're all the same."
"Not all of them," the other muttered, tension creeping into his voice. "Not since… she—"
"That's enough!" the man snapped, the sharpness in his voice cutting through the room like a blade.
"I-I didn't mean to mention it again, my lord, it just that it seems as if it still bothers you." the creature stammered, bowing slightly.
The man in the polished shoes turned and walked away, his footsteps speeding. The other followed, shuffling awkwardly across the stone floor. I watched until both of them disappeared from view.
I stayed hidden long after they were gone, pressed into the darkness, my chest aching as I clutched my notebook tightly. I didn't move until the room fell completely silent.
Only then did I let myself breathe.
When I finally slipped out from behind the rug, the room looked unchanged, as if nothing horrifying had just occurred. I thought I could move now. Maybe even leave.
My legs carried me toward the doorway before my mind could catch up. Every instinct screamed to leave, to put as much distance as possible between myself and whatever bargains were made in this place. I had just crossed the threshold when I felt it.
A presence.
I stopped.
Standing just beyond the door was a small dog.
Its fur was a mess of tight black curls, soft-looking despite the grime of the stone floor. It couldn't have been very big, barely reaching my knees but its eyes stopped me cold. They were green. Not a normal green, but bright and sharp, like polished glass catching firelight. They sparkled with an intelligence that didn't belong to an animal.
The dog wagged its tail furiously and let out a quiet, happy bark, as if it had been waiting for me to play with it.
"No—no," I whispered, panic flaring. My hands fluttered uselessly as I crouched slightly, shooing it away. "You can't—go away! "
The dog tilted its head, ears twitching. Instead of retreating, it padded closer, nails clicking softly against the stone. It pressed its nose against my leg and wagged harder, utterly unconcerned with my fear.
My heart lurched. "Go away, they will hear you" I breathed, more desperately now.
"Maybe they already did."
Every muscle in my body locked.
The same voice I had heard echoing through the room moments earlier now sounded behind me. I didn't want to turn around. I already knew who it would be.
Slowly, I did anyway.
He stood only a few steps away.
The man from the portrait.
Up close, he looked even more unreal. His hair was the same pale silver as in the painting, falling around his face, but now it seemed shorter than before, like the portrait had shown him at a younger age.
But it wasn't just that. His eyes… they had lost their spark. They were darker now, drained of any hint of happiness, and looking into them made my stomach twist. His whole presence carried coldness haltered and , cruelty as if it was something I was meant to run from.
"You should be running," he said, "but it's too late for that, isn't it?"
"I didn't come here to—" My throat felt tight. "I didn't mean to—"
He didn't move, didn't blink. A faint smile tugged at his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Everyone claims they didn't come here to ask for anything," he said softly. "But don't waste your breath. I don't trust a word any mere mortal says to me."
My stomach twisted. Any mortal? I thought. Isn't he…?
He must have noticed the thought because he didn't wait for an answer. "Isn't it obvious?" he said, his voice low and certain. "I'm not a mortal. "
I swallowed hard, my mind racing. He .. can read minds?
"I can," he said, faintly amused by the fear and shock in me, "but only when i find them interesting. However yours seems to be..utterly boring"
I stepped back instinctively, heart hammering. "Then… what… what are you?"
A slow, almost lazy smile spread across his face. "Now that's a question I like," he said, his voice deliberate. "I'm something many of you fear. Mortals call me many things… make up many names for me. They all try to put a name on what they cannot understand. Or whom they cannot understand."
He leaned slightly closer, red eyes glinting in the dim light. "But the one I like the most…" His smile widened just a fraction, and his voice dropped to a whisper that seemed to echo in my bones. "…is Death."
I shook my head, trying to steady my racing thoughts. "I should leave," I whispered. "I didn't mean to come here. I don't even know why I—"
He interrupted with a faint laugh, soft but cutting through the silence. "Leave? You should be running. But as I said… too late, isn't it?"
I swallowed hard, my fingers curling into fists. "Then, what do you want from me? If you're… really Death"
He raised an eyebrow, the faintest hint of amusement crossing his face.
"Want?" he repeated. "No. The better question is what do you want from me? Even though i already know answer to that"
I opened my mouth, then stopped.
"This place doesn't appear on its own," he continued calmly. "And it certainly doesn't open itself. You don't end up here by accident." His gaze sharpened, heavy and knowing. "People only find their way to me when they want something badly enough."
"I don't want—" I started.
"You did," he interrupted softly. "Maybe not with words. But wanting something badly has a way of carving paths mortals don't even realize they're walking."
He stepped closer, and the weight in the room pressed down on my chest.
"Think carefully," he said softly, almost a whisper, yet every word pressed into my mind. "Every choice here has a cost that will affect you, permanently"
I swallowed hard, my hands trembling. Permanent…
As a kid, I was always told never to make bargains with anyone who would ask more than I could give. And never, especially never with someone who claimed to be immortal. Making deals with creatures from another world, beings you didn't understand… that always ended badly. Always. It would lead us down a path we would come to regret, always ending in heartbreak and misery. Yet this time… it felt different.
So what was it that I wanted? And what was I truly willing to give for it?