[The Bedroom]
The silence in the room was heavier than gravity.
Vanitas sat on the edge of the bed, his back to the corpse.
His hand reached for the nightstand. A slender, gilded cigarette case—Aurelia's.
He pulled one out, then lit it with a metal lighter that was sitting on the table.
He took a deep breath. Cough... cough.
The taste was repulsive. A wretched blend of burnt tobacco and cheap lavender perfume—not the kind he was used to.
He watched the rising smoke. Who were you, my wife? A whore? A child? Or just another mirror? Those final tears of yours... were they real? Or were they a meticulously crafted lie?
He crushed the cigarette into the crystal ashtray.
He looked at the lifeless body. The neck clearly bore the purple imprints of his fingers. Will she return?
The Aurum family possesses the absolute "Right of Resurrection." They are immortal.
He extended his hand into the empty air.
He whispered the forbidden name: [Erysichthon]
Space tore silently, and from the dark "nothingness," a black card materialized, floating above the corpse.
The illustration on it depicted the sacred nature of its void creator: a handsome prince strangling a beautiful princess, while blood streamed from the prince's eyes, completely drowning the card.
The symbol of unquenchable hunger. The symbol of sacrificing the beloved for the sake of the unknown.
The card glowed a deep crimson for a single second, as if feeding on the moment, then settled.
"Confirmed. The card has been manifested."
He grabbed it, and it vanished into his pocket.
"The card... is complete."
Knock... knock.
Faint, anxious raps on the door.
"Son? Are you two awake?"
Superia's voice.
Vanitas remained entirely cold. He looked at the naked corpse, then at the door.
The door opened slowly.
"What is it, Mama? It is time for—"
The voice cut off.
Superia's eyes widened. She took in the scene: the pale body, the bruises, her son standing there in frigid detachment.
She opened her mouth to scream.
In the blink of an eye—
He forcefully covered her mouth with his hand, shoved her inside the room, and shut the door with his foot.
He whispered sharply into her ear: "Do not scream."
Terrified, she nodded, her eyes overflowing with tears.
He released her slowly.
She stumbled backward, leaning against the wall, gasping for air as if the oxygen had been completely sucked out of the room.
"What is this, Vanitas?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Is she... dead?"
"Yes."
"Why is there a corpse? Won't she return to life? The Aurum..."
"She won't return. That is why there is a corpse."
She gripped his shoulder tightly, her fingernails digging into his flesh through his shirt.
"Vanitas! Do you have any idea what will happen to you if the Aurum family finds out?!"
She shook him violently, her wide, terror-stricken eyes darting between his stoic face and the uncovered corpse.
"Did you kill her? Why?! Didn't you want to marry her?!"
Vanitas coldly brushed her hand off his shoulder.
"Do not concern yourself with the Aurum family. They won't do a thing."
He glared at her, his voice dripping with ice: "And why don't you step aside."
Superia took a step back, but anxiety was eating her alive.
She began pacing around him, her steps fast and erratic, like a caged animal.
She raised her trembling hand to her mouth and began biting her fingers, frantically tearing at the skin around her nails, her eyes locked onto him.
"Vanitas... is this what you spoke to your father about after the Festival of Serenus?"
Vanitas remained silent. His cold gaze never wavered.
She stopped dead in front of him, blood trickling from the finger she had just bitten.
"You never tell me anything! I know you won't tell your father... but I am your Mama! I am with you! I will protect you!"
Vanitas looked at his mother's frantic face, and the blood on her lips.
"Your protection does not exist, Mother."
"What?"
"What have you ever done to protect me throughout my life? Your protection was always conditional. You protect me so I remain yours, not so I remain true to myself."
He took a step toward her; she retreated.
"There were many times, Mama... when I wanted protection from you."
She gasped.
"Did you not wonder, even for a moment, why I ran away that night?"
"I wondered every single moment!" she wept. "But look at yourself! Your wife is a corpse on the bed! Did you come to me and say you were in trouble? No! Here you are, demanding that I solve your problem like a helpless child!"
Vanitas laughed. A short, dry laugh.
"I came to you? You are the one who wants to play the hero."
He pointed to the door.
"I don't need any of you. I can live on my own... and die on my own."
Superia burst into hysterical tears.
"Oh, Vanitas... one day you will weep over these words." She wiped her tears aggressively. "I am not grieving for this dead whore! I am grieving for my child whose heart has died! I only grieve for those who came out of my womb!"
Vanitas sighed.
"Here you go again... weaponizing tears," he said with utter boredom. "You cry when you lack an answer. Your only weapon is guilt."
He turned his back to her.
"Mama... I am sorry for asking you to leave. Just get out."
"Even you, Vanitas..." she whispered in a broken voice as she opened the door, "... you will betray me."
And she left.
He turned back toward the nightstand. The luxury cigarette case he had just smoked from lay next to the heavy metal lighter.
He picked them up.
He summoned a faint, gray card between his fingers: [Tulli].
He placed the case and the lighter on the white sheet, directly over her still chest, and then dropped the card on top of them.
"My apologies, Aurelia."
His voice came out faint and raspy in the vast room. "I did not want to burn you with my own hands."
He took a step back.
Pure selfishness. He did not want his hands stained with ash. He did not want to smell the sickening scent of burning flesh from a woman he once called his wife.
The card pulsed.
The metal lighter dismantled first, its atoms turning into a shimmering dust. The cigarette case and tobacco followed, brutally consumed by the alchemical energy to convert their material mass into fuel.
The card ignited into a cold, white flame.
There was no smoke. There was no foul odor of burning flesh.
The alchemical fire swallowed both the sheet and the body in absolute silence. Her limbs began to disintegrate like a sand statue struck by a violent gale, turning into particles of light that vanished into the void, leaving the bed entirely empty. No trace of blood, no trace of a body.
"Rest now... my wife."
[The Corridor]
He stepped out of the room.
The corridor was long and empty. A step.
Silence. A step.
Silence.
"What a disgusting human being you are, Vanitas."
He stopped.
He looked to his side.
There was a full-length mirror hanging on the wall.
The reflection within it did not mimic his movements. It was staring back at him with pure contempt.
"Disgusting... completely faceless," the reflection spoke, its voice echoing inside Vanitas's head. "Do you feel no shame? You murdered, you burned your wife, and you made your mother weep."
"Did you do it for the sake of the cause? Or because you are throwing a tantrum at your family like a child?"
"Even you, Vanitas..." Vanitas whispered to his reflection, "... do not understand me."
"None of you understand me."
He broke eye contact with the mirror and continued walking.
"You know exactly why no one understands you."
A step.
"Vanitas!"
A real voice this time.
Justicia. She came running, her eyes red with fury.
She blocked his path and screamed: "Why is Mama crying after leaving your room?! What did you and your whore say to her?!"
He looked at her raging face.
He approached her with a terrifying calmness.
He grabbed her face with one hand, squeezing her jaws until her beautiful features distorted.
He stared deep into her eyes.
"I wonder... why did I ever think you were brave?" he whispered coldly. "You are the most cowardly of humans. Cowardly even with yourself."
He shoved her face away, leaving her stunned, and walked toward the exit.
[The Mansion Gates]
At the main entrance, he paused before the massive oil painting hanging in the grand foyer.
"The Perfect Family Portrait."
Aretia: In her beautiful dress, looking like the fairest woman in the kingdom, yet her gaze carried a fragile pride. Justicia: With her manufactured innocence, smiling happily as though she were a saint. Otus: Stern features, but the corners of his mouth betrayed a foolish satisfaction. Superia: Looking visibly uncomfortable, her hand on Otus's shoulder as if she were clinging to him for dear life. Motus: Completely indifferent, staring at the horizon as though the family were merely a side project.
And Vanitas...
Nonexistent.
He was never in the painting to begin with.
"I was never a part of this frame."
Before leaving the estate for good, his feet led him away from the main gate, toward the forbidden garden... the labyrinth.
He reached the center, where the ancient fountain stood.
He stopped.
A man was standing by the fountain's basin, watching the stagnant water level inside it.
His father. Motus.
Vanitas approached with quiet steps. "This is the first time you've ever come here."
Motus didn't reply. He remained motionless, his pitch-black eyes fixed on the surface of the water without blinking.
Vanitas stood beside him, also staring down at the water level.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
An absolute silence enveloped them, far more profound than any words that could have been spoken. Vanitas stepped back slowly, turning around to resume his path to the exit.
As he walked away, Motus's coarse voice shattered the garden's stillness:
"Watch your back."
Vanitas paused. He lifted his head and cast one final, long, heavily burdened look at the sky. He did not turn around. He continued on his way without a word.
The path toward the carriage courtyard was long and freezing.
From a distance, he heard the clashing of swords. Otus.
He was training with an unusual ferocity, his muscles glistening with sweat despite the biting cold, his blade cutting through the air with violent intensity.
Otus paused for a brief second. His eyes met Vanitas's. He said nothing, but he returned to his training with significantly greater force, as if channeling all his rage and frustration into every single strike.
Vanitas kept walking, passing him by.
And the closer he got to the courtyard where the carriages stood, a single thought consumed his mind.
The one person I wanted to see most in this house today... I didn't see.
And perhaps the next time he sees her, he won't be the same person... if he even exists at all. And perhaps... she won't be the same person either.
Outside the gate, the old carriage was waiting for him. The exact same carriage, and the same elderly driver who had transported him last time to the hell of the Frost.
"Sir... where would you like to go?" the driver asked in a raspy voice.
"Same as last time."
The driver looked at him from beneath his battered hat. "Sir... do you truly want to repeat this? Last time, you managed to escape the reckoning. But this time... I do not think so."
"Just execute the order."
"Right away, sir."
He boarded the carriage.
The alchemical horses surged forward, and the carriage ascended into the sky.
Vanitas sat alone inside.
"I am afraid of death."
He said it out loud to himself.
"That is the one thing I am most certain of in my life. And yet... here I am, walking to my death on my own two feet once again."
He looked up at the ceiling of the carriage.
The painted stag up there... was running away.
"I am no stag..."
"Sir... we have arrived."
The carriage descended at the foothills.
Vanitas stepped down. The air here was different. The air of death and absolute silence.
The driver looked at him: "Sir... I wish you a safe journey. And I hope that this time, you find what you are looking for."
The driver hesitated for a moment, then added: "And sir... I have a request."
"What is it?"
"Do not return."
The driver looked into Vanitas's eyes with a painful, raw sincerity.
"The place here, in the mansions... it isn't worth it. If you make it out of here, my boy, do not come back to us. I just wanted to say this to you."
He lowered his head in shame. "I know I am overstepping my bounds."
Vanitas stared at the old man.
"Did you know..." Vanitas said softly, "... I have never once remembered your name in my entire life. Even though you were always around me, and I could always feel that you cared for me."
The driver smiled a melancholy smile, deepening the heavy wrinkles on his face.
"There is no need to remember my name. Just remember my face."
The driver pointed to himself. "I am an old man, pushing sixty. I have no children. I am entirely alone. The only thing that defines me is that I am the driver of this carriage."
He looked toward the far horizon, toward the mountains.
"I am just like you... I wanted to go on this journey. The journey to find myself. But I am a coward."
He looked back at Vanitas. "You possess what I never had. The courage to leave."
Vanitas fell silent. He saw himself in this old man. A mirror of what he would become if he chose to stay.
"I hope I never see you again," Vanitas said with genuine honesty.
The driver smiled. "Nor I."
The carriage rattled away, leaving Vanitas utterly alone.
He turned around.
The piercing, freezing wind slapped his face.
Before his eyes, the towering black peaks loomed, piercing the heavy gray clouds. The Mountains of Silence.
The place that had swallowed him once, and spat him back out deformed.
He looked down at his hand.
On his finger.
There was a new ring. Golden, heavy, and pristine, bearing the crest of Aurum.
"I hope this ring... proves more useful than its predecessor."
He took a deep breath of the freezing air.
And took his first step into hell.
[Excerpt from: A Torn, Blood-Stained Page]
"Lord Ethereum... blood fills the hall... he is planning to manifest a ca—"