Jordan was standing back in the pillar of light, only this time—he wasn’t alone.

A woman, based on her curving frame, was draped in white robes trimmed with gold standing in the light with him. Jordan couldn’t see her features past a hood covering a porcelain, expressionless mask, but she held…

“Are those… tarot cards?” He asked the woman. She nodded, but held a golden, gloved finger up to her carved lips.

A voice cleared its throat from the darkness in front of Jordan, and after focusing once more, he saw the silhouette of the Judge on the dais again. He and the others had finally sat down, and began to bring the court back into session.

“The trial shall now resume. Freyhell Aureliana, or Not Aureliana as you say, the court has procured a Dream Seer, a Mystic to be precise, of no small power. With her assistance, we shall attempt to ascertain the nature of your identity.”

Jordan looked back at the white cloaked individual next to him. A mystic? Is my life going to come down to some stupid tarot card reading or something?

“If you have a seer, or whatever… can’t you just read my mind? The Brat’s moth—er, Mercia seems to do it all the time.”

The middle figure shook its head before saying, “While such techniques and artifice exist to allow feats such as that, memories are easily warped or twisted, especially given cases of individuals of wounded mind such as yourself. As such, this court is looking only for an indication, not verification, so that we may proceed in our judgement. The reading shall measure your Soul and its authenticity, to the best that such Skills will allow.”

Wait, what? “B-but I’m Not-Aureliana,” Jordan, “if you could prove I’m not the Brat what happens?” Jordan asked. “If I’m not then…”

“Then what?” The voice on his right said, “This court is not unwilling to treat you fairly, but we have so far not seen any indication to prove that you are, in fact, anyone other than Freyhell Aureliana. That you are anything other than a damaged child, despite your claims. This test will inform us if our current judgement is sound, or if we are in error. It is for your benefit and your claims we do this.”

Jordan’s eyes widened as he took that in. If that was true, then… they didn’t believe he was Jordan, but they were testing him for his own benefit rather than their own need?

The woman next to Jordan began to wave her hands towards him. He eyed her suspiciously, and then yelped in surprise when tendrils of mist began to flow about her form. They danced in the air around them both, a few strands making their way to taste at Jordan. He swatted at them uncomfortably, and heard a small chuckle from the masked woman. He glared a bit at her, but then had his jaw drop when she placed a card down.

She didn’t have a table. The card just… hung in the air. The first one was a man, draped in a cloak standing in a field. A castle lay in the background and a river ran by. He sat in a camp, and reminded Jordan of his father sitting alone after his brother… Jordan sucked in some breath, disappointed to see the collection of empty beer cans sitting next to the man. He’d drank nearly half a dozen, getting drunk in his sorrow again.

The woman looked at the card and back to the Judges who nodded sadly. Wait, what did this mean? Jordan began to panic. He got no answer, however, as the woman continued to place card after card before him in a v-shaped pattern.

“Are you sure?” The Judge asked, and the woman nodded.

“These results verify nothing.” Said the voice on his left.

The voice on the right retorted, “It indicates something.”

“And an indication is all we need.” Said the middle.

“What? What’s happening? What does this mean?” Jordan interjected.

The woman ignored Jordan’s questions. “I could present the Sacred Form if you’d like.” Her voice was soft, and sweet, almost playful like the Mist that danced around her. The Judge nodded and the woman swept the cards back into her deck, and shuffled them like a sleight of hand magician. Cards flew around her as she placed them back down, forming a star pattern in a way magicians in his world only wished they could do.

“Wait, why’s that one blank?” Jordan pointed at the middle card.

The woman cocked her head and the Judges began to quickly look back and forth at one another.

“Can you… explain?” The Judge on the left asked.

Jordan just frowned in response. “This card is blank! See?” He picked it up and waved it at them. The masked woman looked a bit annoyed at that, but didn’t stop him.

“That’s not blank, young one.” The woman scoffed at Jordan.

“What? Yes it is! It’s just a white background!” He waved at it emphatically. The woman shook her head sadly.

“Is that all then, Your Honors?” She asked of them.

“Yes, that will be all. Thank you.” The woman reached down to take the card from Jordan, but he swatted at her hand and he… hissed. Oh for fucks sakes, I’m hissing now? Really? Oh… whatever!

He felt embarrassed at the noise he made, but stared at the white card in his hands. Turning it over, the back had a beautiful geometric shape to it, golden lines, and circles dancing against a light blue background. Looking at it seemed to draw the eye in, but once more flipping it back around just showed… nothing. White, blank, nothing.

“I’m curious… which way do you see it oriented?” The woman asked Jordan.

“Huh? It’s blank. How would it have an orientation?” He shot back.

She shrugged and said, “Use your instincts. Tell me, which way is up on that card.”

Jordan looked back at the Judges, wondering if they were going to step in and say something to this crazy ‘Mystic’ giving him blank cards, but all he got was empty looks. He gritted his teeth, and stared at the white nothingness on the card.

He ran his fingers over the surface, but felt nothing. He sniffed at it—just in case—but there was just… nothing. He flipped it one way and then the other, and was about to just throw the card away when he realized something odd. There was a way the card could be placed that just felt… better to him. It confused the hell out of Jordan.

Yet, frowning all the while, he oriented it and said, “Like this, I guess?”

The woman nodded. “I suppose that fits you, doesn’t it? I’m sorry.” She patted his head sadly, and Jordan swatted it away before trying to thrust the stupid card back at her. She responded by holding up a hand telling him, “Keep it. Maybe it will help you someday.”

“Ah… great. Thanks…” He lamely responded, tucking it away under his petticoat. He could really do with some damn pockets!

There were… scribbling noises again. They were oddly faint, still, but they drew Jordan’s attention back to them like nails on a chalkboard. He could also tell the three Judges were talking to each other, somehow, only the sounds of their voices were being trapped, echoing in the darkness beyond the shimmering air surrounding the pillar of light he stood in. They didn’t reach him, and he asked—

Jordan felt… woozy for a moment.

“I don’t understand,” He turned to ask, “What was the purpose of that? What did the cards mean? What did you find?”

The judges looked to each other, troubled, before the middle one spoke up.

“Er, Freyhell Aureliana, this court believes it is best to move on at this point.”

“What! Why!?”

The echoing sounds of yelling faded slowly before the judge said something that made Jordan’s blood run cold despite his elevated temperatures.

“Freyhell Aureliana… we’ve told you the answer to what you saw three times now. If you are unable to process it, we cannot help you with that. We must move on.”

What? They had told him… three times already? But he’d only just asked. And only once at that. Once! …Right?

“Tell us, Freyhell Aureliana, do you think you did anything wrong?”

“What? No! I didn’t do anything!”

Scribbles filled the dead air before he continued.

“And do you believe that you bear no responsibility for the destruction of priceless artifacts?”

“No! I didn’t do anything!” He repeated.

“Finally, do you believe that performing a forbidden ritual will fix you?”

“Er…” He paused at this one, but by this point…

He had given up. He didn’t have a plan, and he didn’t know what to do or say. They couldn’t answer his questions, and he felt as empty as the white-void of the tarot card resting against his damn chest. He had nothing left.

“No.” He spoke through tears. “I didn’t do anything, but I don’t believe anything will save me now.”

He wanted to go home. He really did. He just didn’t think it would be possible anymore, and that last stubborn little piece of him that had been holding on, finally released its grip on his heart.

“Understood.” The three monsters wrote down their accursed notes. Jordan buried his wet face in his hands.

After a few minutes, the man spoke again. “This court would like to offer you a choice, Freyhell Aureliana. In light of your Beliefs, and the… ‘discoveries’ unearthed in this trial, we would be remiss not to offer the chance for Redemption. Stand by for just a moment please.”

The man began to chant, and with a startled glance Jordan realized all three were, each with an arm outstretched towards him. They weren’t going to blast him into oblivion, were they?

The answer came quickly enough, and it was not—in fact—oblivion. Instead, glowing in the air before him, two pictures began to form. They hung in the air, person sized gleaming lights taking the forms of people and places before, finally, forming two distinct pictures.

Two… choices?

To his left, Jordan saw the Brat walking down a simple dirt path. The sky was clear, the landscape green pastures, and nearby were small buildings at home in the medieval style hamlet. He could smell the breeze drifting from it, soft and playful like only a summer’s wind could be. Laughter from children caught his ears, and he could see the Brat walking amongst them, laughing in turn. She looked so… happy. So free. He wanted to be happy like her, and his tears finally… stopped. He was free there.

To his right, Jordan saw something far less pleasant. The Brat walked, hunched over as though crushed by the weight of a thousand worlds, her feet bare against jagged cobbled roads strewn with monster parts and broken weapons. Chains dripping in blood wrapped around her, trying to drag her back into the muck. Hidden in the shadows at her feet were thorns that struck at her like vipers. They took every opportunity to make her suffer. Looking up, the world burned around her as people jeered and screamed at her, and even though she looked away from Jordan as she walked forward, he could feel her tears as a foul, death filled wind blew out, its black tendrils inviting him to his own despair. With a start, Jordan realized he was crying again looking at the image, and wiped angrily at his tears.

“How is this a choice?” Jordan asked the judges. They didn’t respond.

He was so confused, looking between the two. There wasn’t even a choice to be made here! He was about to choose the path on the left, when he heard one of the Judges scoff. He turned angrily first to the right and then left when none of them seemed to own up to the noise, but then a bit of color caught the corner of his eye.

At the stimulus to his peripheral vision, he turned around and saw that each shining picture reflected a shadow. He turned his body around to face the two hidden reflections.

To his right, opposite the idyllic green path, was a world torn to pieces. A city in ashes, long since burned to the ground but smouldering eternal, could be seen as the sounds of war were heard in the distance. An old mansion, crumbling in ruin was nearby, its familiar architecture causing Jordan to instantly recognize the Freyhell Estates. As people cried out in pain, he saw a small set of unmarked graves, with gnarled ugly trees blooming from their ash covered mounds. A young woman sat on a rock there, crying quietly from the numerous barbed chains wrapped around her small, yet muscular frame.

He recognized Catella in an instant, though she was older. She lifted her head in the vision, and glared at Jordan. Nothing but hatred in her eyes.

Why are you back here, coward? Haven’t you done enough? I told you to go away. GO AWAY!

Jordan stared into the eyes of his youngest sister. He’d… he’d tried to apologize after leaving the funeral. It wasn’t his fault! He had to leave. He tried to explain why he left, but she—

Go away ASSHOLE!

She’d shoved him, and he’d left. But he remembered her eyes. He remembered how a person who he’d grown up with, who had loved her big brother with all her heart… he remembered watching as all the trust and innocence of her eyes twisted into hatred and contempt. Twisted from her disgust with him.

Looking to his left, opposite the path of torment, was the same city as to the right. It was intact, and in fact… there wasn’t anything really special about it. People went about their lives, a few merchants trying to wave at Jordan, enticing him to buy at their stalls. Families laughed as they chatted in the streets, a few complaining about events in distant lands as children pulled at their hands impatiently to go play, but…everywhere he looked the people walked with heads held high. They were proud, Jordan realized. They carried it in their bearings. But where’s the family…? He thought.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Looking around, Jordan saw a line of color stretching from the left image, back towards the original image of torment. Following it, an indistinct middle picture coalesced, joining where the two met, painting a monotone image. Within it Jordan saw the Brat’s family there, and the image took on color.

They were… holding chains? He followed them, only to realize they were holding them to protect the Brat in the main picture, preventing whatever had a hold of her from dragging her backwards. They shielded her, working as a group to do so. The mother screamed out in fury as horns burned on her forehead and reality trembled, the old man stood with shredded clothes and swollen muscles as he held the world up, like Atlas, carrying a weight Jordan couldn’t even fathom. The father snapped a finger and a white flame that sang in Jordan’s soul lanced out like a serpentine dragon, thrashing about as people ran screaming in terror and Jordan felt strength, power, and assurity pouring into him. And an older Catella, glowing like a lighthouse banishing a horde of shadows, was covered in armor neck to toe, standing with arms crossed twisting chains like putty while she smiled brightly.

And when she looked at him… he cried.

There was no hate for him in her eyes. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever seen anyone look at him like…

Like she was proud of him.

And the family was fighting. Everything that even came close to the Brat, anything that tried to stop her. Tried to hurt her, and he… he couldn’t see anymore.

His vision had turned into a swimming veil of liquid. The tears were blinding his eyes. This was so stupid. How was this a choice?

Sullenly, Jordan turned back around, looking at the choices straight on once more.

He understood them now.

To his left was freedom from his current predicaments, and yet the Brat’s… Aureliana’s family would suffer for his selfishness. To his right was responsibility, it would be him bearing the cost of Aureliana’s choices, but her family would support him. He…

“This is bullshit!” No one responded to his scream. With a flash of more insight, he knew no one would until he made his choice.

But it wasn’t a choice! How could it be? Obviously, he had to choose the left path. He didn’t know this family, and he didn’t owe them a damn thing! Why would he ever choose a path of pain and suffering? That was madness!

“I… I don’t want these choices! Give me something else!”

To his shock, the two pictures moved apart and a third spot formed before him. It was blank, however, but he knew to forge a third path was a sacred right all were allowed. It fell to them to paint that picture, however. Excited that he’d found the way past this bullcrap situation, he began to gesture and command at the air to take shape. It was easy really, like playing pictionary on his phone.

Though… it wasn’t a very good picture all things considered. Jordan wasn’t an artist, okay! Still, he did his best, and a blob of a man was sitting in front of a rectangle. It was supposed to be a monitor, but Jordan did what he could to paint the path of ‘fuck this shit, I’m out!’

After a few moments, the picture responded, twisting into a mote of light, and then sprang into being. It showed a beam of energy encompassing the Brat as a spark of something shot out from her and into the sky towards an indistinct, blue and green ephemeral orb. Earth. He knew instantly that the picture reflected what he’d meant for it—a chance to leave this world and be free. To go home!

He sat there smugly smiling for a while before he realized nothing had actually changed yet, and he was about to select that picture when a thought tugged at his mind.

Jordan made an about face to look at the shadow the new picture cast. There was a casket, and in it laid Aureliana, surrounded by the bodies of her family. He barely had time to process it before, startling him, the older version of Not-Catella in the adjacent image began to move.

She walked from her stony seat, surrounded by the graves of her family, and threw a bloody chain at the middle shadow. Jordan jumped at the tearing sound it made, and the image bled colors as she dragged it over to her. The middle shadow and the personal hell of Not-Catella joined, becoming the same image.

Jordan turned back towards the front pictures and saw his middle choice had merged with the option for freedom, becoming instead a different version of the same choice. The difference on the left picture now was that the Brat was missing and the peaceful village continued to exist happily without her. The only change in it, was an indistinct blue sphere hanging in the sky. He assumed it denoted his place on the Earth beyond.

“That’s bullshit!” He decreed.

He’d made a third choice, why was it just blending into the path of freedom like that? If he went home, wouldn’t the Brat then be responsible for her own actions? That was how it should be!

He could feel the gaze of hatred from Not-Catella, and turned to admonish her for stealing away his choice, but stopped when he saw a line between her picture and the path of freedom. Like the path of Torment and its Shadow, this one also had a mid-point that showed more. He waited, and after a moment it began to take shape. It was—

A young girl, laying on the floor. She was trying to scratch at her face, he knew it was because her eyes itched and something wanted to see through them but no one understood that. She was screaming, begging for them to kill her, and eventually…

They did.

Without Jordan, Aureliana fell apart. Without him, she died.

That was… that was the outcome? But what did that mean? Was she still here with him? Was he keeping her intact? Or was she on the other side of the Darkness, and bringing her back would destroy her? Was she going crazy on Earth, inside his body?

He gripped at his head. This still wasn’t a choice!

No, it just can’t be understanding me. That’s all!

“The third choice is wrong! I need to go home! Make the choice come out right! Do you hear me? Make it right!”

“I hear you.”

The darkness waned ever onward, but the images parted once more. They waited for him.

“Where is your home?”

“It’s…” America, which of course, he couldn’t say.

“Are you sure it’s real?”

“What? Of course it is! And I need to go back there!”

“Prove it.”

Jordan growled in frustration, but then looked at the blank canvas in front of him. If he couldn’t say anything, then he’d paint it! A picture is worth a thousand words anyway!

He started simply, by painting a phone. He did a decent job at it, he thought, until it began to warp and change. The picture of his trusty iPhone changed into… a reflective rectangle? He was about to scream about its inaccuracies, but then it lit up like a phone being called.

“Wait, what? What’s it doing?”

“It’s ringing, obviously. Just like you wanted, right?”

“Huh? But it’s not a…” phone. Of course, he couldn’t say the word.

“It’s a Status Slate. Good for long distance communication, viewing your Chasm, or accessing any of the Archives in the Academy or other networked institutions.”

Jordan spluttered, and then furiously cleared the picture. He tried again.

“Here! It’s a… ugh.” Airplane.

“Looks like a sausage. What’s it supposed to do?”

“Oh, fuck you, asshole! It’s supposed to fly and transport people.”

“Oh, like this then?”

The image changed into a ship.

“I said it’s supposed to—” Jordan was going to say fly, but was cut off when he saw the ship… do just that. It lifted off into the air, soared over the landscape, and painted a majestic image.

“It’s called an airship. You should try it sometime, you’d probably enjoy it.”

Screaming and pulling at his hair in frustration he tried again. This time, something more personal.

It started with a man and a woman. They had four children, two boys, and two girls.

“Here! My family! I want to go back to them, okay?”

The image split, and next to it, formed another family. A man and a woman, two boys and two girls.

“Your family looks a lot like the Freyhells.”

“Wait, what? But I thought there was only Catella?”

“Nope. Aureliana also has two brothers.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about it. Her oldest brother isn’t alive anymore.”

The image wiped one of the boys away.

Jordan winced, and… did the same.

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“Y-yeah. Dad too though.”

He wiped the image of his father away.

“That’s rough. Still… kind of odd how closely related it seems, right?”

“What do you mean?”

The image of both families merged together before fading away, with a reflection showing… the Brat staring back at him.

He knew what it meant now. It was accusing him of… of…!

Not existing. Of just being the Brat, only crazy.

“I exist! I’m Not-Aureliana!” Jordan, “You hear me, fucker? I exist!”

“Sure you do. I’m sure the fact that you can’t create anything unique from your ‘world,’ say your name, or even come up with your own family is pure coincidence.”

Jordan screamed and wiped the image away.

“I’m not her though. I exist. I do! I swear it, I…”

He gazed at the two images in front of him.

One so beautiful, and one so terrible. Behind him both love and disgust battered against him.

“This isn’t fair.” He said into the darkness.

If he chose to go home, then the Brat would die. Her family would die, and Catella would be forced to pay the price in her sister’s place.

The other choice was him suffering.

If he chose to go home, then… would he? Did he… exist? The voice had been pushing him. Why would the judges do that? What was the point? To guilt him into not choosing the smart way out?

The right choice was his pain.

But he existed! He was Jordan. He had his own family. His own memories! He knew about computers, and games, and all the trappings of a modern capitalistic society. He was human, which was bland but just how it was!

The right choice wasn’t easy. It never was.

How could they accuse him like this? He should choose the path on his left out of pure spite. Fuck these asshats, he didn’t owe them a damn thing! He wasn’t going to pay the price for some stupid little cunt.

It wasn’t fair. He knew what he had to choose.

No! This world can’t do this! They can’t do this to me! It wasn’t fair!

“This isn’t fair!” He screamed it, over and over at them as he crumpled to the floor. He screamed it, but they didn’t answer him.

Someone always paid the price, and he had no option against that.

“This isn’t fair! Answer me you stupid fucks!”

The echoes of his racking sobs was his only answer. Jordan sat there, struggling for breath, as he stared back and forth between the two brightly lit pictures, turning to look at the shadows time and time again. Each time he did, the image of Not-Catella, reflected by his freedom, bled more. Suffered more, and in time he realized why.

She was out there right now, wasn’t she? Somewhere in the darkness watching. Waiting. Losing… hope. Her smile… starting to fade. From her perspective, she was watching her big sister, wounded and alone, torn over the idea of sacrificing Catella for her own gain. What was that doing to the child? What was he doing? What—

What would he do if she never beamed again and it was all his fault?

…it wasn’t fair.

Jordan collapsed forward, head in hands. Tears water hosing down his face, but that was normal now. Instead he focused on the awful truth that haunted him. While he didn’t know this family, and while he didn’t want to suffer in this stupid little world, the thought of damning them all for his own selfishness bit into him again, and again, like thorns. It wouldn’t stop hitting him with guilt, refusing to back down or stop.

He’d walked away from his own family, so why couldn’t he just walk away from this one?

Precisely for that reason.

He existed. And he had walked away from his family. He knew what it felt like. What it did to him. To his family.

He was filled with regret because of it. The life he’d lived was empty, hollow, void of anything worthwhile, but he’d lived it. Would he find something better here? If he abandoned the Brat’s family, would he not blame himself just as much for what happened to them? Ruin the life of a stranger even though he knew how much the child’s family would suffer? His own had.

“This… is bullshit. BULLSHIT!”

His voice echoed uselessly, only causing the pictures to shimmer more. Even if he went home, if the Brat was crazy, she could have completely destroyed his life by now. Three days was enough, wasn’t it?

What was he supposed to do?

“There’s always a way out.” The quiet voice said.

A third image came back. It showed a grove of trees, gently lit up. A beautiful little forest, picturesque in every way. He could hear a little brook nearby, and birds sang from branches. The trees had the most beautiful purple flowers, shining everlasting in the light. The sun gently shown down, and the breeze carried the floral scent from the trees. It was wonderful, reminding him of early mornings after camping trips. It was a paradise.

There was only one problem.

A noose hung from one of the trees.

Jordan trembled as he looked at it. It was empty, but it swung as though a weight pulled on it, like a ghost swinging from the tree. It looked perfect for his neck, and he… he couldn’t breathe looking at it. No… please no. He begged the image, but only a quiet, dark laughter came out.

This was despair. This was the end he was destined for. All the men in his family ended up like this, even if their nooses looked different. His father’s had been a Colt, the same one his brother had stolen from his safe while Jordan was in high school. The one that took the smiles away.

It was the right thing to do because he was the wrong person for this world. He couldn’t save this girl’s family… he couldn’t save himself. His noose… had just been him waiting to die. Letting his life end all around him while he did nothing to stop it.

He just gently swung there, hanging in the trees, judging everyone around him for bothering while he patiently waited for death.

That dark part of himself whispered sweetly in his ears, and his hand shook as it began to rise. A finger stretched out, almost reaching out to point…

Unexpectedly, the image of Aureliana in the right picture turned to look at Jordan.

Doing so caught her feet on more thorns that drew blood, but she ignored it as she forced him to meet her gaze. He could barely see her through the blurry liquids filling his eyes, but her gaze was all that mattered.

She looked at him. She understood him. She stood tall despite the weight hunching her, and smiled. That glorious, warming smile that told him everything was going to be okay. Then, she turned and walked onward, crushing the thorns underfoot as though they meant nothing to her. She rolled her shoulders as the family behind her yanked a few chains free, and she waved her arms into the air as the path bent before her. She’d never be free, but she wouldn’t stop marching forward. It was as though… as though the world could do nothing to harm her anymore. She was untouchable in her convictions. She was glorious. A hero. Just like….

Just like he always wished he would have been. Pretending, as a child, just to see his brother smile.

But he… wasn’t a good person. He wasn’t a hero. He’d established that quite thoroughly in his mind and it was entrenched deep into his soul.

But… he wasn’t a bad person either. He couldn’t look at Not-Catella and not see his youngest sister judging him, but just now, reflected in the Brat’s eyes, he saw his sister, Anna, so clearly. She’d been so much stronger after her surgery. Untouchable.

And she was the only member of his family that even now, had still tried to reach out to him. Who had never given up on him. He always wanted to be like her, but he’d only managed to be a failure of an older brother. He hadn’t even spoken to her in months, and he’d been happy for it. Why was he so awful?

She was the only one that kept smiling after Luke took his life. Because Jordan couldn’t anymore. She’d done it… for him. For all of them.

He knew what she would do here. She always walked that path, no matter how much it hurt her. She did it so that those who followed would have an easier path to tread. Because she was the bravest, most wonderful person he had ever known. The person he had always wished he could be.

Jordan opened his hand, and swiped the third choice away. One way or another, he wouldn’t take the easy way out. When he decided that, a weight he didn’t know was there, left him. He could finally… breathe. Breathe… and see the only real option left to him.

It scared him, almost worse than the noose. Because he didn’t know if he was strong enough to choose what came next.

He knew that regret would haunt him no matter which path he chose, likely to his dying breath. While it didn’t matter which choice he went with in that regard, he was familiar with the consequences of the left-hand path. He’d walked the road of freedom already, cutting himself off from everyone and everything. Living life only for himself. He’d told himself that he was happy, that he was living life to its fullest. That he was a good person.

He had been lying though. Jordan had hated himself every day, and wasted his life away. So even if regret would haunt him with either road… there was only one path that wouldn’t make him hate himself more.

There was only one choice in the end. There had only ever been one choice.

“This… isn’t fair.” He said, one last time.

Like a man condemned, Jordan stood up, trembling in the cool, dark chamber. Covering his eyes with his left hand to stymie the endless waterfall pouring down, he raised his right hand and pointed a shaking finger at the path of thorns.

For Anna. For Kate, for them both. For… for all of them. I’ll do better this time. Somehow.

I swear it, Luke.

“I’ll take… I’ll take that one.”

“Even if it isn’t your fault?”

Through his fingers and tears, Jordan nodded and said, “It’s not my fault, and it isn’t fair but… I’ll do it.”

“You’ll take responsibility?”

“…yes.”

“There will be no going back after this.”

“I know, but… It’s too late to fix my life anyway. It’s not too late to fix… hers though.”

His voice echoed at his wake. A sad little eulogy for a life he’d wasted. For a family he’d never see again, and who would be happier for it.

The picture to his left collapsed from existence in a sudden crunch, and the hatred of Not-Catella disappeared behind him, never to be felt again. Only her love and pride for him remained now, and that of the entire family with her. The image to his right faded slowly, shining brightly all the while, and Jordan heard the sounds of scribbles in the darkness once more.

After a few moments, a union of voices sounded out, as all three Judges spoke as one.

“So be it. The court gives witness to That Which You Are.”

A few minutes passed for more scribbles before the judge in front of him spoke with finality.

“With that, this court is ready to pass Judgement upon you, Lady Freyhell Aureliana Hortensia-Kellham.”

Jordan gulped, already filed with regret.

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