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The rain fell in thick curtains, distorting the shadows and extinguishing the flickering glow of the lanterns.

In front of the entrance of a house, a man stood motionless, soaked to the bone. His hair dripped onto his forehead, and the fabric of his shirt clung to his skin like a second condemnation. Drops slipped down his numb fingers, but the ice that consumed him came from within.

Suddenly, the door opened with a dry thud. In the doorway, enveloped in the pale light from inside, a pregnant woman unhesitatingly threw a handful of men's clothes.

The garments fell onto the soaked street, drinking in the filth of the ground until they became a reflection of her misery.

—Pick them up and get lost for good!—spat the woman, burning with rage and contempt—. You disgust me, you know that? No… not even disgust, loathing! How many years have passed and you're still the same? Look at yourself! All our peers have progressed, they have careers, money, real families... but you're still trapped in the same miserable life, without ambitions, without a future. You're a disgrace!

Her screams echoed in the street, loud enough to attract the neighbors.

Behind half-drawn curtains and slightly ajar doors, curious faces peeked out, some with amused expressions, others simply hungry for a spectacle.

The man felt something inside him break, a sharp pain that he couldn't alleviate. His throat burned as he swallowed saliva, and the weight on his chest made him falter before taking a step forward, his hands open in a pleading gesture.

—Please… Not like this. Not in front of everyone. We can talk… For the baby's sake, at least.

The woman remained silent for a moment, and then, suddenly, began to laugh.

—The baby?—she repeated, tilting her head with a twisted smile—. Where do you get the right to worry about him? This child is not yours. It never was.

The silence that followed was absolute. Not even the rain managed to dilute the harshness of her words.

—Please... —he whispered, his voice in pieces, as if with each word his world crumbled—. Tell me it’s not true...

The woman laughed with a bitter mockery, savoring every second. Her lips curved into a venomous smile as she delivered her final blow:

—You? Did you seriously think I was going to ruin my life carrying in my womb the child of a nobody like you?

The world went dark. The laughter of the onlookers, the rain hitting his skin, even the echo of his own breath… Everything vanished into an abyss of silence.

He didn't answer. He had nothing to say. He didn't even have the strength to hate her. He turned and walked away, each step clumsier, slower, as if his own bones resisted moving forward.

The rain fell silently, slipping down his skin, as if trying to erase what was left of him.

—Disappear! I don't want to see you again. And take your misery with you!—Her shout reached him muffled, distant.

But he had already stopped listening.

His consciousness floated in an emotionless limbo. The world blurred as if reality itself was unraveling into threads.

There were no warning flashes.

There were no voices calling him back.

The roar of the engine was the last thing he heard before the impact hurled him through the air.

His body hit the car’s windshield, before bouncing off the hood and collapsing onto the slick asphalt.

His arm bent at a grotesque angle, his leg twisted like a broken puppet, and warm blood slipped down his forehead, staining his world red.

He gasped, fighting for a breath that never came.

And even in that moment, when his last breath fled his lips, when death claimed him without resistance...

He felt nothing.

…

When he opened his eyes, the cold, damp asphalt had disappeared. In its place, an immense white void stretched as far as the eye could see. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above his head, but he was there, suspended in a silent and enveloping nothingness.

Around him, an endless line of human figures stretched into infinity. They were blurred shadows, motionless, as if trapped in an endless wait.

No one moved, no one acknowledged his existence.

He didn't understand how he had gotten there, or the purpose of that line. But something inside him prevented him from moving, as if by doing so he would break a pact he had no memory of.

He blinked.

Barely an instant. But when he opened his eyes, the crowd had vanished. Only he remained, facing a colossal threshold, covered in inscriptions that seemed to move beneath his gaze.

He didn't try to understand. There was no logic, only the impulse to move forward.

There was no other option. There was no other destination.

So he took a deep breath and crossed it.

Before him stood a black door, so immense that it seemed to merge with eternity. There were no walls, no ground, no sky, only that colossal door floating in nothingness. And silence… until the whispers began.

Voices that came from nowhere and everywhere at once. They sounded like the rustling of wind on ancient stone, like the echo of someone else's thoughts. They were not common words, but he, somehow, understood them.

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—Is it him…?

—It is. His essence is sealed by destiny itself.

—Then will the wheel turn once more?

—Only the Supreme knows the ultimate truth.

—Five hundred and seventy lives of suffering… What purpose does such punishment serve?

—It is the decree of the Ascendants.

—But he does not advance… Why does he hesitate before the threshold?

A shiver ran through his body, and his fingers clenched into a trembling fist. Five hundred and seventy lives. It wasn't just a number. It was centuries of pain, of loss, of anguish.

Was that his destiny? An eternity of suffering, trapped in a loop with no escape?

—Five hundred and seventy lives of misery… —he murmured, his voice broken, feeling the unbearable weight of the sentence—. Is this all that awaits me…? Until when…?

The voices did not answer.

—Why? —he shouted into the void, his soul torn apart—. Why am I condemned to this endless torment? TELL ME!

Silence was his only answer.

That door… he hated it. He hated its imposing presence, the life on the other side, the cruel magnetism it exerted on him.

—I'm not going to do it… I'M NOT GOING TO CROSS IT!—he roared, as if his voice could break destiny.

Suddenly, an impossible force crushed him against the very absence.

Pain devoured his reason, grinding him, tearing him apart again and again until his own existence felt alien. He tried to breathe, but the void forbade it. He tried to scream, but his voice vanished like ashes into nothingness.

He could not die. His punishment was to exist.

Time diluted into his suffering.

And then, the pressure vanished.

His body, broken by the effort, gasped for relief. But there was no respite. A voice emerged, distinct from all the others. It was the echo of something forgotten, the whisper of a nameless abyss.

The void trembled, and the black door cracked, bleeding dark light.

—You will.

With those words, the door opened silently, and an invisible force dragged him inside.

The man fell into an endless abyss, but soon the void became a narrow corridor, made of living shadows that twisted around him. At the end of the hallway, a solitary light flickered, waiting for him.

He turned around, his heart racing. The door was still there, open, calling him back. Without hesitation, he ran towards it. He was not going to accept that destiny. Not again.

But before he could reach it, the door slammed shut.

The sound echoed in the nothingness. An instant later, darkness devoured it, erasing any trace of its existence.

The man's roar echoed in the darkness.

—Damn your will! May destiny shatter and the Ascendants devour each other! May they swallow their illusions! I refuse to be their puppet or carry their damned chains.

Rage consumed him, and then, without him noticing, something began to yield.

Without realizing it, his blackened pupils began to crack, and a green glow pierced through them, like fire burning beneath a layer of ashes.

The fabric of the world stirred, shuddering, as if fearing what was about to awaken.

And then it emerged before him.

Where before there was only an immaculate glow, now stood a scarlet door, as red as if every fiber of his being were soaked in ancient blood.

Its engravings twisted like creatures locked in an eternal trance, arcane symbols sliding over each other as if trying to convey a message lost in time.

The man felt panic crawl up his back as he looked at the red door. It was not just any fear, but an ancestral one, as if his own blood remembered something his mind had forgotten.

He exhaled slowly and let a cynical smile curve his lips.

—My soul surrenders to the black one and trembles before you… I don’t know if my soul is a terrible advisor or if it just enjoys seeing me suffer. If it warns me to flee, perhaps the opposite is exactly what I should do.

He advanced, tearing each step from the ground as if gravity itself was trying to hold him back, restrain him.

Something inside him rebelled, clawing at him from within, screaming in a language he didn't want to understand. But he ignored it, laughing with a rage that burned his throat.

—I will not be a puppet again… Not even of my own mind.

With a growl, he forced his body to cover the last few meters and stood before the red door.

He raised his hand, his fingers clenched, ready to push the door.

But it was not necessary. Before his fingers touched the wood, the door slid open silently, as if it had been waiting for him.

He took a deep breath and, with a tense smile, crossed to the other side.

Reality fractured.

Now he found himself in an endless corridor, whose walls held empty picture frames, as if their images had been torn out. In the distance, a greenish glow pulsed, calling to him.

He felt a deep dread that chilled his blood.

But there was no other way.

Repeating the torment of his past lives was a fate worse than any risk. Better to face the unknown than to succumb to the condemnation of the inevitable.

He tried to move, and before his foot could kiss the ground, a groan tore through his throat.

His flesh crumbled into smoking ashes, his bones shattered and evaporated as if they had never existed. He felt torn from himself, reduced to something he did not understand.

When his step was completed, his body was gone. Only he remained, naked in his purest form.

The world around him vanished.

He was no longer a man. He was a child again, huddled in the depths of a cave. His small fingers trembled as they brushed the surface of the stagnant water, distorting the reflection that observed him with bright green eyes.

The humidity of the place, the smell of wet stone, awakened dormant memories.

He took another step.

His flesh shuddered, his bones creaked like dry branches. A blink, a heartbeat, and his body was no longer the same. Now he was a young man wrapped in furs, with a bloodied spear clutched as if his life depended on it. Before him, a monster born of chaos roared, challenging him with a primitive ferocity. A lightning bolt of memories struck him: the intoxication of battle, the sharpened instinct, the frenzy that burned in his blood. Conquer or die.

He took another step.

He saw himself at his peak: a war king, on a throne erected on bones and animal hides. His people venerated him, kneeling before him… but, was it devotion or fear? The shadow of his conquests enveloped him, whispers of pasts buried in nameless pits.

He took another step.

His body stooped under the weight of years. His mane, now pure silver, fell in rivers over his shoulders, and before him, an unreal presence, a being without defined form, an echo of something that should never have existed.

Memories of his last hour reached him like claws closing on his chest.

He advanced.

The nearest frame vibrated, as if something invisible struggled to break free. Threads of light danced around him, weaving the image of an old man with a withered face and a being distorted by time.

Another step.

Time folded in on itself. His body was small again. The cave had disappeared, and in its place was a hut of mud and straw. The earth throbbed differently, as if belonging to another yesterday.

Each step was a reflection of what he was.

Each cycle, one more page in the book of his existence.

Each frame completed, a truth unearthed.

He saw himself as a beggar and a king, as a dreamer and a destroyer. He was wise and foolish, creator and ruin. He rose to the top of the universe and fell into the depths of oblivion.

He savored the sweetness of glory and the bitterness of loss. He relived the euphoria of first love and the desolation of the last farewell.

He was a traveler lost between dimensions, trapped between lives that never quite belonged to him. He contemplated the vastness of the cosmos and the narrow abyss of his own mind.

He understood that his time was not a line, but a labyrinth. And in every turn, he found and lost himself.

One by one, the empty frames filled, rewriting his history in the fabric of time.

Until finally, his steps stopped.

Before him, a green glow burned like an implacable sun.

The man let out a sigh and whispered:

—Ninety-nine thousand cycles… Ninety-nine thousand memories… of a forgotten self, that finally returns.

He turned his head slowly, contemplating the corridor that remained behind. It was a mural of his history, a cruelly honest portrait of his greatness and his miseries, of his light and his shadow.

He closed his eyes for an instant before wondering:

—What forgotten sin awakened the wrath of the Ascendants? Why was my condemnation sculpted into eternity?

He returned his gaze to the emerald glow, and his eyes, a reflection of his contained fury, sparkled intensely.

—Five centuries of hardship, a sentence that transcends death. Someday I will demand answers and, if these do not satiate my truth, the Ascendants will know the weight of my judgment.

Slowly, he extended his hand and touched the glow.

It shuddered, reacting as if recognizing his touch, and then, in a heartbeat, devoured him without mercy.