Author's note: The Meaning of Darkness (series) is not even relatively close to an end. It will only end when it has been explained, which is kinda far away. Sadly, i'm a slow releaser (sorry).

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“W-what did you say?!”

“For the sake of fun, i’ll repeat. Do you wish to learn magic Kayl?”

He felt appalled initially, but then a stroke of rage colored his humors.

“… Magic. Fuck that shit. What do you know about what happened?”

The figure’s eyes glinted at the poor man’s words while an ironical laugh seeped from its mouth.

“Poor Kayl, he is so desperate about his family that he forgot to tend woes of his own. You won’t get anything out of me, for you were the one to tell me your sad, sad past.”

“Liar! That’s bullshit! You know something. You just want to keep torturing me for the last sliver of sanity that’s left! You can’t fool me!”

“Ha! Sanity you say? I am not the one to fool you Kayl, you are the one to fool yourself with false hopes. Wonders of the human mind, beautiful don’t you think?”

Kayl gritted his teeth and clenched his fist tightly as he lashed out at the strange figure, spitting his doubts and disbeliefs.

“Don’t test me… I will get the truth out of you, doesn’t matter if i have to die for the answer”.

“My, oh my. If you need a second opinion, i’ll happily concur to the position. By all means, ask!”

Kayl went into deep silence, he didn’t think he’d be able to get what he wanted so easily – in fact, he was bluffing when he told his life was disposable. Nonetheless, he pressed on.

He was feeling in complete control of the situation.

“… Are you the one who planned it?”

“If by it you mean kidnapping your family and throwing you in that shithole, then yes. I had a part in it…” his mouth moved slowly as he whispered the last lines.

“Bastard… You motherfucker… If i were in any condition to do it, i’d beat you so hard my bones would break down inside your brains…”

“Ha… No you wouldn’t. You are a good man Kayl. You can’t harm a fly, what makes you think you could harm a man? A human? You have been like this throught your life, and unchanged it remains.”

“Shut up!”

“You are a man of virtue, you would never lift a finger against anyone. Someone punches you, you forgive him. Someone steals from you, you make friends with him. Someone badmouths you, you talk your way out of it. Every single person you’ve met takes advantage out of you, and you know that. What? Are you expecting them to change?”

“I told you to shut up!”

“Why are you so furious, Kayl? Did i hit a sore spot? But you know i’m right. There are only two kinds of people in this world: some are hunters, the rest are prey. Hunters will sink their claws deep into the prey’s flesh and shred it till the bone is white clean. Prey won’t do anything but accept their fate, living a hollow life filled with pain and suffering.”

Kayl didn’t argue back, he didn’t want to say anything. Fear was once again building inside his fragile heart.

“…And the best part of it… You are not the one to suffer. How could you? You go back home filled with memories of doing the right thing, being a nice person, a hardworker, a man of honor. No… The ones to suffer are your wife and children, those that have to bear with the poverty and misery brought down by your stupid actions. You are like a water vortex, sucking in every life that falls upon you.”

“…ot true... It’s not true, not true...”

“In the end, you are just a self-centered bastard that only cares for himself. Let’s be honest here, you never really wanted to be the servile maggot that you are. You thought there were people above you, and in turn you began acting submissive towards them.

Well let me tell you something, humans are all the same inside out. Disgusting sacks of bones, bound by flesh and ran by blood.”

Kayl finally lost it, his mind entered in a state of psychosis. The darkness, the hopelessness, the despair, the prospects of dying alone.

But worse of all, fear of believing in his words. Fear of acknowledging the truth.

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“… You’re a sad excuse for a human being. One moment, you wish for power, another, you beg on your knees. Pft, laughable. You lack strength, you lack intellect, you lack confidence. You bear the scars and the rust of time.

Your existence is a burden to the world.”

“Leave me alone… Leave me alone…”

“Tell me, Kayl, if you had the choice to do so, would you start it all over again?”

“…Again?” a beacon of hope shone on Kayl’s furtive eyes.

“Indeed! You’re doomed to die here, and even if you weren’t, you’d return to a life of suffering in the hands of those you helped. However, if you started anew, all of this would end! You would be reborn!”

The man’s sugar coated words touched Kayl’s heart with a burning fire, a deadly poison covered in the lustful taste of the sweetest honey.

“I can give you this opportunity. You have to say but a single sentence…”

“No…” he answered, refusing the offer.

“Not that one…”

“Help...” he pleaded.

“That one neither”

“P-please…” he begged with his eyes full of tears. There was something inside him, something bad that whispered him thoughts he normally wouldn’t think of, something pulling the strings of his fate like a puppet.

Every word he spoke made him tired and sleepy, blurring his vision into a tunnel of colors.

After a moment of silence, the long awaited words formed in his lips, and he whistled to the wind.

“… Kill me”.

“… Hmm... Fine. I’ll kill you”

A terrible scream pierced his brain, the cry of a banshee, an unrecognizable sound that made his whole body tremble and press on the ground. Multiple hands grabbed him from all directions, they were hungry for flesh, hungry for bones, thirsty for death.

His blood was rejecting him, flowing by will like unbound chains and iron pipes growing outside of his organs.

He felt pain no other human had ever experienced before.

He coughed and tried to shout his misery, hopelessly, while the man’s joyful laugh crushed his mind and left no remains.

“Kukukuku…. Kukk… Kuhahahahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Die Kayl! Die!”

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“… Wake up”

Kayl opened his eyes, a keen headache similar to a hangover, and when he recovered from it, to his surprise, he wasn’t dead. There was no pain, no suffering, no fear.

“I’m alive… You…”

“All you heard, all you felt, all that your senses could grasp. It never happened”.

Kayl was speechless.

That man was God, that man was Devil. That man was everything conceived by what little perception of the world was gifted to him.

That man was the puppet master, he was but a doll in that macabre theatre. With one hand he offered hope in a plate, with the other, he took it away.

All was within his grasp.

“I will do anything you want… Just don't...”

“I don’t like using violence, Kayl. I’m not a savage. I asked you to come with me, I did not order you to.

But know that this here is not an illusion. I have given you a choice. A real choice. The choice to regain your life, the opportunity to enter a world you have never even dreamed of. I will extend my hand to you one last time and ask:

Do you wish to learn magic?"

“… Please, teach me"

The man smirked.

“As of now, our fates are intertwined”.