The journey began with Sofis joining a band of treasure hunters. The journey was now about to end with Sofis alone, if one were to exclude the woman that guided her up the flights of stairs towards the Sanctuary.

Somewhere in her mind, Sofis wished this was only a dream. She wished she was still in Academia Historica with her research, studying lost civilisations and their forgotten impact on the current era. She wished she was still buried in her books, never taking up the opportunity to visit some ruins in person. She wished her supervisor had rejected her proposal, instead leaving her to focus on her existing expertise.

Of course, these were merely just wishful thinking on her part. She was now following a woman whom she didn’t know the origins nor the name of, ascending these stairs towards what should’ve been the final goal of her and an entire band of treasure hunters. Instead, she was to reap the rewards alone, enjoying a lonesome victory after an adventure in which she had no way to return.

‘Say, what are you expecting at the end of this journey?’ the woman asked.

Sofis had no answer. She couldn’t give an answer. She couldn’t even think of an answer. At this point, she wasn’t really expecting anything. She originally joined to conduct research. Her tools and the items collected were all gone. The people she came with were all gone. Even if she were to receive their reward at the end, it meant nothing for her.

It was ultimately a meaningless journey.

They reached the end of the stairs. The hall they entered into was a pitch black box, illuminated by light that shone through a cross-shaped slit. It was eerily silent, a strange solace after an adventure filled with noise and chaos. There were rows of wooden benches to sit on, but no one to occupy them. The wavy ground was like a black sea, its depths unable to be ascertained with their limited visibility. There were no treasure or artefacts to be found, only a mass of empty space and darkness pierced by a bit of light.

The woman sat on a bench at the front row, sitting as close to the light as possible. Sofis, naturally, sat next to her, waiting for whatever was to come.

‘What exactly are we waiting for?’ Sofis inquired.

There was no answer.

They sat and waited. Sofis slept, woke up, slept, woke up, slept, and woke up again. After an uncountable amount of cycles, they were still waiting for something that was to come. Moments felt like eternities, eternities felt like moments. The concept of time no longer existed in her head. She didn’t age. She felt no hunger or thirst. She did sleep, not because of fatigue but because of boredom. Everything just felt so still and peaceful, as if the waiting itself was a kind of reward.

At some point, the silence became too much for Sofis. She had no idea when that was. One moment she was resting and waiting, the next moment she had become restless and agitated.

She turned towards the woman who was probably a lot more used to the waiting than she was. ‘Can you tell me something about yourself while we wait?’

The woman continued to stare at the light. ‘Sure.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I had many identities before I was formed. I was a young girl, a mature mother and an ageing grandmother all at the same time. I was a warrior, a scholar, a ruler, a slave, a teacher, a scholar, but I was never fully rooted to any single role. I had many names, but none I could use to define myself. I possessed many faces, none of which were particularly fitting in the beginning. The incarnation you see of me right now is but my current form. When I change my form, I will have no awareness until I am made aware. I am made to be perfect but also flawed, beautiful but also ugly, fleeting but also timeless.’

‘Then… who are you?’

‘I am whatever my Creator, my Fate, my Lord determines me to be. For I am his first Protagonist.’

The woman’s eyes glittered as the light briefly passed by her face. Sofis thought she saw an amalgamation of many different faces, each appearing no more than a split moment before it passed.

‘All of these are my reality. None of them are fake, for they have all existed at some point, formed and moulded by the Creator. The personality which I present to you is the only one, but also one of many personalities I am given. Whatever the Creator requires for me, that is what I am.’

‘Are you not then a slave without personality?’

‘I am a slave. From my creation I am a slave. But it doesn’t mean I lack a personality. It is given to me as a gift, ingrained within me as a part of who I am. For even if I do not know exactly who I am, my Creator does.’

‘And you simply accept this because you are told you are?’

‘Because it is the truth. You are a seeker of knowledge and truth, are you not, Sofis? The truth is that I am who he says I am. By definition, I am a slave. But I am a slave created in his image, a beautiful creation crafted as a Protagonist, to set an example for the world which he has created for my stewardship.’

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‘If you are the Protagonist, then is it not unfair to those who are not Protagonists?’

‘Whether it is unfair is not up for us to judge. If we are able to judge, then we have become Creators in our own right. But we are obviously not.’

‘Have you not considered the possibility that a Creator simply doesn’t exist?’

‘I have not, for the Creator has shown himself to me, just as he will to you.’

‘And how are you sure he is the Creator? Because he told you so? Will I accept an idiot as sovereign just because they claimed to be?’

‘You will know when he has chosen to reveal himself to you, and that he has allowed you to know. I am blessed, chosen by him to be his first Protagonist. I am, in essence, his original creation. But even still, I only understand him to the extent that he reveals himself to me. This Sanctuary is a holy place to communicate with him, and you are blessed to have this opportunity. Whether you accept or reject him, in the end that is his plan.’

‘Is it not cruel to predetermine my fate to reject him? Is it not better for me to be predetermined to accept him?’

‘There will always be some that are rejected so that others can be accepted. Us Protagonists are special because we hold a special bond with him, created to be as close to him as possible. If everyone is a Protagonist, then there are no Protagonists, only… people, with nothing to separate the blank slates that represent us.’

‘Then is it still cruel for some to be chosen not to be Protagonists?’

‘Think of your journey so far. I do not understand the full extent of the meaning of your journey, but every step has a meaning the Creator intends to put down. Your journey is different to mine, just as mine is different to Avalel’s. At the end of everything, your purpose is defined by the Creator, and all you are is a special character treasured by the Creator himself.’

‘In the end, you are just the same as Avalel, saying the same things to me in hopes that I’d be convinced into surrendering myself for an unfair Creator. You seem to be more reserved, but at the core, you two are the same.’

‘Who are you to say he is unfair? Who are you, a creation that would not even exist without the Creator, to say that he is unfair?’

‘Well, then it is better for me to not exist at all if my entire purpose is to obey him in servitude. Do you have any idea how much I struggled, suffered and persevered throughout this journey? Is the Creator so sadistic to the point where he’d allow suffering to happen to his “special” Protagonist to fulfil some flawed grand plan of his?’

‘And who are you, a creation never able to comprehend his grand plan, to say that his grand plan is flawed?’

‘My point is that rather than an all-powerful Creator who supposedly has everything under his thumb, yet creates flaws and chaos in the world for his plan, it is more logical to believe in the lack of such Creator, for only then is the state of this world able to be explained.’

‘If this is the conclusion you have reached while having seen the Creator and experienced his works on you, then I have nothing more to say. In the end, you believe you know best because that is what you are familiar with and it is the best explanation for your own experiences. I believe in my Creator who knows what’s best for me because I can have peace trusting in his plan.’

‘And it is more responsible to actively believe in the importance and consequences of my own choices than sitting back and surrendering one’s fate to a distant Creator, if he even exists.’

The woman became silent for a while, returning to just blankly staring at the light. Sofis was frankly disappointed in the conversation which sounded oddly similar to the one she had with Avalel. Creator this, Creator that… She had seen Temia kill the ‘Creator’ before her eyes. Whoever that boy was, claiming to be some all-powerful authority, was nothing more than a fraud. That, or he was absolutely insane.

The woman suddenly stood up. Before Sofis could react, a sword was pointed at her throat, along with four black blades which pointed at various vital organs in her torso.

‘What are you—’

‘Do you believe in the Creator?’

‘What?’

‘Do you believe in the Creator?’ The blades pressed closer, poking Sofis’ skin.

‘What are you doing?’ Sofis was panicking now. The woman just changed all of a sudden, her eyes filled with the desire to kill.

‘Answer my question.’

‘I… I…’

‘Answer me!’ The woman’s roar echoed throughout the Sanctuary. Sofis was in such fear she couldn’t even speak properly. Her mouth trembled and shook at the violent might of the woman, her mind instantly surrendering in defeat.

‘I… I do.’

The blades disappeared. The sword faded away. In an instant, the woman was back to her usual self as if nothing had happened. Sofis sat in shock, unable to comprehend the past few moments that just transpired.

‘I understand this answer means nothing to your core beliefs,’ the woman said apathetically. ‘But you have shown me one thing: despite claiming to have responsibility over the consequences of your choices, you buckle to my demand as soon as your life’s on the line.’

Sofis looked away in silence. The woman was correct. For all the bravado, she had surrendered and collapsed under extreme pressure on her life.

It wasn’t that she’d face this pressure on a daily basis. It took her completely off guard, the moment being too fast for her to even think. Everything was against her so that she would give a false confession of her beliefs.

But it nonetheless proved the woman’s point.

‘You are a slave, just like I am. The difference is simply that you are a slave to your mortal life,’ the woman continued, her tone unchanged. ‘You couldn’t decide for yourself the moment your life became in jeopardy.’

In the Sanctuary, by definition a safe haven, perhaps the safest place in the entire world, Sofis’ mental defences were completely breached and defeated.

The woman didn’t gloat over her victory. She simply sat back down and waited, as if the exchange had never happened.

Sofis had no idea what went inside the woman’s mind at that very moment. She had no idea what was happening inside her own mind. Everything went blank for her. She couldn’t think. The single thing she had in her arsenal she could no longer use.

She wondered if this was how an animal felt in their daily life, following their instincts without any thought. She, nothing more than a clothed ape, sat in total defeat. She had survived traps, poison, fantastical creatures, emptiness and many other things, only to be defeated by a fellow ape.

Sofis had achieved victory and passed every hall thus far. But in the Sanctuary, the final destination of her meaningless journey, she was finally defeated.