I awakened in a dark cellar, seeing the symbols I had seen earlier in the book. I was baffled, and I couldn't feel my body as if I were inside someone else's head.
Despite the fact that I am in an enclosed cell with a rusted iron door in front of me, I can hear children crying and chains rattling around me.
I attempted to act on my own by kicking my feet and moving my arms, but it didn't work.
I heard footsteps approaching my cellar. The lock broke, and the door flew open. Three men barged into the room, charging towards me.
"What did you tell the public, you son of a bitch?! " One of the men said as he grabbed my face, causing me to fall off the chair.
Confounded, I attempted to throw a punch but realized I couldn't move and recalled that I had just slept in my room earlier.
The men shackled my neck and arms and tossed me out of the cell. I've seen faces I'm not familiar with there. They were imprisoned in the cells outside the room where I had awoken.
They dragged me away while the people looked on in despair. They were powerless to intervene.
"This man is hoping to prove something. Over my dead body, of course! Ha-ha-ha! ", the same man from earlier laughed as he let go of me and kicked me in the face.
Because almost all of my senses aren't working, I just let it be. I had only my eyes and my brain to process what I had seen.
The men dragged me to another cellar, which was well-lit and appeared to be larger.
"You're not going to die quickly and painlessly, Heron. You've betrayed us!" exclaimed one of the three men.
When I heard the name Heron, I realized I'd been dreaming. I'm not sure if this was based on a true event or my imagination.
Alas, we arrived in the cellar that I had been seeing while being dragged. There was a woman tied up on a chair, naked down to her toes.
"HERON? NO—!" ", the woman screamed as I was being escorted out of the room.
One of the men grabbed her neck and began molesting her. My eyes couldn't take the sight and I wanted to move, but I was in a dream.
Heron, the man I've been watching from, bowed his head and begged them to stop. The men just laughed at him and carried on with what they were doing to the woman.
After a while, they threw the woman in front of Heron, who was covered in their load.
The woman's body was exhausted, and she was struggling to breathe. One of the men even grabbed her hair and spat in her face.
"You whore, this is what our women went through!", the man said as he threw the poor woman to the ground.
Heron was dragged back, and another horror unfolded in front of him.
The muzzle of a rifle was pointed at the woman's head, and the trigger was pulled, severing half of her face. Heron's expression appears to be one of laughter among the men.
"Do you feel your blood boiling, Heron? There's more to come!"
The men lifted the woman up, tying her arms to the ceiling, and molested her once more.
"Her dead body makes it even hotter, you were lucky, Heron!"
Soon, they came to a halt and began beating the dead woman's body with what appeared to be 12-inch steel pipes. One of them caught her eye several times. She had been mutilated.
My mind gradually recalled the sentences I had read in that book. What I've read is exactly what's going on right now.
"I... will... kill... you all!" " I overheard Heron desperately yelling these words.
The men burst out laughing and dragged him beside the woman, pretending to take a photograph.
They pulled Heron outside what appeared to be a prison after mentally tearing him apart. A large crowd witnessed Heron being dragged to the center.
"This is Heron Kierseval; he leaked information about our whereabouts to the public, and he will be killed in front of all of our people! This is why the Ordeal exists! He is the true embodiment of evil, a true sinner at God's feet! " A man from behind announced as he walked to the front, drawing a longsword.
The crowd applauded as if it were normal to see people slaughtered in front of them.
"Be not dismayed, our people! His lovely wife, Illara, has been punished severely! Their newborn child was gobbled up by the wolves!"
Heron's vision gradually blurs as the crowd cheers him on.
He was tethered to a log in the center.
The man with the longsword cut Heron's ears and fed them to him. The longsword then pierced his chest, inflicting excruciating pain and causing his vision to black out.
After a brief lapse, his vision returned, and the man joyfully announced the crowd.
"A sinner does not die instantly! The Gods rejected his soul and demanded that we destroy it again!"
Chains were wrapped around him and he was being hauled from behind.
A child of about five years old was brought up to the center and was ordered to impale Heron for betraying them.
The defenseless child slashed his throat with the dagger and fled. The man who ripped Heron's ears off praised him.
The audience and the men slowly became impatient after the torture he forced to endure.
"We must put an end to him now, once and for all! Viere! Set!"
A loaded rifle was pointed at his face by a man who was smiling at him.
Heron was blown away by the rifle, and I couldn't see anything after that. I was scared to death.
Once again, I heard the same voice that spoke to me in the library.
"Once you discover the truth... you bear responsibility for the fruit."
In the pitch-black space I was in, I tried to yell, "WHO AND WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS?"
The same voice responded, which shocked me even more.
"I am who you are. You are cursed to meet the same fate as I did. I'm Heron Kierseval, and I'm the same person you are now, eight centuries ago! It's up to you, sinner, to take the initiative. You're sick of luxury and the misery people went through!"
I was at a loss for words. I believe it's all coincidental, and it's all because I was thinking too much about the book I'd read. This is all a misjudgment.
From a distance, a silhouette of a man's back appears; he gradually turned around and stared at me.
I began to realize how similar we were from head to toe. This man is me, but he appears to be in a world of stress.
The man in front of me smirked. I decked out and woke up from my bed to hear a knock on the door. I glanced at the clock before standing up; it was three o'clock in the morning, an hour before I usually wake up and begin my day.