Every hundred years, I form a thought, a phrase, a fragment of philosophy to avoid going mad. On the hundredth anniversary of my imprisonment, I murmured:
"Eternity is the cruelest punishment for those who seek movement. For the static is not perfection, but death disguised as gold."
On the second century, another reflection came:
"The angels dance in circles, but they do not question who wrote the music. And we, who fell, might just be off-key notes in a symphony we will never understand."
Now, on the third century of my prison:
"Suffering is the file that sharpens the soul; and the longer the pain, the sharper the cut. However, heaven does not allow us to cut anything, only to be torn apart by our own inertia."
On the fourth century:
"The silence of heaven is deafening. It does not speak to us, but demands that we listen. Perhaps it is not heaven that is at rest, but we who cannot decipher the echoes of eternity."
On the fifth:
"The angels sing hymns, prayers, that speak of freedom, but are unaware of their chains. God kept me here simply because I wanted the salvation of all, maybe He is right. It is not perfection that weighs, but the emptiness of never being able to choose. To be imperfect is, perhaps, the greatest gift the Divine has given us, and the greatest thing taken from us here."
Sixth:
"Just as gold is tested by fire, the spirit is tested by waiting. But what becomes of gold when the fire never dies? It is no longer refined – it merely consumes itself slowly in its empty shine."
Eighth:
"Heaven is a poem without stanzas, a painting without contrasts. Here, everything is the same, everything is perfect. But perfection is the greatest of all prisons, for it leaves the soul hungry for something that cannot be created: error, change, movement."
Ninth:
"Philosophy holds the walls, but the tedium of heaven corrodes its pillars. And yet, the question remains: if I am so small, why does the universe care to imprison me? Perhaps it is because even the smallest speck of dust can blind the most divine eye."
A millennium then passed:
"Do you see how heaven, in its immovable perfection, is also a gilded cage? We are nothing more than seeds enclosed in divine earth, unable to sprout, while eternity watches us in silence, waiting for us to become something we will never comprehend."
And then, another phrase forms in my mind:
"Change is not made of strength, but of intention. The true 'alchemist' does not turn lead into gold, but himself. And perhaps heaven is merely a mirror, waiting for my mind to see beyond its blinding lights."
However, I am not just a philosopher. I am a man, with desires, weaknesses, anger. This prison is not just a test of patience; it is a punishment that forces me to face all that I am and all that I cannot be.
My existence is a paradox. Here I am, in heaven, surrounded by perfection, yet unable to touch it. I witness divine greatness, but feel in my chest the weight of doubt and revolt. Why were we created with flaws? Why is free will the rope that hangs us? If the angels are perfect, why do they not envy our freedom to err? Or perhaps, deep down, they envy us, and heaven is simply their silent prison.
I remain imprisoned, reflecting, resisting. I do not know how much longer it will be until I find an escape, but I know that, as long as my mind is active, as long as I can create thoughts, there will still be a part of me that heaven cannot imprison.
And so, I murmur one more phrase to the void:
"Light can blind as much as it illuminates, and perhaps the true challenge is not bearing the weight of heaven, but learning to see it through the shadows it casts."
With clenched teeth, I bent my head toward my arm. The bite was slow, almost ritualistic, as if the pain was a door I needed to cross. The skin gave under the pressure, and the metallic taste filled my mouth. Warm blood began to drip from my chin, falling onto the filthy floor of the cage.
I raised my arm, letting the red liquid drip down my fingers until it accumulated at the tip of one. The cage wall was cold and unrelenting, but my blood marked it like a brush on a raw canvas. My hands trembled as I wrote, but I did not hesitate. It was not a common phrase, nor a cry of despair. It was a manifesto.
"I am the void, and the void is me, but I never desired this, after all... no one would desire to be invisible."
The words, simple, seemed to vibrate on the metallic surface. Each letter, marked by my blood, was a piece of something deeper than I would ever admit. As I looked at the circle I drew next to the words—a circle incomplete, a symbol of everything that is missing, everything that will never be whole—I felt a pain that did not come from the bite, nor from the blood I was losing. It was something more. Something that gnawed at me from the inside.
I shifted my gaze and, in doing so, found Naka's eyes, in the cage beside me. She watched me in silence, but her gaze was a mirror, an open wound. It was as if she challenged me, without words, to confront what I never wanted to admit. Her existence there, so fragile and so human, was a cruel reminder of what I would never be.
I felt the weight on my chest before I even realized what was happening. It was as if something dense, something larger than me, was accumulating in every corner of my soul—if I still had one. The void, my old companion, now seemed to revolt, tearing me apart from the inside, trying to escape a body that was never meant to hold it.
My eyes burned. At first, I thought it was the dry blood in the cage, the rusty smell saturating the air. But then, something warm ran down my face. It was not sweat. It was not blood.
It was tears.
For a moment, I stood still, staring at the floor as if the act of crying was a desecration of what I was, of what I had always been. But it was not weakness. It was not surrender. It was... inevitable.
The sobs came like a silent torrent, uncontrollable, but carrying something I could not name. Each tear that fell was like a piece of the void dissolving, evaporating, transforming into something I had never allowed to exist.
I screamed. It wasn't just a scream, it was a tear in my very existence. My throat shredded, each sound a piece of me breaking off and getting lost in the void. I didn't know who I was anymore, or if I ever was anyone. Everything around me faded, and the only thing left was the echo of my own pain.
I twisted, as if my body knew there was no escape. My muscles were tight, trying to break free from an invisible prison, but in truth, I was the prison. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to vanish. But deep down, I knew the pain never goes away. It just takes on new forms.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" I screamed, but the words vanished into the air, as if they had never left me. No one was left to hear. No one to save me. I wasn't asking for help anymore. I was screaming into the abyss, because the abyss had already taken root inside me. The agony became part of my being, as if I were the very embodiment of suffering. There was no light left, only the darkness of what I had become.
Then the tears began to fall. They weren't just tears. They were a desperate attempt to wash away something I knew could never be erased. Crying is a way of dying bit by bit, of leaving behind what cannot be fixed. But I didn't know if I wanted to fix it. I just wanted the pain to stop. And it wouldn't.
I saw myself sinking, trapped in what I never wanted to be. The worst part isn't the pain, it's the realization that it's become a part of who you are. And I didn't know how to live with it anymore.
"Is this what I am?" I murmured, my voice hoarse, fragile, but still mine. "A reflection, a distortion, a grotesque imitation of what I could have been?"
The tears did not make me smaller. They did not make me less empty. On the contrary, it was as if now I carried the weight of what I had always tried to ignore: the humanity I had rejected, the humanity I despised, but which, somehow, had always been there, latent, buried.
I ran my hands over my face, as if trying to erase the marks of it, but the tears kept flowing. I raised my gaze to the walls of the cage, to the words I had written with my own blood, and something within me stirred.
"Crying does not make me weak," I whispered, staring at the unfinished symbol I had drawn. "Crying makes me real. And, perhaps, this is the strongest I have ever been."
And as the tears fell, I did not feel shame. I did not feel defeat. I felt only the vastness of the void transforming. I was still the same, but now... now it had a bitter taste. A taste that perhaps, for the first time, was genuinely human.
For the first time, I felt something I never knew I could feel. It was not regret. It was not guilt. It was the brutal and overwhelming desire to be human. Not for the simple act of existing, but for my inability to accept—suffer, love, be whole.
I approached the symbol I had drawn, touching it with the tip of my bloodied fingers. The blood was already starting to dry, but what it represented seemed to pulse on the cold surface of the cage.
"Maybe the void is all I am," I whispered, my voice so low I could barely hear myself. "But now... now I want to be less. I want to feel the absence of something. I want... to exist."
The words echoed in my mind as the silence of the prison closed in around me. I didn't know if I was closer to escaping or to losing myself forever. But, at that moment, something within me broke, and for the first time, I didn't care to fix it.
Millennia passed.
Time in the prison did not flow like in the world I left behind. Here, each instant felt like eternity, each thought a burden, each memory a blade that cut without mercy. It was not just the isolation that tore me apart—it was the silence. An oppressive, absolute silence that allowed no escape or refuge. But silence teaches, even if forcefully.
In the first centuries, my mind was trapped in a spiral of revolt and despair. I cursed the Creator, the angels, the sins, Naka, and even myself. Later, when the curses lost their power, I was overtaken by apathy. I lost the desire to fight, the desire to feel. Only the crushing weight of inertia remained. And then, something changed.
In the silence, I understood. The improper execution is more tolerable than inaction. Rest destroys more than movement. Even stones, immobile for centuries, succumb to time and turn to dust. I was a stone, wearing down slowly because I refused to act.
I realized that my prison was not just one of light, but of my own mind. I had allowed my will to be consumed. Time, this relentless executioner, would not free me. Only I could do that.
I spent millennia learning. Observing. Reflecting. There were no books in this prison, but my memory was my library. I reread the texts I had consumed on Earth, the treatises of alchemy, the philosophies, the myths. I found meaning in the words that had once been merely theories: Solve et Coagula—dissolve to recreate. It was not just the motto of alchemy. It was the cycle of existence. It was the key to escape.
Over the centuries, I worked in the invisible forge of my mind. I refined my doubts, shaped my certainties. The alchemy I performed here was not with metals or physical substances. It was with my soul. Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo—death, purification, illumination. These were not just stages of transformation, but stages of understanding.
And now, here I stand.
Standing, before the light that once imprisoned me. I feel the weight of the chains on my wrists, but I am no longer a slave to them. They are symbols, remnants of who I was, not of who I am now. Resolution has freed me.
"Why did you take so long?" The angel's voice echoes around me, as impassive as it was the day I was condemned. He stands before me, his wings shining like a thousand suns, but I don't look away. Not anymore.
"Because I didn't know what I was seeking," I reply, my voice firm. "And you knew that. You knew I would need all this time to understand. Not to change who I am, but to accept it. There is no greater strength than that of one who accepts their place in the world and still dares to challenge it."
The angel watches me, and for a moment, I almost believe I see something in his expression—approval, perhaps, or something deeper. He raises his sword of light, the same one that once pierced me, and cuts the chains around me. They fall to the ground, but they don't disappear. They remain, like witnesses to what was.
"You are free," he declares, but there's a warning in his voice. "Free to return, but not to destroy. The next time you cross the line, there will be no prison. Only the end."
I stare at him, but say nothing. Words are unnecessary. He knows I understand.
As I leave the prison, I feel the weight of millennia on my shoulders, but also a lightness I've never known before. Naka and the sins are behind me. I can't save them, and that pains me, but I know my journey is not over yet.
And I find myself whispering a final phrase, a truth that took millennia to forge:
"Those who hesitate are doomed to be consumed by their own inertia. It is not perfection that sets us free. It is movement, decision, action."
Now, I walk again, not as one searching for answers, but as one who has finally understood the question.