Chapter Nine: "The Other World"
Azar stood motionless, his eyes closed, his heart pounding as if it were challenging time itself. The lights of the world around him began to fade, as if everything was dissolving into the void. The world was no longer as it had been; neither the shadows, nor the blinding light, nor the scorpions' whispers in his mind—there was only one thing constant: a strange sensation of emptiness, as if the universe itself had been erased.
The voice that had accompanied him throughout his journey, the voice that had urged him forward, was now fading as well. It had disappeared completely, like an illusion from the past. Everything felt like a mere illusion, borrowed from a mind that no longer knew what it was.
Then, he felt something unexpected. The ground beneath his feet trembled as if it were about to collapse. His mind spiraled in an endless whirlpool, and he slowly observed what was happening to him. How had things ended up like this? How had he become trapped between incomprehensible dimensions?
Then came the deep voice, this time different. It carried no mysterious or perplexing tone, but something calm, as if reminding him of something forgotten:
"Azar... are you ready to understand the truth?"
Azar slowly opened his eyes. The world around him was entirely new. No shadows, no blinding light, no dark images his thoughts had returned to. There was something entirely different. Before him was a distorted image of a family photo, one he had never seen before. It was a picture of him as a child, sitting in an old house, far from everything. He was in that photo, with people smiling at him. None of them seemed unfamiliar. Azar saw them as if they were part of distant memories.
Then, suddenly, the truth hit his mind with force. This world wasn't real. There was no other world. He wasn't merely a hero in an adventure full of power and shadows. Everything was just a dream.
But what about the Guardian? What about his journey? What about all these struggles? Had they all been mere illusions?
"You are now in another world, Azar. A world you've never seen before. Everything you've lived through... has been a mere illusion." The voice came again, but this time it was closer, clearer.
Azar felt as though the ground beneath his feet was vanishing, and the world around him seemed to fade into the air. He was floating in the void, unable to hold onto anything, unable to comprehend what was happening.
"But how?" he asked softly, as if his words were barely hanging in the air. "How could this be?"
"Everything began when you were in that room, when the Guardian took you from the shadows. Everything happened after you left your original world. What you experienced, the power you gained, the journeys you undertook... they were all a figment of your mind."
Azar struggled to believe what he was hearing. How could everything that had happened be just a dream? He recalled the moments he had endured, fighting to survive, facing challenges, achieving victories. Had all of these moments been mere nightmares or fleeting fantasies?
Then, as if his mind had opened another door, images began to flood before him. They were images from his life, before all of this began. He was a child in his bed, his body exhausted, fainting. His image appeared on a hospital bed, breathing laboriously. Yet, there was a strange look in his eyes, as though he knew something no one else did.
In that moment, he came to the answer: He had actually died.
The Big Revelation: When the Guardian had carried him in the first chapter, it wasn't to save him from danger. It was to transport him to another world, a world parallel to his mind. This world that Azar had experienced was merely the "paradise" his mind had created moments before he passed away. His journey had all been part of the process of "rebuilding" his mind, as if trying to face himself and reassemble his fractured personality in a fictional world.
And in the end, Azar was confronted with the greatest truth. The world he had lived in, and everything he had seen, was merely an extended dream after his death. The experience he went through was his mind's attempt to understand the "fear" of the unknown, a way of calming itself before the inevitable death.
And at that moment, just before the dimensions of this world collapsed, Azar began to fall, as if the ground beneath him was crumbling for the final time.
But... was he really in a dream? Or was death the final stage?