The air was heavy, laden with the dust of a forgotten path that seemed to lead nowhere. Beneath a washed-out sky, devoid of color and purpose, the world stretched out in an suffocating monotony. There was no trace of life, no birdsong, no whispers of foliage. Only the sound of his steps, dragged and slow, as if the weight of each of his nine lives was pressing down on him.
The man walked aimlessly. Not because he was searching for something, but because stopping made no difference. The earth beneath his feet was cracked and dry, as if it had been abandoned by the very essence that had left his soul. Everything was the same. Everything was empty.
He stopped in front of a dead tree, a petrified specter with bare branches reaching toward the sky like hands asking for an answer. For a moment, he let his gaze rest on the horizon. But there was nothing there, not even hope.
"How many more lives?"
The thought was a familiar echo, repeated so many times that it had lost its force. He had stopped trying to find an answer. Every attempt to understand his fate had been crushed, and now there was only the bitter acceptance of the inevitable. He had been a villain in all his past lives, doomed to be hated, feared, to fall again and again at the hands of heroes. He had tried to change, yes, but always returned to the same point: betrayal, destruction, and, in the end, death.
The wind raised a cloud of dust that made him squint. It was a reminder of how little his existence mattered. He slowly opened one hand, looking at the scars that marked it. They weren't from this life; he knew that. They were the ghosts of past lives, imprinted on him in ways he couldn't erase.
He closed his fist indifferently. He felt nothing.
A memory flashed through him like a lightning bolt: a sword sinking into his chest, the hatred in the eyes of the one holding it. Then, another fragment: shouts of joy as he fell, his body crushed against a cold, hard ground. Blurry images of faces, enemies and allies he could no longer distinguish. Everything was the same, an endless repetition that had worn him down until he was numb.
He had tried to fight against destiny in his first life. He had tried to accept it in the second. In the third, he challenged it with fury. But now, in this tenth existence, there was nothing left. His soul was like the landscape: barren, devoid of color, waiting for the end without resistance.
A soft noise pulled him from his trance. Footsteps. At first, he ignored them, thinking it was a passing hallucination. But the footsteps continued, approaching cautiously. When he finally lifted his gaze, he saw a woman.
Her figure was framed by the gray sky, her dark hair gently waving in the wind. There was something familiar about her, something that made a distant echo stir in his mind. Her face was not new. It had been there before, in another life, with another form, another purpose. In one of those lives, she had been his enemy. He had fallen by her hand, or he by hers. He didn't remember the details; only the shadow of that confrontation remained.
"You've changed," the woman said, her voice soft, almost a whisper.
He didn't respond. His gaze lingered on her for a moment before returning to the ground. His silence was a barrier, a wall he didn't even try to defend. He had no reason to speak, no curiosity, no interest in what she had to say.
The woman took one more step forward, leaving a cautious distance between them. There was something in her eyes that he didn't want to recognize: a mixture of regret and compassion. Both feelings seemed useless to him.
"I've come because…" she hesitated, searching for words she couldn't find. "Because I want to understand."
He let out a short, dry laugh, devoid of emotion. "Understand?" The word seemed absurd to him. No one understood. Not even he could understand anymore.
"There's nothing to understand," he replied, his voice low, almost a murmur that the wind could have carried away.
The woman fell silent, but didn't leave. She remained there, watching him with an intensity that he found uncomfortable, though not enough to make him move. Finally, she placed something on the ground between them: a simple ceramic cup, with steaming tea whose warm aroma broke, if only for a moment, the monotony of the air. The scent awakened a buried memory. Something inside him trembled, something so small that he barely noticed it.
"It doesn't matter."
"I'm not looking to change you," she said finally, breaking the silence. Her tone was as serene as the wind. "But I can't ignore what I've seen. What you've suffered."
He raised his gaze for a moment, and his empty eyes met hers. What he saw in her expression puzzled him. It wasn't pity, nor contempt. It was something deeper, something he couldn't define.
"I don't want your pity," he replied in a rough voice.
She nodded, as if she expected that response. But she didn't leave. For a long moment, she stood there in silence, while the tea between them continued to release its steam.
Finally, the woman turned and began to walk away. Before disappearing completely, she dropped a few words that followed him long after she had gone:
"Maybe you don't want anything. But that doesn't mean you can't find something."
He closed his eyes, letting the wind wrap around him again. Inside him, a tiny spark, almost imperceptible, flickered. It wasn't hope, nor regret. Just a light discomfort, like the echo of an emotion he had forgotten long ago.
He didn't recognize her. And he didn't want to.