In the Depths of Applause
As he clapped, faint flickers of light—visible only to intuition—began to spread across the dark floor surrounding him and the computer, unnoticed.
He stopped abruptly, as if an invisible force had seized his hands. His face turned glassy, clouded, like thick fog obscuring meaning.
Weak words spilled from his lips, their tone wavering between caution and mockery:
"So... who are you?"
A suffocating silence filled the room. Even the faint static from the screen vanished. Then, the monitor shook violently, as if a silent earthquake had erupted beneath it.
A sardonic smile twisted Darin's lips as he caught the first reaction flashing before him. His voice steadied, relishing each word:
"You've walked into a flawless trap, my veiled 'sir'... Did you truly believe this was the ending you'd script for me?"
A rough voice answered, its tone laced with concealed doubt, echoing off the concrete walls:
"What exactly do you mean? You know full well who I am... I am—"
But Darin cut him off with feigned boredom, raising a hand as if halting an old myth. He yawned like a man tired of repetition:
"That stale dialogue? That I'm you—or some buried fragment you're desperately trying to forget? How trite... How utterly dull."
Leaning forward, his voice dripped with sarcasm:
"In the end, we both know all this ornate rhetoric and contrived symbolism is pointless..."
Before the other could retort, he added a cryptic line, laced with a cold, cruel laugh:
"Because the truth is... I am you. But you are not me."
No reply came. The silence was another stab at a wound still bleeding. The light in Darin's eyes dimmed, as if the glow of emotion had been snuffed out.
In a broken voice, heavy with betrayal, he whispered:
"You're cunning... Trying to hide what's already been veiled too late. Do you think silence will bury the truth? That I won't keep digging? Tell me—am I right?"
Suddenly, he screamed, as if the madness coiled inside him had finally ruptured:
"Answer me, you bastard! These chains... They weren't yours to forge, were they? All those tricks weren't to destroy me—but to dismantle the mask I wore unknowingly. Was your real goal to free me, not control me? Who planted those pathetic ambitions in my head? ANSWER ME! Stop this deceitful silence!"
He exhaled slowly, as if smothering an internal fire. Regaining composure, he spoke sharply, his words slicing the air:
"Answer me plainly... Do you seek to liberate me or dominate me? Or is there a higher purpose my 'humble' mind can't grasp?"
The reply came, calm yet weighted with truth:
"Correct... My aim was never liberation nor control. What I want lies deeper. I want to erase it."
Both froze, as if the shackles binding them had suddenly awakened—slaves bowing to an unseen master.
Darin spoke again, his words the last gasp of a crumbling mind:
"What do you mean? No riddles—say it plainly! If not control, why craft those tools with such precision, as if screaming 'I want to ruin you'? If not liberation, why strike at me, shattering my masks and shackles alike? To 'open my eyes'? Was it all just... to return me to my true self?"
The other ignored him. Instead, a hollow laugh erupted, as if from an abyss. Then, with venomous mockery:
"You want me to spoon-feed you like a child begging for milk? You ask what you half-know, pleading for the rest as if you're some fragile creature incapable of seeking answers. This weakness clinging to you... Was this the cost of your 'phase'? Pathetic."
Darin stiffened, his defenses shredded. Words failed him—even thought abandoned him.
The voice continued, soft yet razor-edged, each word a drop of poison:
"Look at you... Can't even move your lips. Where's the voice that once moved mountains? Or was it all just a shell—a mask hiding your frailty? You feign questions while knowing the answers, cowering behind a tattered cloak, even after I tore off the 'mask' you claimed was forced upon you. But you... grew to love it. That's the truth. You weren't enslaved. You chose it. And you want me to 'free' you? Why free someone who doesn't crave freedom?"
The words shattered something inside him, leaving him adrift between bitter truth and comfortable lies. Had he truly never fled his past? Had the chains become part of him?
Whispers of doubt swarmed like nightmares at death's door. Then, he muttered a question that tasted of mud:
"Am I really not running? I don't feel it... Yet his words ring true. There's... something dissonant."
Visions flickered—two faceless specters, familiar yet indistinct.
To the right: pure light, a serene being extending a hand, urging him to shed the past.
To the left: a shadow thick as smoke, featureless, suffocating, its bloodstained hand raised as if demanding:
"Confront—even if it destroys you."
Darin's laughter exploded, hysterical, the only release for the rot inside. Between gasps, his voice trembled with a grotesque smile:
"Hahaha... What a farce! One claims to 'break' me, yet insists it's to 'purge my filth'! The second, that hypocrite wrapped in light, pretends to be an angel, whispering of new beginnings—blind to the fact that he's the one who chained me! And the third... slaps me raw, no lies, no mercy, just a mirror to what I truly am. And you expect me to CHOOSE?!"
With each word, pulses of light ignited in the darkness, scattering like embers over barren ground, syncing with his faltering soul—yet their meaning eluded him.
He lifted his head, despair carving his voice:
"Are you really me? Or just hallucinations meant to tear me apart?"
No answer came. A dead world, where all solutions had shattered like glass beneath despair's heel.
He no longer cared—about pain, about madness gnawing at his mind. Only one truth remained, bitter as poison.
A black smile curled his lips as he whispered to the void:
"I never even had the right to ask... I was just a slave bound by ready-made answers. I hid from my own reflection behind bleeding questions. Here I am. If you want the splintered words that scar truth... take them. You've earned them."
The world awaited his final spark—the one that would burn delusions to ash.
A stray light flared, its glow piercing the dark like a fiery blade. His voice erupted, a suppressed scream:
"I CHOOSE MYSELF—the spark that trapped you all in this existential cell like a herd of fools!"
With a gaze barren as death's desert, a shadow tainted by sins dissolved, as if finding its end.
A thunderous voice boomed:
"What trickery is this?! You spout words like you hold the universe's secrets?! You're just a prisoner among slave-corpses—how DARE you spew this rot?!"
Darin didn't flinch. He was done with this toxic, meaningless cycle.
Pointing at a shadow glowing like a bloodied sun, he hissed:
"Why craft these wretched masks and chains? You painted our path to ruin with lies, turned freemen into puppets trembling at their past. Expect us to worship hollow delusions? Never. Truth will rise from the ash—and you... my veiled self, the one I hated to admit... YOU'LL REMAIN!"
Suddenly, heavy footsteps neared, hammering like nails into a coffin.
A warm, guileless smile materialized. A voice from behind the screen, lifelike oxygen to a dead lung:
"Go on, tell him. Or will you cling to bitter silence? Ah... I forgot. I hid you in his mind for this moment."
Darin spun, disoriented. Lights flared, forming a ritual circle etched with an incomprehensible symbol: three faces—a scarred 16-horned devil (left), a skyward-gazing angel (right), and a blindfolded man (center).
As the symbol appeared, chains shattered. A strange peace washed over him—one he'd thought lost.
Then, ancient laughter slithered from the grave:
"At last... I have you, parasite! Now we can be our true selves, reflecting these shackles onto YOU. How I've missed freedom!"
Confusion gripped him. Had he just freed his tormentor? One question burned:
"What were those last garbled words that plunged the room into darkness?"
The answer came, mad with joy:
"The lights won't fade! Celebrate our rebirth—this leap upward will bring your answer!"
Words poured from his right like funeral dirges. Darin froze, drenched in cold sweat, his heart constricting.
The other, indifferent, roared as broken chains yanked him back:
"How did you get here? Why NOW? You were a fragment on the edge of death—while we stand at our final dawn, ■■■."
Before he finished, his voice was dragged into oblivion.
A fog-faced figure turned to Darin, smiling as it faded, lips moving slowly:
"Live your life... and leave the past behind."
Darin, gathering strength, locked eyes with him. The figure's tongue flicked like a black mamba's, its words deadlier than venom:
"That simple? No fight, no tightening chains—unlike the last one. Do you really think this'll vanish like a passing cloud?"
The specter stared, then replied, scattering Darin's arrogance like leaves in a storm:
"Clever as ever... but not this time. Lower your eyes—and you'll see."
Darin shuddered. He obeyed.
Tremors wracked him, as if bathing his wounds in poisoned herbs. The ritual circle and lights were gone. Only slow footsteps echoed.
A glint in his pupils revealed a sliver of gray. The shackles crumbled to ash, swirling like autumn leaves in a distorted void—then coalescing into a grinning clown's mask.
It latched onto his face. He clawed at it, screaming at the vanished foe:
"Don't think I'll accept this insult! Even if you erase my memory, my soul will recall every second! I'll uncover you all—even if it kills me! Remember that, you parasitic bastards!"
With a drowning man's strength, he tore half the mask away. Shards scattered like forgotten dreams, melting into oily, ashen streaks.
Suddenly, the wind's whistle cut off—replaced by violent knocking. A child's voice pierced the isolation:
"Darin!"
The world blurred like desert heat. He shut his eyes. When they opened, he was face-down on the ground, the taste of mud in his mouth.
The door burst open. A furious little girl glared:
"Is this nap time?! I've been waiting forever!"
He ignored her, scanning the room with hollow eyes, as if deciphering a lost code.
Her anger flared at his silence. As she drew breath to yell, his voice rasped like rusted wood:
"Quiet. Do you want answers or just a chance to spout idiocy? I hate this childish nonsense in you."