Days slip by, one after another, blending. The light from outside fades in and out, too fast to hold onto. I lie here, motionless, feeling warmth from the floor beneath me—a sharp contrast to the cold in my body. It’s as though I'm lying in the sun.

I decide to rise. When I try to look around, my vision is overwhelmed by shifting darkness and light. Shapes swirl, and edges blur. A storm seems to pulse through my sight, seizing and releasing, and each wave brings a new stab of pain from my eyes.

Slowly, my vision clears, and a tall, dark figure stands in the center of the room. Slender, dressed in a dapper black suit, with a cane in one hand and a bowler hat tipped just so. I stand, looking at him, though I have no idea where I am. He begins to move toward me.

A cold embrace—a chill known only to those who linger at the door of some great beyond. He holds me close as if I were a long-lost friend. My body stiffens, rejecting his embrace, and he steps back. I search for his face, but there are no features—just a haze, a shifting void, yet somehow warm.

I try to speak, but the words stick in my throat. His gloved hand rises in a gentle command for silence. He places it on my shoulder, and a cold, sharp pain cuts down my arm. I look down, expecting blood, but there is only blankness—nothingness filling everything.

Panicked, I look back at him. He smiles—not sinister, not cold, but strangely kind.

"What... what am I?" The words tumble out, hesitant, barely more than a whisper.

He looks at me, almost surprised, then answers softly, “You are an idea… creation and destruction… emotion and stillness. You were a promise made long ago—… an unfulfilled promise I have come to collect. " His voice is low and somber.

His hand falls back to his side as he raises the other to give me a friendly pat on the back. “Come along, child, I haven’t a minute to waste,” he says firmly, pulling out a pocket watch and glancing at the time. I catch a glimpse of the watch face—the numbers glow with an eerie, ghoulish green light.

My face is blank as I try to process the overwhelming situation. “But…” I begin, but he cuts me off. “You stand in the balance of death and life,” he says sharply. “Now, as I mentioned, we must move along, sir. With haste, preferably.”

Before I could even mutter a word, he grabbed my arm and hurriedly escorted me toward the door. I am so confused, I have no memories, and I don’t know where I am or what's going on. I have no motivation, no emotion, no meaning, just emptiness. As we reach the door, he turns to me, “This is where things will get quite peculiar, so I need you to not believe anything you see. Do you understand me?” I nod my head, yes, he is acting as if I would react to what's going on. I have a feeling this man thinks I’m supposed to be someone else.

Just then, he waves his hand over the door, and a strange purple mist flies above us. I hear him say something to himself, but I don’t recognize the language or its meaning. Suddenly, the brown square door in front of me turns a bright glowing red, almost as if it were melting. I shield my eyes from the bright light and look back at the door, which has a blackish, blood-red color with gothic-like features on it. The man snaps at me, “Hello? Sire, we are about to go home, don’t you worry, but I need you to stay awake or I will lose you again.” “What the fuck is going on? I say aggressively as he tries to pull me towards the door. Just then, the door swings open, it looks like some kind of weird portal opening into a reddish-pink space, and stars fill up the spaces that don’t have planets all over them.

He shoves me in the direction of the door, but I grab the frame of the door before I fall in. I scream as I almost fall in. It feels like I’m being sucked through the door. I can feel my body slowly being pulled in. He walks up to me and hits me in the stomach with his cane. I lose my grip on the frame and fall into the door.

I hit my face on something cold and wet. Fucking asshole pushed me to my death, I bet. I open my eyes to see I’m on a cobblestone floor tile. Where the fuck am I? As I got up, I could see I was on a cobblestone street in what seemed to be some kind of weird Transylvanian city. Why do I know what that means? I can't explain it, but I fully understood the reference I made. I hear the man's voice behind me, “Oh dear, it seems you’ve fallen on your face, good sir. Let me help you to your feet”. Just then, I could feel an invisible force grab my arms, lift them above my head, and take me to my feet. Genuinely… what the fuck. The force stops as I stand up fully, and I turn to the man with a shocked expression on my face. “Can I get a fucking explanation on what's going on, please?” I exclaim to the man. He laughs and pats my back, “Once we get to home base, you are more than welcome to an explanation, but first we must take care of the threat heading this way”. A threat, what in the fuck.

In the distance, I can hear what sounds like a hoof hitting against the cobblestone getting louder and louder; it is heading right towards us. Wait, no, it sounds like multiple hooves coming at us. I look off where the noise is coming from. I can see a carriage coming towards us, but the horses look a little different. “Is that the threat you are talking about?” I ask him. “No, that is who’s going to help us get home”, he laughs. The horses are enormous; they look as if their heads were 10 feet from the ground. There were four of them connected to a carriage. They were completely black from head to hoof. However, their eyes were all glowing with a green flame.

The carriage slid right up next to us, the man drawing the carriage was hooded and completely covered in a dark cloak, his hands and feet were uncovered. He wore some type of silver metallic gauntlet with sharp fingers and spikes at the end of his wrists. He wore similar armor on his feet, but they just looked like boot coverings. The door of the carriage swung completely open, and a woman sat in the carriage. She was beautiful. She exclaimed, “We have to go now, get in!” The man grabbed my arm as we hopped into the carriage, sitting across from the woman.

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