Trial of Protection
The ground beneath you glows as the mirror room disolves.
A low hum rises through your boots, deep as the breath of a trapped, hungry beast. When you lift your gaze, you find yourself inside a vast cathedral carved from obsidian and fireglass. Its ceiling stretches far beyond sight, ribs of molten red arcing overhead like the inside of a dying sun.
The floor is littered with shields - throusands of them - fused, broken, half-melted. The walls are burning hot, exhaling smoke from cracks that never cool. Somewhere deep within, a bell tolls once, its tone swallowed before it fades.
You take a step and its echo splinters the silence.
Two figures stand at the far end of the hall. One is a warden of iron, his armor scorched black, his eyes burning white within the visor. Each word he speaks grinds like chain on stone.
"Safety is a fortess you must build high and strong.”
Across from him stands another: ashen hair, scarred, pale flesh - her unarmored frame trembling but upright. Her eyes are soft and blue, like night's last breath before dawn.
"What you shield with fear, you destroy.”
The air ripples. A surge of static climbs your spine.
Between them, the floor splits open; slow at first, then sudden, like a wound tearing wide. Below, faces shift behind molten glass: some reaching, some silent, some fading. One of them you know. A face you loved, one that once to you for comfort, for safety. You made a promise to protect them; unspoken but sworn.
The Warden tilts his head toward them, and the hall responds. The glass thickens around the figure, encasing them in a burning cocoon.
"They will not fall,” he says. "If you keep the world from touching them.”
The Sentinel lowers her gaze, and the light near her softens, flowing gently across the floor until it brushes the figure’s prison. The glass trembles, faintly, as if something inside still dares to breathe.
"They will not fall," she murmurs, "If you trust them to rise."
Heat lashes across your face. The walls begin to shudder; the shields hum, one by one, until the whole cathedral vibrates. The air changes, transformed into smoke that smells of old blood and burnt parchment. You can barely breathe. Both figures extend a hand.
The Warden’s gauntlet burns bright: steady, commanding, unyielding.
The Sentinel’s hand flickers: scarred, trembling, uncertain.
The ground begins to collapse. The cathedral collapses inward like a dying star.
If you do not choose, you too will fall.
What will you do?
The Warden’s gauntletcloses into a fist around your hand.
The molten floor hardens, sealing the cracks with veins of red glass. The heat fades.
Your loved one drifts closer, encased in shimmering light: suspended, unharmed.
"No pain shall reach what you keep close”, murmurs the Warden, his voice like iron.
For a moment, relief. Then stillness. Then silence.
The glass thickens around them, layer by layer, until their features blur. Their eyes widen, searching for you, but the barrier only mirrors your face back. You press your hand against it as another wall rises behind you.
When you turn, you see no exit.
The cathedral is gone. The world beyond erased.
Only you and what you swore to protect remain, suspended in glass.
You are both safe.
You are both lost.
And your journey ends here.
The Sentinel waits. Its trembling hand holds yours and then extends toward the pit. A glass bridge steadies beneath your feet. You take a step and your loved one takes one too, mirroring your movement in perfect silence.
The air around you hums with something older than fear.
"Trust is a shield. It does not bind,” the Sentinel whispers.
Your loved one lifts their gaze to yours as the Sentinel's light gathers around them, soft and radiant. Their spine arches, their outline ripples, and from their back bloom wings of molten glass, translucent and feathered with embers. They look both terrified and alive.
The cathedral trembles and they leap. Their flight carves a wake of falling light, streaking through the broken roof above.
As you follow their glow through the ruin’s exit, the night opens before you: vast, cold, endless. Far ahead, high in the burning haze, you glimpse them once more: soft wings encircling something distant and luminous, as if guarding a path meant for you alone.
This path is not yet open.
If this was your choice, make sure to come back again to check it out!
All written content is original, drawn from myth, memory, and madness.
All images are generated via Midjourney using custom prompts by the author, unless otherwise stated.
Comments