Black cube

My tired eyes opened upon the wool of a dark cloud in which nothing but total darkness is visible,

to be overwhelmed by dark feelings like the night sky without a moon or star to illuminate, as if I were diving into a deep and desolate well.

The air around me is as still as a dead sea, and there's no sound except for my labored breathing.

The air is motionless, like a dead sea, and the only sound is my heavy breathing.

The smell of sweat, weeping like pus from the pores of my struggling body,

The stench of that bloody moisture and the exhale of the remnants of stale food,

Had a disgusting and vile feeling,

Making me feel as if I were living in a closed grave, in the company of a corpse devoured by worms.

The ultimate goal of my search in this black cube was a riddle perplexing my mind.

I don't know why I'm being wronged, as if I'm an insect with no right to live with dignity, or even a little security.

A foul-smelling insect, down to the core of my soul, deserving to be crushed with contempt, without anyone caring. Why doesn't anyone ask about me or miss me?

A brother or a mother who cries for my loss. Why has the world forgotten me and left me alone? Am I not part of this world, or is the world not part of me?

Have you ever wondered about the cruelty of the creatures around you and their disdain for anyone different from them, in any way,

even if that different one is the one who nurtured them?

Countless questions chased me like ghosts, each question giving birth to dozens of intrusive questions, until I was tired of hosting them inside my head. Meanwhile,

far from what my eye sees, that child, within the labyrinth of his crowded brain, as complex as intestines,

there was a floating black castle, surrounded by a dark halo like evil spirits. Its sky was the skull of his burnt head, and its dry land was the brain of his wildly branched skull. If you looked closely at its door,

which lit up with a light as black as centuries of accumulated darkness, you would find red strands seeping from its side openings, waving listlessly with that blatant negativity. Inside the castle,

the atmosphere was bloody and heavy as mountains, hundreds of thousands of those red strands clashed like a red forest. On that table, pulsating with a color like rotting blood, and on that white chair, sat a creature with no external features, completely white.

It spoke with a voice stifled by "boredom,"

"Sir, please... I'm exhausted! I'm... worn out! How long... how long will I continue to see this unjust hell?"

On that seat, as blue as the void of space, a creature roared whose head floated in the air, carrying veins like the trunks of a mangrove tree, swaying with 'hatred.'

Its neck was like a giraffe's, covered at its ends by hair that cascaded down its narrow shoulders. It said in a barely audible voice, cold as a deadly winter,

'I want to kill everything! Everything that walks on its feet or crawls on its belly... or

flies in that sky outside or digs in that earth...I want to kill it!'"

Another creature shouted with 'anger,'

'Damn you both, you filthy ones! At the moment I control this filth, I will make sure to cut your damned neck with all my violence until we both end up in the same moment!!! And now, where is that damned one?!'"

His face rippled like flames, and his voice was like the roar of lava in the depths of a towering mountain, and his body was like the raging lava of volcanoes.

In these moments when boredom was repeating its boring words, and anger was screaming with all its power and evil, and hatred was demanding revenge, a deep, intensely red darkness appeared that did not stray from blackness.

He sat slowly on that chair that looked like a miniature brain, swallowing the redness around him like a black hole.

Those deep shadows dispersed with coldness. A woman emerged from them, as if she were a female piece of that boy.

On her head was a crown of gemstones in colors like a rainbow.

Her face was as white as a bright star, adorned with a smile like the moon at the beginning of the ninth month. She was covered in a robe that swept the floor, bearing her contrasting color in that atmosphere. She said in her soft, feminine voice like a gentle spring breeze...

"Welcome, one and all, to my castle whose spirit never extinguishes. And congratulations to you all on your narrow-mindedness, bad behavior, and loud, raging voices—truly a testament to your cursed bad manners!"

Boredom scoffed, "No need for excessive praise."

Anger roared, "Damn it, this welcome is arousing me!"

Just as Hatred was about to speak, a thunderous cry of Hate interrupted,

"Damn you all! How long will we continue this every day?! I've hated you all from the moment I was born... I used to think I hated everything for no reason, but now I know why I hate you!"

Anger snarled, "Shut up, you damned brother, or I'll cut off your head!"

A wicked, hysterical laugh, like terrifying delusions, erupted suddenly.

Madness shrieked,

"Raaaaaaaaahhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee... hehehehe~!!"

Fear wailed, "Aaahhhh~ Someone wants to kill me! Aaaah I'm going to die! Damn you all, save me! I'm dying!"

Doubt trembled, "We're going to die in this place, without a doubt! I'm scared! We can't die, no, we have to get out of this place... let's prepare for our destined fate! There's no escape... there's only destruction! Yes, let's go to that worm that will violently burrow into your decaying body! Let's just die...

Let me die, please! No, I don't want to die. Who said that?... Yes, I want to die, but at least not in this place... Wait, am I the one talking...?"

While those cursed voices held their ominous meeting inside my head, their incessant noise, like a constant presence, was interrupted by a jolt that shook everything beneath them.

My disoriented senses shot out like lightning, parting my trembling eyelids with turbulence.

It was that damned chair, that chair that creaked like grinding teeth while purple sparks flew around it like tiny stars.

Again and again, it repeated itself just like yesterday, that damned noise it made, as if it were a chain of iron rocks crawling on a rugged ground.

The chair began to scream at a pitch as sharp as a blade, accompanied by earth-shaking tremors.

Food scraps jumped from the impact of those tremors, food scraps with a foul smell like the intestines of a decaying rat.

Those smells pierced my lungs like a sword smeared with grime.

My damaged vision strained, trying to salvage every bit of oxygen as if it were about to leave life.

And with those meteors dancing around the chair's feet, with a light swallowed by this blackness that resembled a black hole,

The drums of war began to beat strongly inside my terrified heart.

It launched into an invasion with every pulse of hatred and bloody anger like hell, and fear that shed tears of blood from my heart, and anxiety like the terror of life embracing death.

"It's time to finish what we started yesterday~!"

These words, repeated each miserable day, and that deep, harsh voice, polished with dry violence, have rusted their cruel aftereffects deep in the hall of my consciousness, which wails like a woman in labor upon their arrival.

That mad man descended onto the seat he'd been following, and around him emanated airy threads carrying remnants of his foul stench.

He added, as his putrid and annoying breath neared my face as if anticipating an exciting

command: "Can you guess who I am, huh?"

"And who are you, you nobody?"

I said, my insides churning, while his breaths hovered eagerly to hear what would slip from my parched lips like a thin fish on a sandy shore.

I remained silent because I had the answer, and yet I didn't.

Perhaps silence was the answer, or maybe I should choose one from among all the answers between heaven and

correct answer.

All my attempts to answer this question, as recurrent as my own ugly self, had failed.

Truly, I didn't care what would happen next.

I would simply shut my lips.

But my head, weighed down by sleep, lifted toward him without my permission, uttering the first letter of an answer.

Immediately, I forcefully controlled my rebellious tongue with my trembling jaw, but it was too late.

The madman shrieked with laughter upon hearing that tiny sound that escaped me, while he quickly slapped my frail shoulder with his massive hand.

"Oh my God, oh my God... hahaha...!!"

At that moment, I cursed my self who interfered with my tongue and spread its frightened poison to speak on my behalf...

Those hysterical screams gradually calmed down, and silence prevailed once more.

"Your evil voice excites me!!"

He said it while he began to play with the strands of my hair, which cascaded to the ground, with the tip of his index finger.

I slowly removed his hand from me, saying,

"Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!!!"

Every time he repeated this word, his voice grew louder and more aggressive and hostile.

"Please!... Let me go... I... I don't know what I did, but I'm definitely wrong... I've made a huge mistake... Please forgive me!!"

I didn't know why or how my tongue uttered those words. Had the damned fear taken control, moving my tongue without my knowledge of what it would say?

Everything went silent after that, as if I were living alone in my own dimension. Then, drops began to fall slowly and gently on the top of my head.

After the ninth drop fell on my head, his swollen palms followed, resting on my shoulder, which I slumped forward forcefully, causing my head to recoil backward and collide with the wall before bowing voluntarily.

"I really don't want to do this!! But, there's someone forcing me!! Please bear with it for a little while, and you'll be saved!!"

He said this while sorrowful sighs cut through his pained voice.

That made me burst out laughing like a clown, filling the place with my hoarse voice.

I lowered my chin slightly to gradually silence myself for a few moments, while my mind was filled with those damned voices, topped by a terrifying fear.

"Fear" AAAAA!!! Please run away, run away or we'll die, no, no, it's forbidden!!!

This is none of your business. I'm the one suffering this agony, and no one else can feel what I'm feeling. Just be quiet, you wretched thing!!

I ignored those turbulent emotions and raised my head again, saying in a voice trembling with fear,

"Stop this farce... because your damn tricks won't fool me while you breathe like a monster who takes pleasure in the screams of its prey, ready to be killed!!"

After those words escaped my mouth, two rivers slid down my cheek, and my eyes closed to accept the punishment, while my jaws snapped like a saw.

He leaned his head towards my ear and whispered in his deep voice,

"Please, take back what you said, I don't want to hurt you, just give me a chance and I'll prove it to you, please~!!"

I lowered my head and said nothing, waiting for whatever might happen to me at any moment, denying what I said or asking for forgiveness would not help me at all.

His tired hands rose from me after begging me for several times.

He stood without saying anything for several minutes.

Every passing second and every movement my ears picked up made the fear inside me surge in my heart and eyes.

While we were in that situation, I felt a gust of thick air approaching my bare face like the wind, followed by a slap from his rocky hand on the entire side of my right cheek as if it were an iron door slamming into me.

My head slammed hard against the wall on my left side until I felt my fragile skull crack...

"Ughhhhh~!!!"

This time the feeling was different, it was painful, very painful, but this time,

A buzzing sound began to inhabit my head, carrying an uninterrupted echo, instantly uprooting my confused perception...

And while I was in that endless void.

I felt that cold water pouring over my hot body as it had done yesterday, while a vague voice tried to penetrate my eardrum, which was blocked by drops of water.

"Dam...n...get up you...filth!!"

I opened my reluctant eyes with that noise that echoed inside my empty head.

"Come on, you filthy creature, it's time for food!"

Those footsteps moved away from me as my trembling breaths collided with the smell of the spilled food in front of me.

The only thing that humanizes my loneliness and gives me some hope; is its stench that carries a bit of a breeze of freedom.

I tried to attack those crushed bones like a beast, but my body couldn't move.

I started crawling with all my strength and will that my soul carries to reach the food and start licking some of the crushed chicken bones

And grains of rice that I can say didn't stay on the fire for more than three minutes.

Suddenly,

while I was licking those stinky bones, a man from outside this black cube screamed in a terrifying voice as if his neck was being cut.

That didn't mean anything to me,

I've heard worse sounds than these many times,

and I've suffered from continuous pain without interruption, which made me not pay any attention to what I hear no matter how terrible it is,

but on the contrary, my soul started howling as usual and begging me to turn towards that sound with all insistence and brokenness,

It really disgusts me.

I continued to run my dry tongue over the body of that small bone as if it would quench my thirst and fill my stomach.

Suddenly, the stones that close the opening of this cursed hole moved unusually

"My soul" yes, you're right, look at him!!

I raised my head to look towards the exit and behold a red light that is no different from this bloody darkness stinging my eyes like sparks.

My instincts controlled my body to push my hands towards my closed eyes and surround them like a shield.

"Ughhh damn!!!...what is this..who is this too!!!"

I was saying these words inside my gut filled with hatred and resentment

"Take this and put it around his eyes tightly!"

"Wait, who are you??!!!"

To be continued...