An Abandoned Beauty

The night was moving on, and though the sky was clear, the cold air from the outskirts made the atmosphere inside the car tenser than it should have been.

It was 10:30 PM in Cheonto, and the plan was simple: distract Mateo.

After what had happened with his girlfriend, who had cheated on him, the guys decided to take him to a party, hoping to cheer him up.

But by the end of the night, it was Mateo who insisted on driving back. Maybe it wasn't the best idea, but no one said no.

Dante, with his head resting against the rear window, was half-asleep. Rafael, sitting next to him, joined Luis, who was singing loudly from the passenger seat, unconcerned about anything else.

Laughter and jokes filled the car, giving it an air of normalcy, but Mateo's silence behind the wheel said it all. He barely participated, his eyes fixed on the road and his hands gripping the steering wheel.

"We're the kings of the road…" Rafael and Luis sang, as if nothing strange was happening.

But something was happening. Mateo was absent, lost in his own world, with a darkness that started to weigh in the air. The car began to pick up speed.

"I loved her so much…" Mateo suddenly whispered, breaking the joyful noise in the car. His voice sounded broken, empty.

No one responded at first, but Rafael and Luis stopped singing, feeling the discomfort.

"What are you saying, Mateo?" Luis asked, letting out a nervous laugh, as if trying to ignore the seriousness of the comment. But deep down, they all knew what he was talking about.

Everyone knew what had happened with his girlfriend and how hard it had been for him. The betrayal of someone he'd known since childhood had crushed him.

Mateo didn't respond, just pressed harder on the gas pedal.

"Hey, why are you speeding up?" Rafael asked, his tone shifting to concern. "Chill, man, we don't need to rush."

The car roared, and the road began to blur.

Dante, now more awake, noticed the change in energy. Mateo wasn't well.

"Mateo, stop the car, this isn't the time for this," his voice was calm but firm, trying not to escalate the situation.

Mateo barely reacted, still muttering as if talking to himself.

"Maybe in another world we're meant to be…"

"What are you saying?" Dante leaned forward from the back seat, his voice more serious now.

"I know what happened with her has devastated you, I know it hurts, but this isn't going to solve anything. We're not here to end our lives, Mateo. You have to understand that."

Mateo laughed bitterly, tears falling more heavily now.

"And what do you know about pain, Dante?" His voice cracked, and the bitterness in his words revealed the depth of his wound.

"Have you ever felt the ground disappear beneath your feet? That everything you believed in, everything you loved, just vanishes in an instant?" His hands trembled on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white from gripping it so hard.

"I… I wanted a future with her. I wanted everything… a life, a family, someone to wake up to every morning…" Mateo swallowed, feeling the lump in his throat tighten even more.

"And now I have nothing… just this damned emptiness that consumes me every second."

His breathing grew heavier, and the sound of his sobs filled the car.

Tears fell freely, mixing with the desperation in his voice. "How could she do it? How could she look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me, while being with someone else?" Mateo shook his head, as if trying to chase away the image that haunted him.

"What am I supposed to do with all this love I feel? Where does everything I gave go? Where do I go, Dante?"

The intensity of his emotions was palpable, and the pain in his words resonated within the car, enveloping his friends in a silent sadness.

The car kept accelerating, the empty road flying by faster and faster. Luis and Rafael looked at Mateo with a mix of fear and concern. They knew the situation was delicate, but none of them knew how to break the silence.

"Mateo, listen, we've all been through moments like this, we've all lost something. But this… this isn't the way to handle it. Killing yourself, or us, won't change what happened."

Dante tried to connect with him, to defuse the tension.

But Mateo only pressed the pedal harder, completely trapped in his pain. The headlights lit up a sharp curve ahead, and the car was going way too fast.

"Mateo, please!" Dante yelled, his voice now desperate.

"I don't know what you think is in another world, but in this one, we're here with you. We don't want to die. You have to stop!"

The car roared, the curve dangerously close.

Everything was in Mateo's hands now, and Dante couldn't let him sink, dragging everyone down with him in his despair.

Dante was the type who always kept his cool, but it wasn't hard for him to get swept up in the group's energy.

He loved doing crazy things with his friends, even though deep down, he was the most rational of them all.

That night, though, there was nothing fun about the atmosphere. The dark road, the engine roaring louder with each passing second, and Mateo behind the wheel, completely lost in his pain, had turned what was supposed to be a night of distraction into a nightmare.

Dante, sitting in the back seat, had tried to keep control. But when he felt the car start to skid on the curve, he knew things were about to go very wrong.

Rafael's scream, Luis's attempts to cling to the dashboard, and Mateo's dangerous indifference all mixed into a chaos of metal and screams.

The car flew, and in that moment, Dante felt it: that fall that makes your stomach rise, while the world seems to spin in slow motion.

The impact shook everything. A sharp pain shot through his back, his head hit something hard, and suddenly, everything went silent.

For a moment, he felt nothing. No pain, no car, not even his own thoughts.

But slowly, it started to come back. First, the pain, like an echo vibrating through his body, making him feel heavy, as if every bone was bruised.

Then, a strange cold crept over his skin. Something was off. He opened his eyes with difficulty, expecting to see the wreckage of the car, his friends' bodies, the road… but that wasn't what he saw.

He was lying on the floor of what seemed to be a grand hall, but it wasn't a place he recognized.

The walls, made of gray stone, were covered in vines and dust. A castle, that was the first thing that crossed his mind. An ancient, abandoned castle, like something from another time.

The ceiling was partially collapsed, and through the cracks, a pale, almost ghostly light shone through.

Dante got up slowly, feeling the pain in every muscle.

He rubbed his forehead, where a small cut was bleeding slightly, and looked around.

There were large broken columns, old furniture covered in dust, and debris scattered everywhere.

In the distance, he could make out a broken throne, tilted to one side, covered in dust and cobwebs, illuminated by the light in a scene of abandoned beauty.

"Where the hell am I?" he murmured, his voice hoarse. Everything felt like a dream, but the pain was too real.

The air here was cold, but different from the night in Cheonto.

It was heavy, almost oppressive, and what unsettled him the most was the silence.

A total silence, as if the place was frozen in time.

He turned around, looking for any sign of the others. "Rafael, Luis, Mateo," but there was no trace of them.

He tried to remember the crash, the car flying, the sound of metal twisting, his friends screaming and then… nothing.

But this, this place, wasn't where he should be after a crash. No, it wasn't possible.

He ran a hand through his hair, nervous. Although he usually kept his cool in tense situations, this time his heart was racing. Everything inside him screamed that something was terribly wrong.

He walked toward one of the broken windows, taking cautious steps, and looked outside.

What he saw left him speechless.

It wasn't the road he had been on before, nor the landscapes of his city.

Outside stretched a dark, barren forest, but the strangest thing was the sky itself: it wasn't the night sky he knew.

It was covered in black clouds that seemed to move slowly, as if they had a life of their own, and a strange light, a color he had never seen before, bathed the entire landscape.

Dante stepped back, heart pounding. This wasn't Cheonto, this wasn't his world.

"What the hell is going on?" he whispered, trying to comprehend the impossible.

His legs began to move on their own.

He started walking through the castle, unable to control his body.

"Rafa, Luis… Mateo?" he yelled, but only his echo responded.

It was as if the castle was swallowing him, absorbing his words.

He tried to raise his voice, thinking he could catch someone's attention, but it grew weaker and weaker until it was inaudible.

He ran his hand along his neck, nervous, but then felt a hollow space his jaw was broken, but no blood came from it.