When the lights went out, Ethan thought the curtain had fallen and the act was over—just another half-assed encore arranged by the Void. But in the next moment, the stage beneath their feet collapsed. They plunged downward, like the ground itself had been yanked away, into a freezing abyss.
When they landed, they found themselves not in a theater, but in a courtroom.
A courtroom so vast, so grotesque, it was parody made flesh.
The walls gleamed with polished blackness, built from compressed shadows. Embedded in them were countless eyes—hollow, dead, yet blinking in uncanny rhythm, as though the whole chamber was a giant skull socket waiting to snap shut.
At the front stood a massive judge's bench, not wood but an abomination pieced together from rotting souls: arms embedded into the armrests, heads stacked as backrest, torsos stretched across as the desk. Their mouths gaped in silent screams, but some unseen force nailed them in place, turning agony into "decor."
In the center floated the judge itself, a monster sewn from corpse parts: one eye huge, the other a hollow socket; a mouth ripped to the ears, stuffed with severed tongues. In its hand, a gavel fashioned from bone, slamming against the desk with a sound like snapping spines.
"ORDER!"Its voice rasped, dozens of dead throats speaking at once. Absurdly, though no one else was making a sound, the air trembled as if silenced by hecklers.
The jury was no better. In their seats sat the dead—friends, family, lovers, comrades. Ethan even saw neighbors whose names he had long forgotten. Faces frozen stiff, eyes glowing with false light, marionettes stitched from memory.
"My God…" Mason whispered, sweat beading down his forehead. "They built the jury from our memories…"
Ethan said nothing, though his chest tightened like iron claws gripping his heart. Karl's mother sat among them, her expression gentle, her eyes hollow—as if ready to raise her hand to condemn her son.
The gallery was worse: not people, but row after row of floating, lidless eyes in the dark, buzzing in low murmurs like cockroaches filling every corner.
"Now," the judge-monster raised its gavel, blood dripping from its blinking eye, "the Void Court is in session."
BANG!The gavel struck, echoing like shattering bones.
Stage-like lights pinned Ethan and the others at the center, prisoners on display. The floor beneath them silently shifted into black iron chains, clamping their ankles, tugging them toward the abyss.
"The accused: Ethan, Mason, Karl, et cetera." The judge drawled as if reciting lines from a script. "Charges: disturbing the Void's order, theft of soul energy, desecration of the Death Stage."
The eyes in the gallery buzzed louder, a mockery of laughter.
"You will be judged," the judge continued, dragging its words like a corpse in parade. "The jury of your dearest dead will vote your fate. As for the gallery…" It gestured at the countless eyes. "They only want a show."
A stone pillar rose at center stage, topped with an enormous hourglass. Not sand, but powdered bone sifted down inside, whispering like fine ash.
"When the last grain of bone falls, the trial is done."
"Fancy," Mason muttered bitterly. "We don't even get opening statements. Just straight to the death vote by family and friends."
"This is the Black Court," the judge sneered. "There is no defense. Only performance. Either you give a show absurd enough—or you are dragged offstage as entertainment."
At the word "entertainment," the sea of eyes blinked in eerie unison, as if nodding.
Ethan inhaled sharply, his voice low and mocking. "So all along, we weren't fighting. We were auditioning for your goddamn trial show. The Bureau, the Death Realm, the labyrinth—they were just opening acts."
Ding-dong!A chime rang in the corner like a game show sound effect. The judge clapped, the sound of bones knocking together. "Defendant's sarcasm brims with black humor. Bonus points awarded!"
"…," Mason muttered. He finally understood the farce: this was no trial at all. It was consumption, mockery, theater. They were nothing but punchlines.
Karl whispered, "Then next… comes the performance."
Bone dust trickled steadily in the hourglass, hissing like a funeral hymn. The jury of familiar faces stared blankly, ready to raise their hands at any moment—to condemn them to the abyss.