The Desert of Forgetting.
The heat is so fierce it feels like the air itself is on fire.
It trembles—not from the wind, but from its own unbearable weight.
Every breath is like swallowing molten lead.
The sand flashes in waves of gold, blinding the eyes.
Space loses its edges. Time, its meaning.
A boy stands in the midst of this blistering silence.
His shadow is short, like the crack of a whip.
He doesn't move. But his voice—resounds.
Fragile. Transparent.
And yet in this silence, he speaks like a law.
Before him—new adepts.
Their faces veiled from the burning sun, but their eyes—wide open to the world.
In them flicker fear, hope, and an unbearable thirst for wonder.
They haven't come for knowledge.
They've come for meaning.
The boy does not blink. His gaze isn't at them, but through them.
"Someone must know. Someone must remember..."
"When once," he begins, slowly, as though every word cuts through flesh, "there lived a civilization that dared to touch eternity."
A pause.
The heat stills. Even the grains of sand seem to hold their breath.
"They found the path to immortality. And stepped through it."
And—flash.
Reality recoils, swallowed by vision.
The desert vanishes.
Before the adepts—a city of light.
The sun spills soft gold across the streets.
Towers stretch skyward, gleaming with alabaster pride.
Hanging gardens shimmer with color, and the fountains sing—
as if channeling the music of forever.
Laughter dances across bridges.
In the parks, children chase synthetic birds.
The world breathes perfection. Peace.
Each person wears an amulet—a small glowing circle.
Each carries the right to eternity.
No pain.
No aging.
No death.
Only endless days, like holograms of joy, spinning in a loop without escape.
And above it all—one name:
Gorgoroth.
He walks through a verdant path.
The wind bends the flowers; the trees lean in reverence.
His robe is white as a cloud. In his hand—a staff, the emblem of power and knowledge.
He is a god in a world where death has died.
He smiles.
"How much suffering I've spared… How much hope I've given..."
But then—a stranger appears before him.
Ordinary. Face shadowed beneath a hood.
No threat. No sign.
Gorgoroth pays it little mind.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" he says, inhaling the garden's scent.
"Though of course… all days are beautiful now."
The shot.
A flash.
Soundless.
His body is thrown back.
His face vanishes in flame.
And with it—everything.
**
But he does not die.
He rises.
Consciousness returns—in the Altar of Rebirth.
Pristine white emptiness. No pain. No fear.
He chooses a body. His old one. Familiar.
He returns—as always.
The parks. The flowers. The air.
He is here.
Again.
As if nothing happened.
He smiles—almost with relief.
But the very next moment—something's wrong.
The avenues are burning.
Screams.
People fighting, killing—again and again.
Blood on the pavements.
Shattered lights.
Fire bursting from the ground.
Those who die—revive.
And kill again.
And die again.
A cycle of madness.
"No… This wasn't meant to be. This can't be…"
Gorgoroth walks forward.
Each step—like walking through searing pain.
The amulet on his chest vibrates. Not warning—
Laughing.
"What have you done?" he whispers into the void. "Why?
Why go this far… if you can't even remember who you were?"
His immortality has become a curse.
His paradise—a hell.
His dream—a blade.
He stands in the heart of a dying heaven.
Alone.
Powerless.
And feels the sky answer him with silence.
**
The vision fades.
The desert returns.
The boy stands once more before the adepts.
The sun burns.
The sand glitters.
And only their eyes, wide with horror and wonder, remain still.
They have heard. They know.
Their memory—his last hope.
**
But deep inside the ancient city, at its very heart, where reality intertwines with the shadows of the past—everything is different.
Here, time flows strange.
Here, verdicts are born for entire eras.
Gorgoroth is summoned to the League of Rulers.
He walks the endless corridors, where the walls pulse with soft, living light.
His footsteps echo faintly, like in the crypt of a civilization.
"Each step feels like guilt.
Each meter—another charge against me."
Here, in these halls, every line of space speaks of power. Of permanence.
Even immortality must answer to law.
At last, he enters the Chamber of Judgments.
Columns of pure light rise toward the dome, as if trying to hold up a sky that's already collapsed.
The floor—a perfect black mirror, reflecting every soul who enters with merciless clarity.
The air is dense, almost liquid, heavy with silence that rings in the ears.
Before Gorgoroth—
a throne.
A throne of stone and radiance.
Upon it—Frik, Head of the Council.
His face is carved from fury.
A jaw like iron.
Fingers claw into the armrests, as if trying to hold on to the last fragments of control.
"He'll destroy me. Not with weapons—but with judgment. With the world. With silence."
When he finally speaks, it's no longer a man's voice.
It's the voice of an era—shattered by its own immortality.
"You realize, esteemed Gorgoroth," he rasps, "that your technology has doomed us to anarchy?"
Silence thickens. It breathes. It hates.
Gorgoroth stands alone in the marble abyss—one man against the world he created.
He meets Frick's eyes. Doesn't look away.
"Don't hide. Don't lie. Be who you are."
"Yes, Honored Leader," his voice is steady, but grief clings to every syllable. "I realize."
A bitter smirk cuts across Frick's face. He claps his hands—
and the sound snaps the air like fire shattering glass.
"Wonderful!" His sarcasm is heavy, leaden. "Then… deactivate immortality. Right now."
Gorgoroth shakes his head. Slowly. Almost imperceptibly.
But his shoulders sink, as if the weight of that request has crushed him.
"I can't."
"That's what makes it immortality. You can't simply switch it off.
It's… already part of the fabric of existence."
"It's like starlight: once it's born, it burns—even in the void."
"It's not just technology anymore. It's... a new form of being."
Frick says nothing.
The silence becomes stone.
A silence that judges.
He lowers his eyes. Then lifts them again, with effort, locking them on Gorgoroth.
"I see…" he whispers.
But in that whisper is the fury of a civilization, carried across centuries.
"What if we destroy the mind behind it all?
The artificial intelligence… from subspace?"
Gorgoroth responds instantly.
"It's not a machine. Not a server. Not code."
"It's become something else."
"The source of immortality is woven into the fabric of time and space."
"It breathes with the universe."
"You can't kill it. You can't erase it."
"It exists… and doesn't."
Frick rises. His movements are sharp, almost feral.
He sweeps his hand—and the air erupts with holograms:
— Streets awash with blood.
— Plazas turned to arenas.
— Immortals dying only to kill again.
"This is your world, Gorgoroth!" he growls. "A world without fear. Without law.
You gave them power—but not meaning.
You turned them into immortal beasts."
Gorgoroth lowers his head.
His fingers tremble. His chest holds a void.
"I never wanted this…" he whispers. His voice is torn cloth—soul unraveling.
"You wanted to save everyone?!" Frick nearly shouts.
"You wanted to free us—and left us in a hell without escape?!"
He steps forward. That step carries the weight of a thousand verdicts.
"So what now? We're trapped?
Among immortal killers?
Among monsters we can't destroy?!"
Gorgoroth lifts his head. Slowly. With resolve.
Enough. It's now—or never.
"No," he says. "This isn't the end."
He takes a step. Then another.
Silence closes around him.
"I will fix it."
Frick narrows his eyes.
"You have a plan?" His voice drips with irony—but beneath it… something flickers.
Hope? Or despair?
"Yes.
We'll rewrite the very essence of immortality.
We'll craft commandments.
Embed them into the structure of rebirth.
Each who returns will carry them within.
They won't be rules—they'll be the nature of their new soul."
Frick says nothing. Stares at him like one gazing at a miracle—or a madman.
Gorgoroth begins to speak. His voice grows stronger.
He doesn't just speak—he declares.
The First Commandment:
"Every believer, upon death, shall enter the Vault of Therma and be reborn.
Only those who have not broken the laws may return."
The Second Commandment:
"Evil is any act or contact with another sentient being done without consent, without will, without kindness.
Evil must be punished.
If you do not punish evil—you become its accomplice.
Kairus casts out the violators."
The Third Commandment:
"Freedom of speech, of faith, of will—is sacred.
No being, no god, has the right to execute for thoughts."
Silence.
Not a sound remains in the hall—only the pulse of a world holding its breath.
Frick sits. Silent for a long time.
His face is a mask of doubt—but in his eyes, something stirs.
He rises. His footsteps fall like a sentence passed.
"These commandments… they're rational," he says at last.
"If they become part of everyone…
Perhaps…
We can still reclaim order."
He steps closer.
His shadow falls over Gorgoroth.
But in that shadow—there is no more anger.
"We give you one chance. One.
Fix what you've done.
Prove that immortality can be not a curse… but redemption."
Gorgoroth bows.
Not from fear. Not from submission.
But from the weight of the road ahead.
What's at stake is not his honor. Not even life.
What's at stake is the fate of sentient existence—
in the entire universe.