At the end of that tunnel, I found no light, but rather the viscosityof a new birth.
I was pulled from the darkness of nothingness into a cage of silk.
I gasped violently, my lungs filling with air scented with lavender instead of the rot of the cave.
"Aaaagh!"
I convulsed, my hands striking the air, my nails scratching my skin frantically. It is on me... It is eating me! I felt hundreds of tiny legs running beneath my skin, swimming in my veins instead of blood.
"Get away! Get away!"
I screamed until foam frothed from my mouth. My eyes darted around the luxurious room, yet they saw nothing but black shadows crawling on the walls.
Suddenly, a soft and warm restraint surrounded me.
Two soft arms, yet solid as steel, encircled my chest. A suffocating maternal scent.
"Shhh... shhh..."
I looked down.
Superia Exemplar, my mother. She was small in stature, but her overwhelming presence filled the room like a giant. Her clear white skin and shining green eyes were one inch away from my face. Her light blonde hair cascaded like a curtain, isolating me from the world.
"Why did you run away, my son?" she whispered with a voice dripping with poisoned honey. "Look at what happened... You have lost a piece of your soul."
She placed her cold hand on my chest, directly over my heart. I felt a glacial void there. A physical emptiness where the Revival Machine extracted The Tollof my return.
"Vanitas... Didn't I tell you?"
I whimpered, my body shivering like a leaf. My mind was still trapped there, between the fangs of the wolf and the mandibles of the insects.
"Death... Death was cold, Mama."
She tightened her embrace. I felt my ribs groan under the pressure.
"I know, my little one. Your home is safe..." I raised my wet face to meet her eyes, which gleamed with a terrifying possessiveness. "I will protect you, whatever it costs."
I surrendered. My body went limp in her embrace.
She was right. My "strategic logic led me to death in a matter of hours. Her logic kept me alive for years.
I had thought the hell of freedom was better. I was wrong. I am not built for hell.
***
The Bathing Room
Steam rose from the vast marble bathtub.
Three maids scrubbed my skin with coarse sponges. The water was boiling, yet I felt cold.
"My lord... we apologize, we will be gentler," one of them said, seeing my skin redden under the scrubbing.
I looked at my hands.
The soap bubbles on my arm...
They were white... circular... eggs.
A bubble popped, and a tiny black cockroach crawled out of it.
My eyes widened.
I looked at the water. It was a viscous, black liquid teeming with millions of insects. The maids were not holding sponges; they were holding clumps of cockroaches, scrubbing my face with them.
"Remove them!!"
I screamed with a voice that tore my throat.
"My lord?!"
"They are eating me! Get them away from me!"
I pushed the maid forcefully, and I fell into the water. My feet slipped on the wet floor.
I crawled on all fours, naked, a cough tearing at my chest.
"Young master!"
I ran out of the bathroom, sprinting down the long, bare corridors, water dripping from my body, hallucinations hunting me. The clicking sound of mandibles filled my ears. They are behind me. They are in my hair.
I collided with something soft.
I raised my head in terror.
"Mama! Cockroaches! They are chasing me!" I clung to her legs like a five-year-old child, naked and broken.
Mama looked at me. She smiled that calm, terrifying smile.
She descended to my level and wiped the water from my forehead.
"There are no cockroaches, my son..."
Then she raised her head toward the gathered servants and screamed with a tone as sharp as a whip: "Cover him! Immediately!"
They ran toward me with velvet blankets.
"My lord, this way..."
"No!" I screamed and gripped my mother's dress. "I want to stay here! Don't leave me alone!"
She patted my head as an owner pats their pet.
"Vanitas.. I know it hurts. But you must trust Mama."
I looked at my reflection on the polished floor beneath her feet.
A pile of shivering white flesh.
No dignity. No plan. No mask.
When I obey her... the pain disappears.
"Yes, Mama."
***
The Office of the Father
An hour later.
I wore heavy formal clothes that hid my emaciated body.
I stood before the giant wooden door.
"Enter."
The voice from within was dry, like the sound of two stones grinding in a desert.
I entered.
The office of Motus Exemplar, my father. The place was cold, geometrically organized in a disturbing manner.
He sat behind his desk. A massive mass of humanity blocking the light coming from the rear window. His thinning black hair was carefully styled, his face clean-shaven with sharp angles as if sculpted, and his black eyes were like black holes absorbing the light.
My mother stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder, forming a portrait of the "perfect couple."
He raised his eyes toward me.
It was not a look of anger. Anger is an emotion, and he does not believe in emotions.
It was a "damage assessment" look. He does not see a son returned from the dead; he sees a failed investment that just lost 33% of its value (the first opportunity).
He said in a declarative tone:
"This should not have happened."
Was I expecting a reprimand? A question about how I died?
He turned his face away and returned to his papers. "Tomorrow, your return banquet will be held. The official story is that you returned from a medical trip in the south."
The pen stopped writing for a moment, then he looked at me coldly: "No one will know that you squandered an Eternum opportunity in a single day."
He waved his hand as if swatting away a fly. "Leave."
"Yes, Father." I bowed mechanically.
The corridors were still long and silent.
As usual, I stopped at the giant window overlooking the back garden.
There.
Under the sunlight that seemed too harsh for eyes accustomed to the dark.
Otus, my brother.
His body seemed even larger than my father's, forged from muscles that moved like flowing mercury beneath his dark skin. His pointed beard granted him a simultaneously savage and noble appearance.
He was training with a pure white sword. Swoosh... Swoosh...I could imagine the sound of the sword piercing the air even through the glass.
No guards. No servants. No "Mama" watching every step.
He moves with absolute freedom. He strikes, he runs, he sleeps on the grass if he wishes.
He holds the "key to the cage" because he possesses the power to protect it.
I placed my thin hand on the cold glass.
He is free inside. And I searched for freedom outside, only to return like a mangy dog.
***
The Meeting of the Twins
I continued walking.
Two opposite doors opened at the exact same moment, as if they had been waiting for me.
The twins, my sisters.
On the left, Aretia. She stood with an arrogance that forced me to crane my neck slightly to meet her gaze. Dark-skinned, with a sharp beauty that cuts the eye. Her black eyes scanned my body from top to bottom with scientific disgust, as if examining a spoiled experimental specimen.
"Can't you grow up?" Her voice was filled with boredom.
I tried to reply. "I..."
My tongue petrified. My throat closed. I reverted to that child terrified of his sister's shadow.
On the right, Justitia. The shortest member of the family, yet her aura carried the exact same weight. Pale-skinned, with blonde hair and green eyes shining with a feigned innocence.
She placed her hand on my shoulder. Her touch was soft, yet heavy as a death sentence.
"That is enough, **Aretia**. He just returned from death."
She looked at me and smiled the smile of a saint forgiving sinners: "Rest now, Vanitas. However..."
Her fingers pressed into my shoulder until it hurt.
"...However, I heard you pushed the maid Mira and knocked her to the floor while you were bathing. And caused a massive mess." She sighed in disappointment, like a teacher addressing a delinquent pupil. "Nobles do not assault servants, my dear. This is vulgar behavior." She leaned close to my ear, and her tone shifted into something sharper and darker: "Tomorrow, you will go and apologize to her in front of the entire servant staff."
No response.
She patted my cheek. "Obedient boy. Go on, go to sleep."
Vanitas room
I reached my room at the end of the corridor. The forgotten zone.
I opened the door.
The smell of ancient dust hit my nose.
No one had entered it for ages, years before my escape. No cleaning, no tidying.
Dust covered everything in a thick gray layer. My old toys on the shelf, my open books... all mummified in time.
It was not a human's room. A display case in an abandoned museum.
Vanitas's Room
I walked inside, my feet leaving a solitary trail in the dust.
I closed the door. I isolated myself from the world, from the family, and from the cockroaches.
I stood before the tall mirror, blanketed in dirt.
I wiped a small circle in the glass with my hand.
My face appeared.
Vanitas Exemplar. A frail body that seemed trivial amidst this palace. Unkempt dark blonde hair, skin pale as the dead, and extinguished green eyes.
I observed the reflection.
"A chameleon?" I mocked myself in a faint voice.
No.
I am not a chameleon adapting intelligently. Nor am I a tragic hero.
I am a spoiled child.
Who cries at the first scratch, and runs to his mother when the world becomes too real.
I rested my forehead against the cold glass.
When the masks shatter... there is nothing beneath them.
I am just a doll returned to its box.
---
Technical Excerpt: Book of Laws
[Excerpt from the book: The Laws of Entitlement and Conditional Immortality]
Edition: 4.05 - Certified by the Royal Academy
Chapter Four: The Revival Protocol and Annihilation Opportunity Management
1. Survival Merit Classification
Access to the "Tower of Revival" technology is regulated according to the hierarchical gradient of citizenship, where opportunities are granted based on the individual's structural importance to the stability of the kingdom:
The Observer Bloodlines: Members of the lineages (Osmium, Aurum , Etherium} possess absolute continuity. Their vital functions are completely and automatically protected against physical annihilation.
Mid-Tier Noble Families: Each family is allocated a specific quota of return opportunities (usually 3 or 4 opportunities). The consumption of this quota is subject to strict oversight by the head of the family and the Observers.
The Service and Technical Class: The individual is granted zerodeath opportunities permanently.
2. Mechanics of Soul Exchange
The process of **Re-embodiment** requires fulfilling a Parallel Toll*to ensure the stability of the consciousness within the new material mold:
For the classes subject to the limited opportunity system (Nobles and Servants), a fraction of the soul is paid as a technical Toll to finalize the transfer process.
In cases of absolute continuity for the Observers, the revival process is guaranteed by lineage purity.
[Academic Warning:The alchemical circle inside the revival room is the sole tether between you and existence; any anomaly within it equates to eternal annihilation.]