The Candle And The Boy

Depths of Darkness

Ren stood on the threshold of truth, trembling and unable to move forward or backward. Behind him was the room where he had discovered those ominous images, and before his eyes stood the man with the red face, wearing his cold white mask. The room they had entered was merely a direct reflection of his troubled mind, every wall and corner pulsing with secrets he was not ready to confront.

Ren took a step toward the masked man, but his feet hesitated slightly, as if he couldn't control his body.

"What do you want from me?!"

The man with the red face replied, "The answer has always been before you. You wanted the truth, and here it is, before your eyes."

Ren shuddered. How could the truth be this harsh? Every part of his being trembled with fear of what he would discover, yet a small part of him wanted to continue. That desire he had felt for the first time when he entered the cabin, when he saw the familiar faces in the pictures, when he felt the return of memories he hadn't known he had forgotten.

The masked man slowly approached him, his steps cutting through the surrounding silence. But he didn't come too close. Instead, he turned to the wall behind him. New drawings began to appear, unfamiliar images that carried a hint of hidden horror.

"This is your story, Ren. This is the beginning of the end. You have been nothing but a pawn in a game larger than you."

Ren tried to breathe slowly, but the air was too heavy in that dark room. He touched his face, as if trying to confirm he was still alive.

"Pawn? Game?... I don't understand..."

The masked man didn't look at Ren; he continued speaking while gazing at the drawings forming on the wall as if they were coming to life.

"What you have lived through was merely an illusion. You, your parents, everything you thought was your real life... it was all a facade."

"What do you mean?"

The man with the red face responded, "Everything has been planned from the beginning. The cabin, your parents' disappearance, even your arrival here today."

Ren's heart raced as he absorbed the man's words. It was no longer just about a mysterious past, but a part of a larger scheme he had been unaware of.

The room began to change once more. The walls that had been stable started to fade, and the floor transformed into something resembling water. It was as if the entire place was turning into a living nightmare.

Ren took a step back, trying to escape that shifting reality, but he knew there was no way out. There was no path to return.

("Is this real? Was everything I lived a lie?")

The memories that began to return to him were merely fragments, scattered pieces of scenes and events he hadn't known were part of his life. How could he have forgotten all this? And how were those enigmatic images connecting his past with his uncertain future?

As Ren grappled with his thoughts, he felt something unfamiliar. Those voices, those memories, were not just a result of what was happening now, but accumulations of past events he had lived through without realizing.

"It's time for the truth."

The walls disappeared entirely, and the room transformed into a vast space filled with darkness. Yet from that darkness, a faint light began to emerge. Ren stepped slowly toward the light, despite the terror that overwhelmed him. He felt that this light concealed something horrifying behind it, but he couldn't stop.

As he approached the light, he found a mirror before him. But it was not an ordinary mirror; it reflected scenes from his past, memories he hadn't recalled but knew were real.

In the mirror, he saw his parents for the first time after years of loss. But they were different, their faces filled with fear and despair, as if they were fleeing from something larger than themselves.

"Mom... Dad..."

But the voice that came from the mirror was not his own. It was another voice-the voice of that character who had haunted him throughout his journey. The man with the red face appeared in the mirror in place of his parents.

The man with the red face replied, "It has been me all along."

That sentence struck Ren's heart like lightning. How could the masked man be the key to everything? Was he a part of his past? Had he been the one to bring all this pain into his life?

Questions began to multiply in Ren's mind, but the answers remained distant.