Minutes passed… or perhaps hours. I couldn’t tell.

  Time here doesn’t walk—it crawls, as if afraid of this pce.

  The woman sat silently on an old chair near the hearth.

  She wasn’t reading, working, or even resting.

  She just stared into the fire… as if it were speaking back.

  —(Inner monologue)—

  Is she human? Or something else… something wearing that shape by choice?

  I asked,

  “What is this pce called?”

  She didn’t turn. She only said,

  “It has no name… just like you.”

  I fell silent, then asked,

  “Who are you?”

  One gnce.

  No more than a moment.

  But it was heavy—like she was weighing my soul.

  She said,

  “Don’t ask about names… they are burdens not meant for those who remain.”

  —(Inner monologue)—

  Those who remain… how many are left, really?

  She lifted her hand and pointed toward the open window.

  “Look closely, before you ask me about the world…”

  I crawled out of bed slowly and approached the window.

  And what I saw… was a nightmare.

  A sky the color of blood.

  A moon hanging as if split in half.

  The air filled with a sound that could not be heard… but could be felt.

  Colpsed buildings.

  Endless streets.

  Dead trees, as if they had forgotten how to live.

  And everywhere… shadows.

  Still, unmoving… as if waiting.

  Waiting for something. Or someone.

  She spoke from behind me, her voice low:

  “The throne does not hide… it is the one that sees you.”

  I turned slowly, looking at her in confusion.

  But she didn’t expin. She only continued:

  “All who dared draw near… were changed.”

  She stepped closer, slowly, then whispered:

  “Sitting on it isn’t the end of the journey…

  —it’s the end of you, as you know yourself.”

  Then she returned to the fire… and sat.

  And I remained standing… before a window that opened only onto ruin.

  I remained there.

  Before a window that showed no world… only what the world had become.

  Her words etched themselves into the gss—unfading, incomprehensible,

  yet heavy… like confessions unspoken.

  The wind outside howled, yet moved nothing.

  Everything stood still, as if even time itself feared to tread this pce.

  Inside me, something stirred.

  It wasn’t fear.

  Nor curiosity.

  But that deep, hollow pull you feel when you long for a pce you’ve never been…

  …or remember a dream that was never yours.

  I remembered the throne.

  Its shape, as I’d seen in burned fragments of forgotten manuscripts,

  tucked away in the dustiest corners of books no one dared open.

  It wasn’t a seat.

  It was a mark—like a wound carved into the fabric of this world.

  Everyone knew it.

  But no one had the courage to speak of it clearly.

  It was always there, behind the shadows,

  in the whispered tales told when the fires die… when the moon loses its face.

  But no one ever said… the throne sees you.

  Does it mean it’s alive?

  Or that those who sit on it become mirrors… showing what should never be seen?

  Or perhaps… the act of sitting is not a choice—but a judgment.

  I turned slowly toward the woman.

  She was still by the fire.

  Her hands unmoving, her face lit by fmes that cast shadows far too strange to be firelight.

  As if she saw something behind me… that I couldn’t see.

  I asked, my voice hoarse:

  “Who are you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Just lifted her head slightly… and smiled.

  That smile… it wasn’t warm.

  It was calm.

  Deep.

  And as if it was meant for something far beyond me… something I hadn’t yet become.

  And I sat.

  Not near the fire.

  But near the waiting shadows.

  They did not move.

  They only watched.

  And for a moment, I felt that sitting there had never been my choice.

  But a call—accepted on my behalf, long ago.

  Among those shadows, something changed.

  Not out there…

  —but within me.

  As if something ancient… had begun to remember me.