Of course he would recognize her. It was the first and only person that made him fall in love. He stayed there, stunned, as the fog thickened and blended until a single white seamless background was formed around him.

  The valley disappeared. There was only him, the white void, and her, an illusion.

  Of course, he knew that was just an illusion. She was just a vision of what she would look like if she were grown up, not that she died either way in reality.

  No, he simply never saw her grow up as their path simply diverged. A simple life, filled with meetings and partings.

  That short brown hair, that playful yet gentle smile, those eyes filled with passion—they were burned into his memory, or at least that’s what he thought. In reality, he only met her once. They were buddies online, playing every day the same game.

  He’d always told himself that online friendships weren’t real friendships. That they were fleeting, intangible things. Yet, he had no other words to describe her at the time. She had been his teammate, his confidant, another friend in those days.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” Her voice, soft and curious, shattered his reverie. She tilted her head slightly, her smile unbothered by his vacant expression.

  But Luka didn’t respond. Instead, he walked past her without a word, his gaze fixed on the endless horizon ahead. Even if this was a vision of his past, it was a past he had already overcome. He no longer needed to dwell on it.

  He had loved her once, in his own clumsy, earnest way. He had tried to show her how much she meant to him, but she hadn’t felt the same. She had loved someone else.

  And when she told him that, when she said he had changed, it broke him. For a long time, he spiraled into depression, consumed by feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. But eventually, he had picked himself up. He had moved forward.

  This was just a simple life story—nothing extraordinary, nothing tragic. Just another tale of meetings and partings.

  After walking for a full minute, the vision faded. She disappeared without another word, her figure dissolving back into the mist.

  He felt disappointed. For such a mythical landscape, that was all it could come up with? Truly pathetic. He kept walking forward, without listening to the voices around him which started to grow louder.

  Sobs, cries, now that was interesting.

  He stopped and looked around. Faces he knew, friends, family.

  They knelt on the ground, their forms blurred and incomplete, like paintings smeared by rain. Each of them was crying, their shoulders shaking as they wept. The sight was jarring, unsettling. He recognized every one of them—the people who had been a part of his life, people he had cared for deeply, some of whom he had lost.

  “Why… Why did my dad…” a young boy sobbed, his voice shaking as tears streamed down his face.

  He had lost his dad at a young age.

  “My husband…” a woman choked out, clutching her chest as though trying to hold herself together. Her wail broke into an anguished cry filled with confusion.

  She had lost her husband to suicide.

  Others wailed incoherently, their words garbled and unintelligible, their pain spilling into the mist. Their grief felt alive, pressing against Luka like a weight, making it harder to breathe.

  From a young age, Luka had watched people lose their loved ones, one by one. He had seen it in the hollow eyes of neighbors, in the trembling hands of distant relatives, in the quiet despair of strangers on the street.

  From a young age, like everyone else, he had come to understand the meaning of death.

  However, those were not people he knew very well.

  They weren’t the ones whose absence had carved wounds into his soul. No, these were acquaintances, passersby in the story of his life—people whose losses he had observed from a distance. Their grief had touched him, but it hadn’t defined him.

  What defined him, however, was how he handled it.

  He remembered the boy, as he shared the news of his father’s passing with their entire class instead of him. Luka had thought he was helping, trying to ease the boy’s burden by being there while he was not, by talking about it. Instead, it had backfired. They had ended up in a heated argument, with the boy shouting at him, accusing Luka of making it worse. "It wasn’t yours to tell!" the boy had yelled through his tears.

  The woman, he did nothing. He showed that he didn’t care. And so, everyone thought that he indeed, didn’t care about the man who died. After all, he didn’t know him that well, and he was just a madman to his family.

  These moments stuck with him, etched into his memory. Not because of the loss, but because of the way others had seen him in those moments. Of course, he didn’t have the right to complain, they were the ones who were grieving the most.

  It was strange, really—how well he remembered. To the smallest detail, he could reconstruct every instant in his mind, as if reliving them. Every glance, every whispered word, every tear. It was all there, perfectly preserved, like artifacts in a museum he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

  And in those memories, he always thought of one thing: for someone who had cried so easily as a child, he really didn’t cry much when people died.

  The mist seemed to shift around him, as if alive, stirring in response to his thoughts. He could still hear the echoes of sobbing somewhere far off, but they felt muted now, as though they belonged to a world he was no longer a part of.

  Luka took another step forward, then another, the sound of his boots crunching faintly against the unseen ground.

  A new shape emerged from the mist—taller, broader. Luka stopped, narrowing his eyes as the figure took form.

  “Dad,” Luka whispered, the figure becoming clear.

  The figure didn’t speak and instead looked at him silently.

  Luka felt his chest tighten. He and his dad had their problems—just like any other child and parent. Heated arguments over curfews and expectations, endless disagreements over choices Luka had made, things Luka had said. But none of that had ever stopped him from loving his dad. He loved him more than anything.

  Even now, staring into his father’s silent, unwavering gaze, Luka could feel that same love burning in his chest. It surprised him to see him here, of all places, and yet it didn’t.

  Because there was one thing—one thing above all—that had always haunted him.

  How much he had failed him.

  No. Not just him.

  ‘Them.’

  As if in answer to his thoughts, another figure began to form in the mist. This time, Luka’s breath caught in his throat, his body going rigid as the figure took shape.

  His mother.

  She stood next to his father, her presence radiating just as much love as his father. The way they looked at him, the softness in their eyes, made Luka’s stomach churn with an overwhelming mix of guilt and longing.

  Of course, he had loving parents, who did everything they could to give him the happiest life. And for that, he was grateful, truly. There was not a single day, even in his most rebellious days, where he felt bothered by them or didn’t bless them.

  “I—” he started, but his voice broke, and he had to force himself to try again. “I... I’m sorry.”

  They didn’t respond. They just stood there, waiting. After all, they were just illusions. He wondered how stressed or despairing they might be in the real world right now. Waiting for him. Not knowing where he was or what had happened to him.

  Even if they were just illusions, even if they weren’t real, he had to say it.

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me. Just go on with your days as usual. Please.”

  The mist swirled between them, the edges of their forms beginning to blur as if the world itself was erasing them. Luka stood there, watching, until they were completely gone, leaving him alone once more.

  Alone, but oddly lighter, as if the weight he’d carried for so long had lifted just a little.

  “Is that everything?” he asked the mist, waiting for the next wave of visions.

  “Of course not,” a voice answered, taking him by surprise. The mist shifted once more, only to reveal a group of children, not older than thirteen years old.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Ah, right, those are…

  “Hey Luka, watch out!” One of the kids, a familiar face with a mischievous grin, darted behind him, attempting to trip him with a well-timed nudge.

  Luka’s body tensed instinctively, but the sensation felt... hollow, as if this wasn’t real. And yet, a part of him still reacted as if they were, in fact, there—like they were still the same kids he’d known back then, all those years ago.

  Another child slapped him lightly across the back of the head, and another sneaked a hand into his jacket’s pocket, all while some of the others snickered in the background, their laughter high-pitched and cruel.

  Luka’s breath hitched. The memory came rushing back—those endless days in middle school where the same thing happened, day after day. Constant mockery. Constant harassment. It had become his routine, his reality.

  “Tell me when you’re done,” Luka muttered, his voice carrying a tiredness far deeper than his years should have allowed. He wasn’t angry anymore. He was just... weary.

  He looked at the scene in front of him, the childish antics of the past playing out in front of him like some twisted, never-ending loop.

  How did I survive that?

  The question hit him, like a punch to the gut. How did he endure those years of being the target? Mocked every day. Pushed around. Hit. His classmates, even his supposed friends, had taken turns humiliating him in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

  Even in class, when he was doing his best to learn, they would steal his things, slap him from behind, throw him things. Sometimes it was just a comment, a joke for the whole class. Other times, they would push him down the stairs. Yet he never fought back—not out of any sense of restraint, but because that’s what the adults told him to do.

  Why didn’t I fight back? He thought to himself. Why didn’t I do something?

  The answer was clear, even if it was hard to admit. He was scared. He was terrified. After all, who would fight against someone pointing a knife at you? And then, after that, they sat next to you in class the next year, like nothing had happened.

  The funniest part was… He actually became friends with a lot of them.

  These so-called bullies were trying to get him out of his shell, to try to know him better, to get him in the group, or so that’s what he gathered from all these years of thinking about it. With time, he had grown numb to their antics, and none of them were scary.

  They were an annoyance at best. And they became good friends later.

  “I understand all of you,” Luka muttered under his breath, and at the sound of his words, the children paused, their mischievous grins fading as they began to disappear into the mist.

  He had been angry for a long time, but at some point, it had burned out, leaving the shallow ash of his fragile ego.

  He had been angry for so long. But anger, like everything else, had its limits. Eventually, it burned out. It left only the shallow ash of a fragile ego, a residue of a time when everything had felt like it was falling apart.

  Luka wasn’t like the others, he knew that. He couldn’t fit in with them. He didn’t like the things they liked, didn’t see the world the way they did.

  So, in high school, he tried to do what he failed to do in middle school. He tried to blend in, to make friends, to be a part of something, anything. But the more he tried to fit into the mold they made for him, the more he felt like he was losing himself.

  Those years were some of the best, and some of the worst, of his life. He had friends, but those friendships always felt like they were built on fragile ground. There was always something missing, something he couldn’t quite reach or touch. No matter how much he laughed, how much he tried to feel at ease, there was always an emptiness that lingered beneath it all.

  But for the first time in a long time, Luka felt like he was no longer fighting alone. Even if he couldn’t fully connect with the people around him, at least he wasn’t invisible anymore. At least, he thought, maybe he had found a place for himself.

  That was probably why the mist didn’t even try to form anything now. Those were good years, no matter how bad some of them were.

  Finally, as he stepped further in, another shape began to materialize. This time, it was himself as a child. The small version of Luka stood there, with his puffy cheeks and round eyes, staring up at him in a way that made Luka feel a deep sense of resentment.

  It didn’t ask anything, instead, it only looked at him with expectant eyes.

  That child held multiple dreams. He was a loner surrounded by good friends.

  Luka stared back at his younger self, feeling an unexpected surge of complicated emotions. The child version of himself seemed both vulnerable and accusatory, those round eyes holding a depth of unspoken questions.

  "What do you want from me?" Luka whispered, though he knew the child—this illusion—would not answer directly.

  Now he was starting to understand why this valley could drive people mad. It was a test of sorts. Not a hard one, nor an easy one, just a test to judge whether or not you understood yourself before stepping into the future.

  Your goals, your aspirations, your regrets, your scars.

  While Luka had some scars, they were mostly healed, at least to his own point of view. What wasn’t healed was the consequences of these scars.

  Tears and cracks that appeared after these events, that only deepened with time. Those were yet to be healed.

  The child before him wasn't demanding anything. It simply existed, a living memory of potential and uncertainty. Those expectant eyes held something Luka had long forgotten: pure, uncompromised hope.

  A time when he would imagine himself becoming a baker, a farmer, or even just a random video game developer.

  These childhood fantasies had died. Even more now as he was transported into this dangerous world. But even worse, he felt miserable.

  He had failed after years of studying to become a developer. In the end, he became without friends, without a future in mind, wandering aimlessly.

  An observer of his own life.

  The mist around him seemed to pulse with a quiet, almost pitying energy. The child waited. Luka waited. The valley held its breath.

  He had to say something to get out of here. In fact, how long had he been here? A few minutes? An hour? A day? He couldn’t even remember. Ever since he was shown that man, he wanted to give up.

  Yet something within him refused to completely surrender.

  The child's expectant gaze continued to challenge him. Not with anger or disappointment, but with a pure, neutral observation that cut deeper than any accusation.

  Hope.

  Not his hope, not yet. But the kind of hope shared by every human who’s ever looked to the future and dared to believe it could be better. The kind of hope he had long since abandoned, dismissed as foolish and unattainable.

  And yet, it lingered, just as stubborn as the mist that refused to let him go.

  There was a certain dream he had always dismissed.

  The mist changed shape once more, and this time, it felt thinner. The little kid disappeared with a smile, as if it understood Luka’s resolve, and transformed into a gathering of people. Even if Luka couldn’t tell, it was every person he had ever met. Every person, even those he had just met in Tamia.

  That dream was impossible to him. Because it was simply too hard. Impossible, even.

  All of his life, he hated one single thing. It was people crying. It didn’t matter who it was. A friend, a stranger, even an enemy—if they cried, it broke something in him. No matter how angry he was, no matter how justified his fury, he would stop the moment tears fell. He would apologize, even if he wasn’t at fault.

  Whenever someone was crying, he would do something, anything, to give that person a little bit of comfort.

  He hated seeing people cry because, when he was a kid, he cried a lot. Whenever something bad happened to him, it would spill out in tears he couldn’t control, leaving him feeling exposed and vulnerable. And he hated it. He hated himself for it. He hated the way others looked at him when it happened—sometimes with pity, sometimes with disdain, but never with understanding.

  Tears were a sign of weakness, he knew that better than anyone.

  After all, how many times had people abused that moment of weakness to tell the others? To mock him? To use it as a bargain for something else?

  That’s why he couldn’t achieve his dream.

  Because he knew better now. He understood how people behaved—how children behaved, how adults who were nothing more than grown-up children behaved. He had seen the cruelty people were capable of, the selfishness, the indifference.

  And the moment he started to understand, he had lost all hope.

  Now, he hated humanity. He hated it to his core, more than anything.

  Yet, he loved humans.

  It was a contradiction that made his head spin every time he thought about it. He hated humanity—the collective, the faceless crowd, the systems, the cycles of cruelty and apathy. But he loved people, individual people. The little acts of kindness. The way someone could smile and change the course of a bad day. The way someone could cry, and remind him of the fragile beauty of it all.

  It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  And maybe that was the point.

  He had asked himself the same questions over and over again. Why? Why did it have to be like this? The wars, the endless struggles against one another, the constant toxic competition of life. Everyone bound to their nature, to their instincts for survival, to their relentless need to be better than someone else.

  And he wasn’t any better.

  No, he wasn’t some selfless exception. Deep down, he wanted it too—the recognition, the admiration. He wanted people to look at him with awe, to tell him how incredible he was. He always felt jealous of the popular ones.

  Or maybe… maybe it wasn’t everyone he wanted that from.

  Maybe it was just one person.

  But still, he couldn’t stop everyone’s tears. Nor could he stop the tears of his loved ones. He could stop nothing. No matter how much he hated crying, no matter how much he wanted to shield others from it, he couldn’t. He had no power to fix what was broken—not in others, and not in himself.

  The mist swirled once more, as if it was waiting for him to realize something he hadn’t yet admitted to himself.

  This time, nothing appeared. It was just there, silent, waiting for him to answer.

  And Luka stood there, unsure of what to say. What could he say? What answer was it waiting for?

  What is your sin?

  The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating through the mist. It was cold, clinical, as if stripping him bare with the question.

  “My… sin?” Luka’s voice cracked, repeating the words as if to buy himself time to think.

  Yes. What is your sin?

  Then it was obvious.

  “Sloth. No doubt about it,” Luka replied with a sigh, his tone tired and resigned. He didn’t even need to think hard about it—it was something he had always known.

  Wrong.

  “Huh?”

  You know yourself more than anyone, yet you cannot answer that question. Aren’t you full of yourself, hm?

  Luka’s jaw tightened, and a bitter laugh escaped him. “Full of myself? That’s… rich. I know what I am. I’ve been this way my whole life. I’ve always run away from my problems, ran away from my dreams because it was easier to live in the moment.”

  You hide behind excuses. You cling to sloth because it’s comfortable, but deep down, you know the truth. Your sin is not laziness. Think again.

  Luka clenched his fists, his mind racing. “If it’s not sloth, then what? Greed? Envy? Pride?” His voice grew louder, frustration spilling over. “I’ve been all of those things at some point! I’ve wanted more than I deserved, hated people for having what I didn’t, and even thought I was better than them sometimes! So, what is it? What are you trying to make me say?”

  You fear the answer because you’ve known it all along. Speak it.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Luka sighed. “So perhaps you could tell me, if you know me so well. What are you, some kind of spirit living in this valley?”

  I have been here since the beginning of time, protecting this cave. I know you because I’ve seen your kind multiple times. Do you truly wish to know your sin?

  “Of course,” Luka chuckled. “Otherwise I won’t get out of here, right?”

  You’re a coward.

  The words struck like a hammer blow, reverberating in the empty space.

  Luka froze. His heart sank, and the silence that followed felt deafening.

  “A coward?” he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Yes. You’ve been afraid your whole life. Afraid to try. Afraid to fail. Afraid to live. Afraid to fight. Every time you ran, every time you made excuses, every time you let opportunities slip by—it wasn’t laziness. It was fear. You’ve let cowardice shape your existence.

  You hide it with your carefree attitude, your ability to avoid conflict, but those only stem from your cowardice.

  “I thought you meant a deadly sin of some sort,” Luka chuckled with a shrug.

  And yet you deflect. Even now.

  You think this is a joke? That you can shrug it off with humor and sarcasm? You can laugh all you want, Luka, but it won’t change the truth. You’re afraid. Afraid of being seen, of being judged, of failing.

  Afraid of being you.

  Luka’s smirk faded, his shoulders sagging as the truth bore down on him. “So what if I am?” he muttered, his voice hollow. “What am I supposed to do about it? You want me to just stop being afraid? That’s not how it works.”

  No, it isn’t. Fear doesn’t vanish. But you can choose whether to let it control you.

  “Are you helping me, somehow? What’s your goal?”

  My goal is to protect this cave from unwanted visitors. People who cannot handle the truth. But you…

  You’ve always handled the truth, haven’t you? Even if it terrifies you, even if you refuse it, you’d rather face the truth than live in sweet lies. That is why you’re here. That is why I speak to you.

  That is why that succubus chose you. That is why I’m helping you.

  Luka’s brow furrowed. “Helping me? For what? What are you talking about?”

  You are one of the people needed to stop the crisis endangering this world.

  “Crisis?” Luka’s eyebrows raised and the mist seemed to shift, light filtering through faintly as if illuminating a path.

  The Hatman will soon accomplish his goal. Do not let fear guide you, and you may see the future.

  The name hung in the air like an omen, the mist closing in slightly around the edges of the path. Luka swallowed hard, staring at the way forward.

  “The Hatman…” Luka muttered as he saw the path in front of him clear itself.

  Taking a shaky breath, he took a step forward.

  A coward? That too, needed to change.