(Kael steps forward. Where the figure vanished, a faint trail of light lingers on the tiles. Not a path— a scar.)

Each step echoes as if the ground were hollow. As if beneath it there was no earth… only abyss.

Suddenly, a murmur.

But it is not external.

> “Kael…”

He freezes. That tone. That tenderness.

> “Kael… my child…”

(The voice is his mother’s. Not the one that groaned in the hospital bed. The one that lulled him to sleep as a child.)

Kael (in a whisper): — No… don’t do this…

(A figure slowly forms to his right. He does not look. He fears breaking it if he does.)

> — You were always special, did you know that?

He doesn’t answer. His fists tighten.

> — But even the special ones… disappoint.

(The figure vanishes like smoke, leaving behind the scent of old medicine.)

[Scene II – The Table of Nevermore | 9:51 A.M.]

(The setting shifts subtly. Kael now walks among empty tables. A dining room. His childhood home.)

Only one table is occupied.

Himself, at 8 years old, drawing a god shaped like a star. At his side, his father.

Father (from memory): — There are no answers in the stars, son. Only cold.

(The memory changes. The father stands, seizes the drawing, tears it in half.)

> — Belief is for the weak.

(Adult Kael watches. He does not intervene. He only breathes. It hurts. But he endures.)

[Scene III – Chorus of Anonymous Judgment | 9:55 A.M.]

(A chorus of voices surrounds him. Voices with no owner. Or no face.)

> — “You saw him die and said nothing.”

— “Your doubts save no one.”

— “Why you and not us?”

(The atmosphere twists. The mist thickens, viscous as blood. Rain begins to fall— but the drops are black.)

Kael covers his face, yet he does not move.

Kael (shouting): — Enough!!

(The cry does not echo. No one hears it. No one but the Codex… which beats.)

[Scene IV – The Edge of Questions | 10:00 A.M.]

(The scene quiets. Now he is in a long hallway, built of broken columns. There is no floor, only black water.)

In the distance, a figure stands with its back to him.

It does not speak. But Kael feels it watching.

Kael (voice trembling): — Who are you?

(The figure does not answer. It only dissolves… and in its place, a mirror remains. A single mirror. Enormous. Clean.)

Kael approaches. He sees himself.

But not as he is now.

As he would be if he had never doubted.

> A white robe. A shining cross. A confident smile.

Kael (in a low voice): — The perfect believer…

(He moves his hand to touch it… but the mirror shatters without warning.)

The voice of the Codex whispers from within:

> “That you… would not survive here.”

---

Codex Gnosis Dei – Fragment XII

> There is a silence that is not absence,

but judgment without words.

When the soul gazes at itself without comfort

and still chooses to go on,

the abyss does not close…

but it breathes with you.