『It’s cold, Bismuth. Let’s go home.』

Falling through a cold and empty abyss, those words played on repeat. They were few words of many, and yet even a million words couldn’t come close enough to outlining the grief it felt than them alone. 

It felt as though those words were spoken years ago, though the true amount of time was completely lost to it. Its stomach was empty, yet didn’t make a sound—its eyes felt strained, yet it couldn’t seem to move them or blink the pain away. Was this guilt, fear, or simply giving up?

『It’s cold, Bismuth. Let’s go home.』

Its face crinkled. Its limp arms hung at the side.

It was clear there was no escaping those words. Not through time, space, nor the depth of oneself. What, then? In the end was there really no way of returning past an event horizon?

—As if to answer that, its defiant mind filled the world with color.

A field, the gentle waving of grass, a white sundress fluttering in tandem, all of which was subject to an unhinged internal struggle to bury bereavement under black. However with each violent flash of color any hope to fight against that overwhelming force seemed to be fruitless. Those fruits, instead, burst at the seams like rough and unsettling splotches of vividly oversaturated paint.

Each echo from that unwanted past seemed to speak. Like a choir they called, mocking its own spineless words—

『It’s cold, Bismuth. Let’s go home.』

That girl, the one it answered to, every detail was recreated to perfection.

Her sparklingly bright hair descending down in parallel spectrumed pigtails. From cool colors, to warm, to gold—within her locks she held unimaginably natural hues. Over a hundred thousand strands that all seemed honored just to be a part of her. Her porcelain skin, innocent yet assaulted. Her nurturing eyes, humble yet exploited…

From within the blackest black, followed mercilessly by past sins…

What it had dreamed of was the opportunity of nepenthe, but false hope could not turn fiction into reality.

From running away it felt far from fulfilled.

Perhaps there wasn’t a word to describe how it felt…

From running away there was no glory.

Throwing away the entire world, throwing away itself…

That abyss awarded him with a necklace of gold. A throne for a gutless liar.

I threw you away… I forced you to suffer alone…

The flowers had wilted months ago.

Her colors had faded months ago.

Her smile, as well…

In the end that's why…

Why it could never accept this fate.

Why it could never truly escape.

Why it could never be satisfied.

Why, no matter how much it will suffer, and how much it could have won in the end…

It will never have meant a single thing.

As that false world broke apart, that cruel and mocking voice spoke one last time.

『You’ll always hate me. You’ll hate me long, long after I die…』