Chapter 136: Condemned to Breathe
Something changed.
Almost imperceptibly. A crack in the void. A shiver that came neither from outside nor inside—just from an in-between. And that was when I felt it.
The light.
It wrapped around me. Gently. Slowly. But not like an embrace. Not like a greeting. No. None of those soft touches allowed in fairy tales, none of that warmth that reconciles. It wasn’t a light for the living. Nor for the dead.
It was a lukewarm shroud.
An invisible sheet laid over my existence, not to soothe it, but to cover it. To designate it. To close it. It wasn’t a saving light. NOT A FUCKING LIGHT OF DEATH. Not that damn halo they pretend to see at the end of the tunnel. Not that blissful crap they sell to martyrs and fallen soldiers.
It was something else.
A light without heat. Without origin. Without logic. It came neither from above nor from below. It didn’t flow. It didn’t burst. It... was. It existed like an infection exists. Present. Insistent. Irreversible. It lit up nothing. It guided no one. It promised no way out.
But it revealed.
Everything.
Every nerve. Every memory. Every forgotten fragment. Every horror carefully buried beneath layers of denial. It traced the exact silhouette of what I had become—not in light, but in truth. A nightmare clarity. A radiography of the soul.