Darkness enveloped the room like a heavy blanket. The light from the lamps flickered for a moment before completely going out. An almost unbearable silence filled the air, broken only by the soft breaths of Ryouhei and Sera.
Ryouhei didn't move, his fingers trembling as he held the diary. Something had changed inside him. He wasn't just writing words about what was happening anymore, it felt as though the diary itself was taking control of his destiny. A weight in his chest told him that the "story" he had begun writing was no longer just a tale, but an irreversible act that would drag them into a conclusion that even he could not avoid.
Sera was by his side, unrelenting. She knew something big was about to happen, something they might not be prepared to face.
"This isn't normal," Ryouhei murmured, tension in every word.
"No, it's not. But we're going to uncover it, whatever's hidden behind this 'story,'" Sera replied with cold determination.
Suddenly, a creak echoed through the walls, interrupting the silence. It was as if the very castle had awakened from a slumber, as if what was happening was alien to its structure but, at the same time, intrinsically connected to it.
An echo resonated, distorted and distant, but unmistakably recognizable. "The show goes on," the faceless voice repeated.
Ryouhei gritted his teeth. "He" – the one he had feared all this time – was present, though not physically, but in a more opaque, intangible presence. This place, this world, was built by Him and controlled by Him, but... what about them? Could they break this cycle of falsehood? Or were they doomed to be puppets within their own story?
"We can't stay here," Sera said, her eyes fixed on the dark corridor ahead of them. "Something is about to happen. And we're not going to be its spectators."
Ryouhei nodded without saying a word, slipping the diary into his bag with a look of disapproval at what it now represented. The diary no longer seemed to be just a tool to understand the world. Now, it was a prison that wrote their future, while the truth, the truth hidden beneath the surface, lurked around them.
Suddenly, a door in the distance creaked open slowly. The sound was almost guttural, as if it resisted being touched by human hands. What came out of that door wasn't a figure, but a feeling. A palpable pressure in the air, as if everything were about to crumble.
"It's him," Ryouhei said, his eyes fixed on the darkness spilling through the opening. "He's here."
And suddenly, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. It wasn't an ordinary quake; it was something deeper, as if the very world was fracturing.
Sera turned to him, grabbing him by the shoulders. "You don't have to do this. We can leave, we can get out of this place."
Ryouhei didn't respond, but his gaze hardened. He knew there was no way out, that the only way to destroy what had trapped them here was to confront it. Somehow, this place reflected everything he had left behind: the distortion of reality, the lie about what was possible and what wasn't.
The Curtain didn't fall.
The door slammed shut with a bang, and Ryouhei took a step forward, taking a moment to breathe deeply.
"Let's go. Let the show begin."
The hallway swallowed them immediately, as the distance between them and whatever awaited them shrank, as if the entire place had started to merge, becoming one.
Ryouhei and Sera knew they were about to enter a stage where the rules they knew didn't matter, where even their own memories couldn't guarantee them an advantage.
Only the final confrontation awaited them.