Moonlight bathed the polished walls of the City of Mirrors one last time as the Wanderer stepped through its ornate gate, lantern in hand. A quiet resolve had settled over him following his conversation with the old storyteller. Yet, a dull ache of uncertainty remained, as though each reflective corridor he had walked still clung to his thoughts. He paused at the city’s edge, throwing one final glance back at the shimmering spires. They seemed almost mournful under the moon—beautiful but filled with echoes he was leaving behind.
The road that wound away from the city was narrow and strewn with sharp stones, reflecting none of the moon’s glow. Only the steady light of his lantern cut through the shadows, revealing a path that seemed to lead nowhere in particular. He had no map, no sign pointing him forward—only the nagging sense that there was somewhere he still needed to go, a silent pull in the darkness.
Night gradually dissolved into a pale dawn. The sky turned the color of ashes, and a faint chill crept through the air. Strange shapes loomed at the edges of his vision—jagged rock formations that looked like petrified trees or forgotten ruins of a civilization lost to time. The Wanderer felt as though he were walking through a landscape frozen in twilight, suspended between dream and reality.
Despite the stillness, he sensed something shifting around him. The ground underfoot grew coarse, sloping downward in a slow, deliberate descent. A distant wind howled like a lonely creature, though no breeze stirred his cloak or hair. His footsteps crunched against loose gravel, each step sounding impossibly loud in the hush.
Eventually, the terrain opened onto a wide, rocky plateau. At its far edge lay a chasm so vast and dark that it consumed the horizon. A crude wooden sign, half-buried in rubble, offered no words—only a single arrow pointing forward, toward the endless expanse of emptiness.
The Wanderer approached slowly, lantern held aloft. With each step, his heart pounded harder, as if warning him of the precipice that awaited. When at last he reached the lip of the chasm, he peered over—and found nothing but blackness below. No bottom met his eye, no rocky outcropping or glimmer of water to signal a depth. It was simply a void, an absence so profound it seemed to swallow light itself.
A strange hush pressed against his ears, like the silence before a storm. Tentatively, he held the lantern out, hoping its glow might reveal more of what lay below. To his surprise, the flame barely illuminated the first few feet of darkness. It’s as if the shadows refuse to yield, he thought, a shiver of awe prickling across his skin.
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For a moment, he could only stare. The abyss. He had heard rumors—tales that said pilgrims and dreamers came here seeking epiphanies. Some claimed to find answers in the depths; others never returned. The emptiness looked like a wound in the earth, a boundary between worlds. More than that, it felt like a mirror—an echo of the endless searching inside himself.
He set the lantern down gingerly on a nearby ledge, freeing both hands. He had traveled so far, from deserts and plains to the City of Mirrors, and each step had stripped away his illusions. Now he stood on the brink of all he did not know. Should I be afraid? he wondered. Part of him quaked at the idea of stepping closer. Another part felt a reckless urge to leap—just to see what lay beyond the darkness.
A swirl of cold air rose from the chasm, brushing his face like a phantom’s touch. He bent down, fingers curling around a loose pebble. Holding it out over the edge, he let it drop. No sound came. No echo. The pebble seemed to vanish into oblivion, swallowed by the dark.
Grim curiosity fluttered within him. If even the lantern’s light failed to breach that depth, what hope had he of finding clarity there? And yet, the city’s reflections had taught him one crucial truth: He could not run from himself forever.
Pulling his cloak tight, he returned his gaze to the lantern. Its flame looked strangely small against the backdrop of the void—like a single star in an otherwise empty sky. He picked it up, the comforting weight reminding him he wasn’t just a leaf blown by fate. I have a choice, he told himself, though he wasn’t sure what that choice should be.
In the quiet stillness, the words of the old storyteller echoed in his mind: Perhaps it’s not something you find at the end of a road. Perhaps it’s something you create with every step.
He stood at the edge of the abyss, heart pounding, mind racing, the silent darkness stretching before him like a question he could not put into words. And at last, he realized: this was the moment he’d been both dreading and anticipating, long before he even knew this place existed. All his searching had led him here—to a threshold where answers and oblivion might be one and the same.
Gripping the lantern, he inhaled slowly, steeling himself for what lay ahead. Whatever happens next, he thought, I must decide to face it—or turn away.
Yet even as resolve mingled with fear, he felt the faintest stirring of courage. The abyss might not offer him the revelation he desired, but it represented an end to endless wandering—or the beginning of something altogether new.
At last, the Wanderer stepped closer to the brink, peering into the infinite black below. The hush of the void was absolute, pressing against his ears like the weight of a thousand unspoken truths. And as he stood there, lantern light flickering at his side, he began to sense the final test unfolding: Would he surrender to the unknown, or step back into the safety of the world he understood?
For now, the answer waited in the silence, and the abyss yawned in silent invitation.
