Your Eternal Promise

7

He woke up in a dark room.

Sadness, joy, love, hate, hope, despair, and even the world were all far away from him. He opened his eyes, and the texture of the poplar wood on top looked at him, like continuously entangled pupils.

"Life is a game. Do you like playing games, my dear friend?"

"No, the oldest and most boring game is hunting. But I have to admit that as long as people are alive, there will never be a shortage of hunters in this world, as well as prey who don't know they are in danger."

"Cruel? Cruel indeed, but people live in this world to constantly create cruelty. Like cattle and sheep, they never thought about the outcome of being enslaved and killed. Some people don't understand that they have been deceived until they are dying. .”

Yes, this is a game, he is the hunter, and I am the prey...

His fingers twitched subconsciously, and the sapphires shone brightly in the blood, like jumping, restless water on the surface of a stream.

"I said it." A voice came from beside him, "No slave can leave this island. It's bad luck for you and it's bad luck for me, kid."

Agape looked numb. He turned his head slightly and saw the slave owner's unruffled eyes.

"... You... knew it a long time ago, didn't you..." After too long, he managed to speak, his breath weak, like a cobweb floating in the wind.

"Dad" stood up, put his whip on the wooden chair, and made a slight sound. Without saying a word, he turned and left. The wooden door creaked and he closed it with his backhand.

Through the crack in the door, Agape heard the conversation outside. The gatekeeper asked: "Sir, how is it?"

The slave owner replied: "Still alive, but probably not long."

The gatekeeper laughed rudely: "When I heard this little whore scream so miserably, I knew something was wrong. Naive fools always have unrealistic dreams, but they don't know that this will put their lives at risk!"

"Let's go, there's no need to keep guard any longer," the slave owner said impatiently. "It's just a waste of time. Call your people and let's go have a drink."

The footsteps and voices of several people gradually faded away. Agape lay numbly on the bed, with two uncertain stars floating in the depths of his pupils.

He thought confusedly, I am flying.

...I'm flying.

The pain is far away from him, the scars are far away from him. He is flying in the poplar wood-grained heaven, and the linen quilt under him is his wings and clouds... He is flying.

Just when he was lost in thought and didn't know what night it was, he suddenly heard a loud and long sound coming from the distant sea. Was it the trumpet of an archangel, or the cry of a golden-armored horse under the seat of the god about to go to war?

He sat up in a daze, and through the wooden window lattice, he saw the snow-white longships leaving the port one after another. They roared proudly, proclaiming their power and beauty to the sea.

…So that’s it, he’s leaving, Gerald…

Agape convulsed violently, and the dreamlike confusion he had just felt disappeared. He was instantly knocked down from the clouds to the suffering world, and then continued to fall from the world to hell. His whole body was in severe pain and covered in blood. He was a man torn apart alive. He would always have this wound that could not be healed. He would suffer until death and become a howling ghost all day long, unable to rest in peace.