I have hated this man for a long time. That much is certain.

  But now…

  Now, I don’t know why I stay.

  Perhaps I could have left. Perhaps I should have.

  But I didn’t. And that’s just the way things are.

  The carriage rattled through the empty streets.

  Caruncle lay curled up on the seat, trembling beneath the heavy blanket Custodio had draped over him. The man’s large hands worked with practiced care, adjusting the mask over Caruncle’s face to shield his wasted eyes from the light.

  Across from them, seated on the driver’s bench, Mortimer Muller sat motionless, his long mustache drooping over his lips like a curtain.

  “Proceed,” Custodio murmured.

  The carriage lurched forward. Custodio turned toward the window, lighting a cigar with the kind of unhurried patience that only a man with absolute control could afford. The orange glow flared in the darkness.

  “You’ll have to forgive my harshness in the basement,” he said, not looking at Caruncle, but through him. Smoke curled from his lips. “One can never be too careful.”

  Caruncle tried to lift his head. His body wouldn’t obey. His teeth chattered.

  Custodio exhaled and finally turned to him.

  “My name is Custodio Esparza. The man before you is Mortimer Muller. Not just my servant, but my right hand.”

  Mortimer didn’t so much as blink.

  Caruncle’s body shivered violently. Custodio observed him with detached fascination, then reached out—**without hesitation, without fear—**and pulled Caruncle upright. The gesture was almost tender.

  “Tonight, you’ll rest. Tomorrow, we will speak.”

  He leaned in.

  “For you and I have much to discuss.”

  Caruncle barely processed the words before his mind slipped into the waiting abyss.

  When we arrived, I saw nothing.

  I, too, had drifted into exhaustion, as though I had absorbed his suffering, his weakness, his hollow surrender.

  But I could feel it—the descent.

  So many stairs. Down and down and down, until the air turned stale again, thick and unmoving, like a place where time had curled up and died.

  For a moment, I thought we had been brought back to that basement.

  Then, silence.

  Sleep took us both.

  He awoke on stone.

  It was cold—so much colder than before. Maybe because he had slept too long on filth, and now anything else felt foreign.

  His body refused to move. His mind refused to wake. Every time he stirred, the dream dragged him back down, over and over again—false awakenings, layered nightmares, drowning in a hundred different versions of waking up.

  Then, at last—

  Footsteps.

  A heavy, dry sound against the brick floor.

  Custodio.

  He loomed in the doorway, expression unreadable.

  “Sit up.”

  Caruncle didn’t move.

  Custodio strode forward and, with one hand, ripped the mask from his face.

  Caruncle flinched. The world blurred—dim candlelight, gray stone, the suffocating presence of a place with no windows.

  With great effort, he forced himself upright. The chains made it awkward, slow. Custodio watched him struggle, but did not help.

  Custodio sat across from Caruncle, his face a mask of composure, his voice as steady as a stone pillar.

  “Do you know why I bought you?”

  Caruncle didn’t move. He swallowed hard, then shook his head.

  Custodio’s voice turned sharp. “Look at me when I am speaking to you.”

  Caruncle flinched. He lifted his head—slowly—but his unfocused eyes slid past Custodio, as if refusing to fully acknowledge the man before him.

  “I am going to give you a choice,” Custodio said. “And I need you to listen carefully.”

  That got his attention.

  Caruncle blinked himself into awareness, shoulders stiffening as he tried to suppress the panic creeping up his throat.

  “There is something I have been preparing for weeks now, and time is running out.” Custodio leaned forward. His voice was steady, but the weight behind it pressed down on the room like a tightening noose. “Because of this, if you say no… I will be forced to kill you.”

  Caruncle’s entire body locked. A sharp chill shot down his spine, and his heart pounded against his ribs so violently I half expected it to tear through his chest. His breath hitched. His lungs refused to work.

  If I could, I would have reached out, just this once, to hold him.

  Custodio sighed and extended a hand. A strangely gentle gesture, considering his words.

  “Calm yourself,” he said. “I chose you because I believe our goals are aligned. We may be able to help each other.”

  The way he spoke… It was so soft, so measured, that for a moment, the fear stalled. Caruncle hesitated. Then, trembling, he reached out. Custodio took his shaking hand, placed his own over it, and held it firmly.

  “My daughter is dead,” he said. “I intend to bring her back.”

  Caruncle’s breath caught.

  Custodio’s grip tightened—not in threat, but in assurance.

  “Her body is deteriorating. I am doing all I can to slow the decay, but I can only restore so much before there is nothing left to restore. To bring her back, I need a new brain.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Caruncle stared.

  The blood drained from his face as his eyes flickered toward the bathtub in the back of the room.

  Even from here, the pale shape beneath the ice was unmistakable.

  A young woman. No older than her mid-twenties. No—perhaps younger. It was hard to tell, but it didn’t matter. She was waiting.

  Custodio followed his gaze, then looked back at him.

  “To you, it might feel like changing clothes,” he said smoothly. “A shift in form, nothing more.”

  Caruncle’s lips parted, as if to speak, but nothing came out.

  Custodio studied him with a clinical eye. Then, as though offering a gift—

  “Yes. I am asking you to be my daughter.”

  Silence.

  Caruncle froze.

  He tilted his head—**slowly, hesitantly—**like a marionette whose strings had just been severed. His mouth opened again, but the words never came.

  Custodio’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “If you accept, I can guarantee the process will be a success,” he said. “Once it is complete, I will take you under my care. As my daughter, you will no longer be a slave.”

  Caruncle barely heard him. The fluttering in his stomach had turned into a pit.

  Custodio released his hand and straightened.

  “If you refuse,” he continued, “I will use your body to keep her preserved until I find another candidate. Either way…” He sighed. “I cannot afford to waste any more time.”

  He moved toward the door.

  “You have one hour to decide,” he said simply. “Whatever you choose, I promise—it will be quick.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  The candle flickered, sending long shadows stretching across the cold, gray walls.

  Caruncle didn’t move.

  For an entire hour, he sat, motionless.

  This entire ordeal was pointless.

  The man was insane.

  Most likely, Caruncle was going to die.

  And yet—

  He entertained the thought anyway.

  Perhaps just to keep himself occupied until the end.

  Even if he escaped, even if he somehow survived… where would he go?

  He had no strength. No cunning. No future.

  He was nothing. He might as well drop dead.

  I hated this.

  I hated that he was even considering it.

  Because if he refused—if he died here—then maybe, just maybe, I would finally be free.

  I would no longer have to follow him.

  I could finally go.

  But if he accepted—

  I would be stuck.

  I would be left behind, lingering in this world alone, waiting for something that would never come.

  Waiting for someone who would never come.

  I clenched my fists.

  “Please, Caruncle,” I whispered. “Don’t accept. Please. Just listen to me.”

  He didn’t react.

  I knew it was pointless, but I spoke anyway.

  And when the words ran out, I simply sat beside him, pretending he could feel me, pretending I could hold his hand.

  I peered into his mind, trying to see his decision before he made it.

  There were only two options.

  One—the unknown. The afterlife, whatever that meant in this godforsaken world. Maybe he would be given a second chance. Maybe a higher power would pity him.

  Or maybe… he would fall into something so much worse.

  The second—

  The body in the ice.

  The life that Custodio was offering him.

  Not an escape.

  A replacement.

  He had no way of knowing what would happen if he died.

  But if he lived…

  He knew what that meant.

  And I knew—

  I already knew what choice he would make.

  If oblivion awaited him, it would have been a mercy.

  But something else loomed in the dark.

  Something watching. Waiting.

  A presence he couldn't shake. Jazmin.

  She had built this world, written it into existence. And now, he had failed her.

  She would not be pleased.

  Caruncle tried not to think about it.

  He tried not to remember her eerie, inescapable eyes.

  ***

  The hour passed.

  Custodio returned, pushing open the door with slow, deliberate care. The candlelight flickered, stretching his shadow across the gray stone walls.

  He closed the door behind him.

  Then—silence.

  “Now,” he said, his voice calm, steady. “I want to hear your choice.”

  Caruncle lifted his head.

  For a long time, he didn’t speak.

  Neither of them did.

  They sat there, locked in some wordless understanding I couldn’t quite grasp.

  Then, at last—

  He nodded.

  Custodio’s expression didn’t change.

  “Very well.”

  He stepped forward and knelt beside him, removing a worn iron key from his pocket. The chains fell away, one by one.

  “Do you have any last words?”

  Caruncle shook his head.

  A strange stillness settled over Custodio’s face. For a moment, he simply stared.

  Then he sighed, quietly.

  Like a man relieved of some great weight.

  As the final shackle hit the ground, Custodio spoke again.

  “Are you familiar with the name Darius?”

  Caruncle hesitated, then shook his head.

  Custodio hummed. “I thought as much.”

  He stood, stretching his shoulders before continuing.

  “That is the name of a man Jazmin once knew,” he said. “A demon.”

  Caruncle's breath hitched.

  “Jazmin was his mistress, in a way,” Custodio went on. “And long ago, he walked into one of the worlds she created.”

  He moved past Caruncle, approaching the table at the back of the room.

  “What happened after that…” he muttered, pulling something from beneath the table, “…is still unknown.”

  A hammer.

  A thick iron nail.

  Custodio inspected them briefly, then wiped them clean with a rag.

  “But one thing is certain,” he continued. “The blood he carried—his corruption—was passed to his children.”

  He turned back to Caruncle, stepping closer.

  “And those children multiplied. They spread, shaped, and swallowed this world whole.”

  The iron nail pressed against Caruncle’s forehead.

  Custodio raised the hammer.

  “This venom flows through all of us.”

  A heartbeat.

  Then—

  A single, decisive swing.

  Darkness.

  I saw Custodio split his skull open.

  The sound it made—wet, fragile, final.

  With his bare hands, he pried it apart, fingers slick with blood as he reached inside.

  I should have looked away.

  But I didn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  Not even when I saw the empty cavity in the woman’s head beside him. Her skull had already been opened—her eyes clumsily stitched shut.

  She had been waiting for this.

  For him.

  My mind fractured.

  I turned away.

  I didn’t want to hear it.

  I didn’t want to know.

  But the wet, tearing sound of Custodio severing his brain from the spinal cord was unavoidable.

  For a long time, I stayed close to Caruncle.

  Even as his body grew cold.

  Even as his presence faded to nothing.

  I whispered to him.

  Just in case—just in case—he could hear me.

  And then—

  Cold.

  A deep, biting cold.

  A heartbeat.

  A sudden, gasping breath.

  My head snapped up.

  But—no.

  The body beside him was moving.

  Not Caruncle.

  Not anymore.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered open, but she couldn’t see—not yet. The candlelight burned too bright against the fresh nerves and sutures.

  Custodio worked quickly. He wrapped her in a thick, worn blanket, his hands strangely careful.

  Then—softly, almost gently:

  “I appreciate your cooperation, Elena.”

  His voice was softer than before.

  But his expression…

  His expression hadn’t changed at all.

  He carried her out of the room.

  And up the stairs—

  Out of the dark.