Chapter 09: Hidden Cities 02

In this city, it is said that all troubles disappear when you ask for a knife. Doubts disappear, hopes get renewed. The weak parts are fixed, strengthened, revived. Do you understand?

This city is home, and it will be until the end of the world. In that time, those of us who go inside it will live out the end of the world inside it. Our bodies will break down, grow old, and become dust, but our spirits will live forever in the endless cycle of life. Because it's never truly over. This city will always be alive. Even after this life ends, we'll always be living a part of it inside ourselves.

That is why I have come to find what is not alive inside the city. It is impossible to search for a living thing in a dead city, so this search is impossible. I do not seek what is not alive, I seek what is. I search for death inside the city and within the city. I'm searching for it to strike me.

The city is built on all the bones of all those who have ever lived and died here. Each floor holds those bones, turned into skeletons covered by skin. If I walk up those bones, it will be as if I walk up a long column of skin covered bones, covered by a thick layer of skin covered bones. It is impossible to count them. If I walk up all the bones, I'll go right to the center of the city and they will be piled so high that I won't have to look up to see the top.

I've stood here for a few minutes now. I'm tired, and I feel like the bones have moved under my feet a little bit, but it doesn't matter. I have no time to stand and look around, I have to keep going, to walk, to search, and find what is not alive.

I walk towards the bones, I walk towards the strange statues on the outside of the city, and then I walk to the very end. Each step I take brings me closer to death, closer to me, to death in me. It's never close, it's never close, but I keep walking. I will find it in my final steps. I will find death inside the city, and it will be the most important thing in my life. It will change my life, forever.

I get closer, and the bones start to shift.