Eldritch Palace

Ian was standing inside white space stretched to infinity with no boundaries. A stone gate was standing tall in front of him. This gate was the only thing that had some kind of materialistic depth to it. The room was filled with immaterial objects such as ideas, concepts, and dreams. The more Ian looked around him, the more mystified he got. He never imagined that ideas and dreams have a sensory cue associated with them.

"So, this is the afterlife?" Ian looked around in bewilderment.

A giant eye with strangely similar to a human eye abruptly squirmed out from the stone gate, followed by an echo of a dull and grim voice.

"Yes."

"Sh*t!" Ian mumbled in the grievance. "I guess I had it coming!"

"From that, I assume you already know the situation you are in?" The gate replied impassively."Ian Fletcher, your soul is stagnant and can not pass through the gate of eternal rest!"

"What do you mean by can not pass?" Ian called for an explanation.

"Your soul is corrupt, crippled, and heavy!" The voice said in a demeaning tone. "And it's not my responsibility to purify your sins, neither I will carry your burden."

"I understand!" Ian's expression turned ugly. "So what's do you want from me now? Should I get myself ready for the torture in hell?"

"There is no hell."

"Ah.. that's a relief," Ian asked after calming his nerves. "So what are my options?"

"You need to go back!"

"What?"

"Chambers of eternal rest will not accept your soul, Corrupt souls need to choose the path of salvation. You will go into the cycle of reincarnation."

"NO!" Ian shouted.

" … " An awkward silence enveloped the conversation.

"Ian Fletcher, choose," Gate replied sternly. "Or you'll be staying here with me for eternity."

"Fine by me!" Ian replied with no hesitation. "No way I am going back to that hell again!"

"You will regret this decision!" Gate replied monotonously, and the eye disappeared from the gate surface.

"I guess I was right!" Ian thought with a smirk. "He can't force me into doing anything! I'll stay here. Eternal rest or not, I am not going through all that shit again."

Ian looked started roaming around. He was curious about this white space. He was roaming in the space curiously until he got pulled inside a realm close to him. He found himself surrounded by gruesome monsters who were staring at him with wide eyes. They started consuming him until he was with no skin on his body.

He cried and struggled, but the pain was still unbearable. They kept chewing his skin while he was all bloody when they finished they started chewing his muscles and finally they chewed his bones. Sad thing was, Ian was conscious the whole time. He felt as if centuries have passed while this gruesome scene was transpiring.

Suddenly a knight manifested near them and killed all the monsters with one giant slash and rescued him from their clutches. Then he came back to the white space back.

"What was that?" Ian checked his body and mulled over himself. "Did I fall inside a dream?"

"So this was a dream!" Ian turned toward the gate again and said in a cautious tone. "Man! I better stay away from those from now!"

He again started roaming around, then he found himself walking into another anomaly. He kept looking at a building where nothing rational existed. He felt as if he was hallucinating when he saw that a building structure followed no rules of physics or geometry. The building structure was unbelievable.

The parallel lines were intersecting, structures which looked triangular had 2 sides when he counted, and dimensions made no sense of reality. This kind of alien geometry broke his rationality and senses. He kept looking at the building until he saw that his mind was expanding as if it would explode any second.

Ultimately, he was flung out from that strange realm after a couple of centuries.

"F*ck what was that?" Ian sat back on the floor in amazement. "Ohkay… that was bizarre, this place is peculiar."

Ian was still not fed from his adventures, so he again started exploring until he saw a mature naked lady sitting quietly on a white horse. She looked human, so he wanted to greet her because she looked very elegant and erotic at the same time.

When Ian came closer to her, her eyes turned towards him and her lips moved. Ian saw that and came closer to her until he heard her voice.

"All Ravens Are Black," The woman said to him.

"What?"

"The statement All Ravens Are Black is a paradox of indoor ornithology or simply a paradox arising from the question of what constitutes evidence for a statement. Observing objects that are neither black nor ravens may formally increase the likelihood that all ravens are black, even though, intuitively, these observations are unrelated."

Ian squinted at the naked lady on the horse. "Listen, madam, I just came to say 'Hi'."

The lady, without giving much thought about Ian, started blabbering again. "1st statement 'All ravens are black'. In the form of implication, this can be expressed as — If something is a raven, then it is black via contraposition, this statement is equivalent to my 2nd statement 'If something is not black, then it is not a raven'."

The lady continued. "In all circumstances where 2nd statement is true, 1st statement is also true—and likewise, in all circumstances where 2nd statement is false (that is if a world is imagined in which something that was not black, yet was a raven, existed.) 1st statement is also false."

"Okay, ma'am! keep up the excellent work." Ian scratched his head in confusion and started leaving. "I am out of here!"

The moment he took a step back, the lady ran towards him. Her fingernails started growing until they were around 20 cm long. Her sudden sprint caught him off guard and before he realized her hand was already passed through his chest. She grabbed his heart and crushed it into a pulp.

Again Ian's consciousness was still with him. All he felt was immense pain. Then she pulled out her hand. But his heart was still in her clutches until he noticed that she casually threw his heart towards her horse. The horse didn't mind and started chewing it slowly. Then she moved on to his next organ.

The spooky thing was, the whole time she committed this gruesome act she was also explaining the paradoxes to him, not that he listened to it. This kept happening for years. She kept explaining paradoxes while plucking out his organs and feeding it to her horse, sadly his organ kept regenerating again and again.

Ian's mind was succumbing to never-ending pain until he was back to the same white space and the naked lady and horse had vanished as if they never existed. When he found himself back, he felt relief.

But Ian didn't stop, he kept roaming here and there. He was sure that he had traveled miles away from his original spot. But whenever he looked back, the gate was always there, 4- 5 meters away from him. After some time he didn't even give it a thought and kept meeting several abnormalities that kept ravaging his body and mind both.

After an unknown amount of time and encounters, suddenly Ian heard a familiar grim voice.

"Go back! Ian Fletcher." The eye again squirmed out on the Stone gate. "You must have learned your lesson by now!"

The emotional regret and guilt resurfaced again after thinking about going back. His mother's crying face flashed inside his mind. He might have felt fear and pain after coming here, but the sadness and guilt were still much more painful for him.

"No," Ian turned his head back at the door. "I just can't!"

"…"

"What could you ever hope to achieve here?" Stone gate asked after a split second.

"I just want to remain here until I'll forget everything about myself and the world." Ian looked at the gate with certainty in his eyes. "To exist beyond reason, rowing lost and restless within the confines of infinity, is a gift. I am grateful that a place like this exists."

"Your soul is an anomaly to see this realm with such a perspective." Gate's voice reverberated as if the gate was distressed."So let's make a deal!"

"What deal?" Ian asked curiously.

"I will allow you to have your memories in the next life."

"Are you kidding me? That's even worse!" Ian felt a sharp tingle in his spine. "Why would I want these shitty memories?"

"Your memories and your experiences, you would make better choices in the next life." Gate's tone started changing into much less domineering "And if that does not satisfy you then I will also allow you to be born in a world competitively and subjectively much more interesting than your previous one."

"Hmm… that sounds interesting!" Ian rejected the offer at once. "but Nope, sorry! I think I am okay here!"

"YOU CANNOT STAY HERE!"

Gate roared like lightning. The entire white space vibrated, and several cracks appeared in the white space. He watched a glimpse of several presences looking at him from those fractures. Ian was pupil shrank, he was sweating bullets. What or who lived behind those fractures Ian never wanted to know. His heart skipped several beats.

For the first time after coming here, Ian felt that this gate might very well be an actual god of the universe with unfathomable authority and power.

"Okay, okay! I will go back!" Ian sighed heavily. "But I have a condition, if you don't hear it then you might as well forget about me entertaining even the tiniest bit of possibility of going back."

"Very well, I will listen."

"If I am unsuccessful in attaining salvation in this new life, too! You will bear the burden of my sins and let me enter the chamber of eternal rest." Ian tried to gain some assurance beforehand.

"For your request, if I ever spotted you diverging from your primary aim of atonement, or if you ever intentionally kill yourself, then I will not hold my end of the deal … otherwise I accept."

Gate's reply made Ian slightly elated.

"Now choose!"

"Hmm… before that, I have a question." Ian interrupted him in the middle. "How do I achieve redemption?"

"Live a good life, lessen your regrets, and make the choices you couldn't make in your previous life and heal your vicious soul. Now choose."

"I… "

Ian's left eye suddenly throbbed, a teardrop escaped and reached the corner of his lips. He felts his heart made continuous thumping sounds. His lip acted in a way as if the words were reluctant to come out.

Ian uttered forcefully, "I want to go back."

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