Dancing on the golden ashes

I could feel something in there, something buried behind the fire, and it wasn't just pressure or power—it was a presence, one that struck me not as hostile, but familiar, like an old friend stepping out from a forgotten dream, the kind that lingers on your skin even after you've woken. And that feeling was strange, deeply strange, especially to someone like me who had long stopped associating warmth with connection, and even stranger because I knew all of my friends were safe. I had made sure of that. So then… who was it? Why did this presence feel like someone I once held close, like someone I once knew in a lifetime that never truly belonged to me?

The voice of that woman still echoed faintly within the flames—distant, frayed, like something carried from another plane through smoke and ash—but there was no mistaking it now. I knew that voice. I didn't know from where, not yet, but it had embedded itself in my mind like a thorn through velvet, beautiful and painful in the same breath, and it scratched against something ancient in my memory, something fragile and dangerous I hadn't dared touch in years.

"Begone… This world does not accept you…"

The words came slower this time, like they were struggling against the barrier itself, but each syllable dug into me like a hook, pulling, twisting, trying to tear me away from whatever truth lay ahead—and then it hit me, so violently that my breath froze in my throat.

That voice…

No, it couldn't be. That was impossible.

But it was her. I remembered now, not from my own life, but from the vision—the one I saw in that moment between selves, that flickering memory of the other me, the one with the mask and the hollow gaze. It was her—the demon woman who had come to meet that version of me, the one who walked beside her, who brought her here, to this world, to this very place. A guide, or maybe a jailer. Maybe both.

I thought she had died.

I felt she had vanished long ago, buried in the folds of time like a myth that never belonged to my story, but now I could feel her again—alive—her essence laced through the flame like blood through ritual fire, resisting and reaching out all at once. The contradiction burned through me, made my golden flames twist and flicker, not with rage, but with something far more dangerous—recognition. And deep inside that recognition, beneath the wrath and pride and sin, something ancient stirred—like the faint memory of a second heartbeat echoing through a body that had no heart.

I pushed deeper, not giving a single damn about the pressure rebounding around me, the divine force that kept slamming against my body like a heartbeat trying to eject me from this place—as if it still believed I could be warned away, as if that voice still had the power to push me back now that I knew who she was. No, now that I had confirmed the truth, there was no chance I'd walk away. I needed to figure it all out, to peel back every layer of this place until nothing was left but answers, and even if this flame tried to turn me to ash in the process, I would burn with it. I would not leave, not without truth.

Well… unless someone offered me some tteokbokki right now. Then I'd maybe consider it. Hahaha! Look at that—my humor's still intact. I haven't completely lost myself yet. Ahem. Maybe I got carried away there... just a little.

I reached out with my hand, slow and deliberate, and placed my palm against the barrier. It was hot—not fire-hot, but soul-hot, the kind that made your blood boil and your thoughts turn to smoke—and I let my golden flame slide out from me in soft, flickering waves, curling around the wall like a lover's touch, wrapping over every inch of it, every nick and cranny, every hidden edge of divine energy I could feel pulsing beneath the surface. I wasn't trying to break it—not yet—I wanted to see if I could resonate with it, because something about this flame… it was too familiar. Too close to what I carried within me. This fire, wrapped in holiness, still smelled of sin. Still felt like me.

And it made me wonder…

Was Agnia really a human?

Or had she always been a demon?

She burned too brightly, too beautifully, too fiercely for her time. And she was always... different. A little too alluring for someone who claimed purity, and definitely far too interested in women for someone who preached chastity. Sigh… I still have trauma from that time she tried to get her way with me. Some things you don't forget—not because they hurt, but because they haunt your sleep in a way you don't know whether to fear or blush over.

And then, as if responding to my power, the voice broke—something shifted, something subtle but undeniable, the kind of shift you feel deep in your bones before your mind catches up—and the air around me changed, the pressure of the flame softening just slightly, enough to know that something inside that barrier had stirred, not in rage this time, but in recognition.

"Gaon?"

It called out my name, quietly, cautiously, and hearing it spoken aloud like that, by that voice, only made my thoughts spiral deeper, questioning everything I knew, or thought I knew, because how could she know my name, unless the version of me that came before—the one I try not to think about, the one with the mask and the hollow eyes—also carried this flame, this power, this sin that now clings to me like a second skin? When had the bond been formed, and how deep did it truly go? Was it born in the moment of my rebirth, or had it existed long before that, hidden, buried in the folds of a forgotten past that didn't belong to just me?

The barrier in front of me rippled, as if unsure of its purpose, unsure of its duty, fighting itself between letting me pass and keeping me locked out, and I could feel the heat twist and shudder in waves, one moment pushing me away, the next moment pulling at me gently, like it wanted to let me in but didn't trust what would happen if it did—and all I offered in return was the truth, stripped of pride, stripped of fire.

"I'm her... but also not her..."

That was all I said. Nothing more. Because lying here would have been pointless, and more than that, it would have betrayed the very thing I came to understand. I couldn't lie to her. Not here. Not now.

And after that, the voice went silent.

Not for a moment. Not for a minute.

But for what felt like an entire hour, I floated there in the suffocating heat, caught in the liminal space between rejection and acceptance, the divine pressure of the barrier surrounding me on all sides, not crushing, but holding, weighing, like it was judging not just who I was, but what I might become. And I waited, saying nothing more, letting the flame read me, letting it decide if I was worthy of what came next.

And finally, without sound, without light, without warning—the barrier broke.

Not in violence, not in fury, but in surrender, folding open like ancient wings, the heat parting around me in reverence rather than rage.

"Come in…"