The Void pulsed with a rhythm that didn’t belong to any natural world. It was a heartbeat of chaos, of non-linear time and fractured dimensions. Colors that didn’t exist outside the boundaries of human perception bled into each other, shifting and merging into shapes that defied logic. Yuki stood alone at the edge of an abyss, the Matryoshka doll in hand—his only remaining link to Missy, the high school sweetheart who had been chosen for punishment.


    He gripped the doll tightly, fingers trembling. Missy had given it to him years ago, long before the Void had swallowed him. It had been a token of love, a symbol of simpler times when their greatest worries were exams and curfews. Now, it was a cruel reminder of the life he could never return to—a life that was slipping away piece by piece.


    In front of him, Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, stood in a form that was both human and something else entirely. His shifting face wore a grin too wide for his features, teeth sharp like shattered glass, and eyes that gleamed with the madness of infinite knowledge.


    “Ah, Yuki, how poetic that your choices bring you here, face to face with your past,” the Crawling Chaos sneered. “You love to wax philosophical on the relativity of morality. Tell me then, which path will you take now? Punish her and perhaps free her from her mortal coil, or refuse and let her linger in agony, a vessel of suffering for eternity.”


    "You always did love to talk about morality, didn’t you?" Nyarlathotep’s voice was a symphony of whispers, each layered over the other. "How it’s shaped by the household, the society, the nation, the laws, the religions, the culture—an ever-shifting construct meant to mold the fragile minds of children."


    Yuki’s mouth was dry, but he forced himself to speak. "Why her? Why Missy? She… she didn’t deserve this."


    Nyarlathotep chuckled, a sound that rippled through the Void like a thousand glass bells shattering. "Deserve?" He echoed the word mockingly. "There is no ‘deserve.’ There is only the game, and you’ve been playing it since the moment you were born. You see, Yuki, all of this—your moral dilemmas, your choices—they''re illusions. Nothing but strings pulling a puppet."


    The Crawling Chaos stepped closer, the air thickening around them. "I offer you this: punish her or refuse. Either way, the outcome is the same. She will suffer, and you will lose her."


    Yuki''s heart clenched. He saw it now—the trap, the endless cycle designed to break him, to strip him of his humanity until he was nothing but a hollow vessel for despair.


    "You want to test my wits," Yuki whispered. His gaze met Nyarlathotep’s, defiance flickering in his eyes. "You want me to believe there’s no escape, that I’m powerless."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Nyarlathotep’s grin widened. "A clever boy. But cleverness won’t save her. It won’t save you."


    For a long moment, Yuki was silent. The weight of the Void pressed down on him, suffocating, relentless. His mind raced, searching for a solution—a way to outsmart the Crawling Chaos.


    Then, a thought emerged, quiet but powerful: What if the only way to win is not to play?


    He let out a slow breath, the tension in his body easing. The Matryoshka doll in his hand felt lighter, as if it, too, recognized the shift in his resolve.


    "You think you’ve given me a choice," Yuki said softly. "But I see it now. There’s no choice because the game itself is a lie. Morality, consequence, reward—they’re constructs. Illusions designed to keep us trapped."


    Nyarlathotep’s grin faltered, just for a moment.


    Yuki continued, his voice steady, calm. "I choose neither. I will not punish her. I will not refuse. I will not engage with your game at all."


    The Crawling Chaos tilted his head, his form flickering between shadows and light. "Ah, but to choose nothing is still a choice, is it not?"


    "No," Yuki said firmly. "It’s liberation. It’s freedom. I reject your game entirely. I release myself from the cycle of despair."


    The Void trembled. For the first time, it felt uncertain, as if Yuki’s defiance had introduced an element it could not comprehend. The colors shifted wildly, the shapes dissolving into chaos.


    Nyarlathotep stared at him, unreadable, his grin fading into something far more ancient and malevolent. "You think you’ve found a loophole. That you can escape the Void. But remember, Yuki, even freedom is a construct. And in the end… there is only chaos."


    "Maybe," Yuki said, stepping back from the edge of the abyss. "But chaos is better than being your pawn."


    He turned away from Nyarlathotep, from the Void, from the Matryoshka doll. He let it fall from his hand, watching as it tumbled into the darkness, each layer peeling away until there was nothing left.


    With every step he took away from the Crawling Chaos, the Void seemed to collapse behind him. The illusion was breaking, unraveling, like a thread pulled from an ancient tapestry.


    Missy’s voice echoed faintly in his mind—a memory, a fragment of a life that once was. "Sometimes, the only way out is to stop fighting and just… let go."


    Yuki walked on, into the unknown, into freedom. The Void screamed behind him, but he did not look back. He had chosen to be more than the sum of his fears, more than the endless cycles of madness.


    And in that choice, he found something the Void could never offer: peace.