Do you know how curses are made?


    A curse is not mere words flung into the void; it is an act of creation, deliberate and searing.


    To curse is to wish suffering upon another, willingly, knowingly.


    But to will suffering, one must first hold it.


    Not distantly, not abstractly, but intimately, as one knows the lines of their own hand.


    Like one embraces a lover.


    To curse, suffering must not just be known.


    It must be lived.


    It must carve its mark into flesh and soul, leaving behind an understanding that no words can capture.


    Onemust walk through fire, feel the scorch of anguish, taste despair as if it were one’sown blood.


    Only then can the curse be born, a shard ofyourown pain, honed and sharpened by will.


    A curse is no fleeting act of spite. It is a covenant with darkness, a pact sealed by the weight of one’s own torment.


    It draws from the depths of what we are capable of enduring


    and worse


    what we are capable of inflicting.


    To curse is to cast a piece of your soul away, tethered to another''s downfall.


    But beware,


    Suffering, like iron, holds memory.


    And what you send into the world may yet return, as ash borne back by the wind.


    For in knowing pain so deeply, one is never free of it.


    So I ask again: do you know how curses are forged? Do you truly understand what it means to wish another to suffer?


    Let me show you…


    …


    I woke with a splitting headache that echoed throughthe walls of my skull.My body felt undone, a heap of trembling jelly barely held together by skin, as if I’d spent eternity clinging to the edge of an abyss. My muscles screamed, taut with the memory of strain, and behind my eyelids, seared into my mind, was a vision; a formless shape, an unnameable presence.


    It wasn’t a sound but a sensation, a cry that resonated through the marrow of my bones. A beckoning, a call. A reminder of the price I’d paid and an open invitationfor moreknowledge to be forced into my fragile, mortal mind. It was never enough. No amount of bargaining, no volume of blood, no number of torn nails.


    Burn them next.Place them on iron, and set them on fire.


    The thought lingered, cold and inevitable, more like a prophecy of my own future than a demand.There was no restfrom thatcalling, no escape from that desire to return, to ask for more,for something different. And yet, the guilt ate me from the inside; the guilt of holding a gift I could not fully appreciate. Who could wield the power to ask anythingand have an answer,and not feel paralyzed by sheer scope of it?


    But of course, it’s not thatsimple, it never is. The connection isn’t free. To even maintain the faintest thread of communication required sacrifices, too many,andtoo costly for someone already so worn and broken. And, of course,to pose a questiona tollfar more precious than flesh or coinwas required.


    I had found a loopholethough, or so I told myself. I didn’t need to ask directly. I could play intermediary, a bridge. I could glimpse an echo, fractured truths and glimpses of reality so alien they would drive most minds to madness. Slowly, sliver by sliver, I hoarded these fragments. A fountain of knowledge, crude and incomplete, but valuableto the right person. Something I could barter with.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    It was slow and tedious, yes, but safer.


    Relatively.


    The haze began to clearas Islowlybecame aware of my surroundings. The wooden floor beneath me was warm against my back, though slick with a small puddle of blood pooling from my forearm. The larger pool of blood that was previously there already consumed by a thing that knew only pain and hunger.


    At least not everything was taken, only blood, nails, and probably a surprise amount of pain to come the following week; scattered coins, a pouch of spices, a tarnished necklace, and a slip of paper with my name scrawled upon itremained. Inside it, in small, cautious handwriting, was the favor I had promised. Meticulously worded, of course, no loopholes I could see, and I had even asked for help with it. Expensive help.


    I carefully stood up, made my way to the bathroom, and quickly got into the shower.


    Should we disregard knowledge? I find myself asking this after having learned, after crossing a threshold that cannot be uncrossed. I ask it now, as I look at the world and see something else entirely; layers of meaning that didn’t exist beforeor werehidden behind a veil of ignorance. Blissful, serene ignorance. In its absence, I am drownedby complexityand itsreason, by the unmasking of reality that shows all is truly random, meaningless, and yet nothing is.


    Nothing is.


    Nothing is right. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.


    Since my earliest days, I have carried this hunger. A gnawing, restless need that has followed me through the years like a shadow, growing darker and deeper with time. At first, I thought it was a hunger for destruction. It thrilled me to break things, to feel the satisfying crunch of order giving way to chaos. I toppled sandcastles with glee, dug holes in the earth as though I might find something hidden within, struck dry ground with a hammer just to watch cracks spiderweb outward. It was power, pure and intoxicating.


    Afleeting taste of control in a world that felt vast and untamed. I was cruel then, laughing at misery, reveling in entropy.


    But even destruction, for all its weight and finality, was not enough.


    So I turned to creation.


    I began to write, to draw, to write melodies and poems. I tried to dance, and miserably failed, and I made music, art, love, and compassion, as though weaving beauty might patch the swelling darkness within me. For a time, it seemed to work. I lost myself in the act of creation, in the joy of making something where there was once nothing. I do love it still, writing, music, poetry, but it wasn’t enough.


    Because it was never about the act itself. It was about the weight.


    Not the weight of matter, not the physics of mass or energy, but the weight of moments. The weight that lingers after a first kiss, electric and fleeting. The weight of silence after thunder, when the world holds its breath. The weight of laughter and tears mingling in the same breath, of rain falling on cracked earth, of finding something precious that was thought lost forever. That weight.


    The weight of whistling in the dark, empty streets on the way home, feeling the solitude press against your ribs. The weight of singing a song no one will ever hear. The weight that comes where death brushes close, where life begins anew.


    The heavy, crushing weight of seeing something and remembering the time when it was just one thing, uncomplicated and whole. When a song was just a melody, not a gateway to memories long buried. When a face was just a face,andnot a ghost that haunts your every reflection. The burdensome weight your voice carriesafter taking so many sounds from those who were loved and are now missed, and hearing them wherever you speak.


    Knowledge has a weight of its own. It doesn’t just fill you; it pulls at you, reshapes you, demands a part of you in return. The world becomes sharper, harder, more vivid, and more unbearable. And yet, even in this weight, I cannot stop reaching.


    Sharp knocking interrupted my thoughts. I shut off the water, got out of the shower, and hastily got dressed after putting a bandage on my forearm. The shower was covered in now diluted blood, and fat round drops marked the path I had walked on the clean ceramic floor as I tried to dry my hair a bit.


    Three more sharp knocks reverberated through my department.


    “Hello? Séadna, you there, dude?”


    I took a quick glance at myself before going answering the door. Frankly, I looked like absolute shit, even after the shower. I hadn’t realized my hair was already reaching my shoulders. Maybe it’s time to cut it, I thought.


    I could probably keep it somewhere, I bet that burning it also makes for a good evocation.


    “I’m coming in! Cover yourself, or whatever. If you’re even there…”


    Crap.


    “I’m going!” I croaked as I hurried to answer the door.


    “Dude, I’ve been calling you” Cathán said as he entered my apartment and promptly stopped in front of me, looking at me with unbelieving eyes, almost as if I - “you look like shit, Séadna, sit down, man. You ok?”


    He took me towards the couch, and forced me to sit. I didn’t have enough energy left to resist, or say anything, so I just let him. My body complained, but sitting down actually felt really good. I could perhaps let some of my guard down, now that Cathán was here.


    “Dude, what’s that smell? I’m gonna open the windows. How can you live like this, man?” He scolded me as he made his way into the kitchen. Thankfully, I always made sure to hide everything that was used in rituals so that they were almost imperceptible. Who would suspect anything about a few jars of spices?


    Cathán came back, sat down besides me, and offered me a glass of water he brought from the kitchen. I drank it in one big gulp as I had just realized I was parched. It was probably all the blood I had lost… the blood… in the kitchen…


    “Séadna, is everything ok?”


    How can I explain this…