The Orphan’s Ascent to Shadowed Veils
A boy of threadbare spirit trod the mournful mile,
His soles imprinted deep on moors of blighted gray,
Where winds, like phantom hounds, pursued their harrowed prey.
No hearth had warmed his bones, no kin had breathed his name,
Yet through the fogs of time there burned one spectral flame—
A scroll, half-eaten by his mother’s dying hand,
That spoke of truths entombed where ancient temples stand.
Three moons he climbed the crag where marble serpents coiled,
Their stony eyes aglow with secrets long despoiled.
Through archways carved with runes no mortal tongue could sound,
He traced the labyrinth where dread and hope were bound.
The air hung thick with musk of incense turned to gall,
As shadows pulsed like veins along the blackened wall.
There loomed the inner vault—a maw of jagged night—
Its threshold guarded by a figure wrapt in white.
“Turn back, forsaken child,” the spectre’s whisper hissed,
“These stones drink deeper tears than e’er from grief were kissed.
What seek you here, unclaimed by blood nor mortal creed?
The truth you crave’s a blade that makes the spirit bleed.”
But firm the orphan stood, though tremors racked his frame,
“For ten years’ frozen nights, I’ve borne the cold’s sharp flame.
If lies have fed the world, let truth now be my bread—
Though it strip my bones bare, I’ll drink its venom red.”
The guardian’s pallid mask then cracked like autumn frost,
Revealing caverns where twin embers glared and tossed.
“Then enter, little fool, and learn what stars conceal—
The wheel that grinds all hope shall be your final meal.”
Through corridors that breathed, through halls that watched and sighed,
The boy pursued the glint of knowledge long denied.
The walls bloomed sudden scenes in hues of living bruise—
A babe cast down from cliffs, a king’s malignant ruse,
A hundred orphans chained to Time’s unfeeling vault,
Their whispers woven through the temple’s sombre vault.
“Behold your brethren,” crooned the stones in grating chant,
“Each sought what you now seek—the key to cure their want.
They carved their flesh for signs, they bartered breath for light,
Yet found in truth’s cold arms a lover’s last goodnight.”
Still upward climbed the youth, though phantoms clawed his hair,
Though every step unleashed fresh anguish from the air.
At zenith stood a door no wider than his chest,
Its surface etched with scenes of serpents dispossessed.
A voice not born of throat nor wind nor earthly storm
Thrummed through his marrow’s core: “Declare what form you’ll burn—
The pyre of certainty, or blissful ignorance?”
“Strip me,” he cried, “of all but raw, unflinching sense!”
The portal shrieked apart—within, no treasure shone,
But one stark mirror framed by vertebrae and thorn.
There stared his mother’s face, not kind but carved in sneer,
Her lips stretched tight around truths mortal souls should fear:
“You, cinder of my womb, were never meant to rise.
I forged that map to doom with artful, loving lies.
The temple’s only truth? That hope’s a gilded noose—
The more we strain toward light, the tighter death’s abuse.”
Her laughter scalded like a brand pressed to his eye,
As all his yesteryears dissolved into one lie.
No sob escaped his throat, no tear baptized the stone.
He turned—the guardian loomed, its flesh now bleached to bone.
“Your pilgrimage concludes,” it rasped through jaws unhinged,
“The final lesson’s writ in blood that shall be tinged
With wisdom’s bitter dregs.” Its claws, like scythes, descended—
Through ribs, through childhood’s husk, their fatal dance attended.
Yet as life’s crimson thread unraveled from its reel,
The boy choked forth a laugh that froze the guardian’s zeal.
“Your victory’s ash,” he breathed, “for though your truth destroys,
In dying unsubdued, I claim what death employs—
Not hope’s bright lie, nor chains of your malignant lore,
But this: that I chose fire though ice promised no more.”
The temple shuddered as his spirit fled its keep,
While far below, in towns where sheep-like mortals sleep,
A mother stirred from dreams, her cheeks inexplicably wet,
And wondered why the stars seemed newly dimmed…and yet…
Now winds gnaw constant teeth round that accursed height,
Where mirrors show each soul its own forsaken light.
Some claim on solstice nights, when earth holds breath too long,
A boy’s faint chuckle threads through dirges of the throng—
Not bitter, not bereft, but fierce with primal spark,
A hymn to all who seek though shadows drown the arc.
But this is fancy’s balm—the raw, unfiltered tale?
The temple keeps one truth: Both seeker and sought fail.
