บท 5: YOU ARE CURSED.

I kept silence, but the voice still persisted with irritation.

"It's truly impressive how you consistently underestimate your own intelligence!" It chided. "In your mortal life, you weren't much like this."

I chuckled bitterly. Well, during my life, I was nothing—a nameless skin and bones without kin or home. Monks in the temple, villagers, even passing travelers—they glanced past me, a pitiable soul, mostly they just ignored me, and if put a look or asressed, it happened to be out of charity. They feared angering the Great Master, while wanting him to read their destiny, and I just served him, so they tolerated me somehow. Pathetic.

"Will you weep for your worthless existence?" The voice's sarcasm cut through the void again.

"Almost guessing?" I retorted. "Why are you spying on my thoughts?"

"Why shouldn't I? I just bow to your expertise in the field of 'Epic Fails.'"

The voice's reply held a strange familiarity this time. Perhaps, it was because I was dead and, perhaps, I was cursed to endure his presence, so I started imagining things.

"And here's the idiot I've been saddled with," the voice lamented. "Why did I even send myself after you? Is this some Celestial revenge? I'd rather sip longevity elixirs and watch empires rise and fall."

The howl that followed left me bewildered. I used to be the worthless soul and now he was making me believe myself not to be the one…

"Truly a worthless fool!" the voice snapped. "I can't fathom why I sacrificied myself for a fool like you."

"What's wrong with me?" I wondered aloud as it seemed to me.

"Everything! Your thought process is like a labyrinth designed by a tipsy dragon," came the explanatory response.

"But let's clarify: I died, I'm trapped in here with you, and you are indignant about my worthlessness and foolishness, wanting me to do what? What?" Seemed like I paused to sigh, but didn't feel anything. "What's at least a glimmer of reason for my ramblings?"

"Oh…" he leaned into the conversation.

"So, there is… What reason?"

"Your stupidity is like a koi fish swimming upstream—determined but clueless."

"What do you mean?"

"You're cursed," the voice admitted. "And that curse brought you here! And somehow, I'm cursed alongside you!"

What a strange companionship unfolded—me, a cursed so called fool and a cursed what? What that voice was? And we were bounded here by what? Fate? Looked more like by some scheming lost to time…

*Thx for reading.