In this world, people change their names, their faces, and cast off the past—some for the future, some for the present, some for money, some for love, and some just to deceive themselves. But the moment he put on that black armor, he understood that leaving the past behind wouldn't earn him anything. To cast it off was simply to cast it off.
Cast off the past, the future, his name, his honor, and every thread tying him to the world.
He heard someone whisper:
"Once you put it on, you can't take it off."
"It's not a problem for me, but... it's such a shame."
Was it someone else who said it? Or had he said it himself? He couldn't remember.
He couldn't remember if, in that moment, he had looked up. Looked up toward the sky. No—there was no sky here anymore.
When a man lives on the surface, he looks up and sees the heavens. But when a man lives underground, when he looks up, all he sees is the world above.
And for him, in the next moment, there would be no difference between the two. Both were places he could no longer reach.
He couldn't remember whether he had looked back one last time at the world.
When each day becomes a perfect echo of the last, time flows like water, wearing down his memory to a smooth, blank stone. He would simply sit and polish his weapon. And sometimes, his gaze would fall to the old calluses in his palm, the faded scars across his hand. Sometimes, he would pause and stare at them for a moment or two. As though he were watching someone else's entire life.
