Sunggyu could not move his eyes away from the image that continues to glow brightly on the stone door. This is too much of a coincidence for him to accept. He could understand those strange encounters he had, as one of the possible reasons could be stress but this is something he could not think of a reason to convince himself otherwise. He has never shown his birthmark to anyone before. His parents would know something about it but at this point Sunggyu has no idea where they are. They could be somewhere enjoying, suffering or even dead.

“Fascinating isn’t it?” A voice echoes loudly.

Sunggyu jumps out of his trance and finds a man walking towards the stone door, with hands held behind his back. The man did not pay attention to Sunggyu’s surprised expression and continues to mesmerize the image.

“This is the door of the Crowe or if you like to call it – the door of knowledge and wisdom.” The man continues without facing Sunggyu.

“Who are you?” Sunggyu asks as he eyes the man cautiously.

The man turns his backwards and arches an eyebrow. He then chuckles as he turns his body to face Sunggyu, walking towards him.

“I apologize for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Acedia and I’m a researcher currently researching ways on opening that stone door. I’m surprised that it responded to you. What exactly did you do to make it glow with such an intensity?” Acedia asks as he tilts his head with curiosity.

“I… I don’t know. I just placed my palm on it and it glowed. I swear I am not doing any harm to your research.” Sunggyu exclaims quickly.

The man chuckles once more before waving his hands. “No worries. I’m just curious why it responded to you. Perhaps you’re one of its gatekeepers?” Acedia jokes. Sunggyu shakes his head frantically, rejecting the possibility of him being a gatekeeper. Acedia chuckles one more time before turning once more and walks back to the door.

“What’s a gatekeeper?” Sunggyu asks abruptly with curiosity. The man laughs loudly as he turns his head slightly to face Sunggyu.

“One who guards a gate of course?” He teases as he continues to laugh. Sunggyu blush in embarrassment of his stupidity. A gatekeeper definitely is someone who keeps an eye on a gate. It’s such a simple question and yet Sunggyu wonders why he asks such a question.

“Alright, I’ll stop with the tease. I hope you will pardon my bad habits but you seem to have the innocent face so I couldn’t help myself. Anyways, let’s get on to your question shall we? Like I answered minutes ago, a gatekeeper is someone who guards or keeps an eye on a gate. But don’t you find it strange how I’m implying someone gatekeeping a door, instead of a gate - Because this door is protecting something. A door simply blocks out something or an entity but a gate protects it. Just look at the size of this door – although the outlook is a door, but the size and the history of it definitely fit the description of a gate.” Acedia explains as he paces back and forth from the stone door, eyes never leaving the image.

“The gatekeepers make sure that the gate remains closed until the right time to open. They aren’t just the ordinary gatekeepers but people who possess gifts from an entity from which what they refer to as The Master. Legend says that a war waged between two gods who could not seem to come into terms in ruling Earth – one of them is The Master, and the other, The Goddess. The Master wanted to free all living things from the Gods’ control, to allow them to decide their fates themselves or what we would call freedom but The Goddess refuted that idea. A lost script writes that the reason of her disagreement is that she believes that without the Gods’ input, Earth will be in a mess of chaos – one without structure and everything will just fall apart.

“Being the two strongest gods of that era, no other gods are willing to put their opinions into the argument but without a doubt most gods chose to side with The Goddess. They did not wish to lose their position and powers as a god. Despite the overwhelming disadvantage, The Master wages war still, thinking that since proper diplomatic talks could not settle such a matter, thus the only option is via force. But the Gods can’t battle it out just like that; they would have destroyed the entire universe! Hence, they picked seven champions on each side to battle for them. Needless to say, The Goddess won that very battle and her champions manages to wound The Master. Before his execution, his barely alive champions splits their master’s soul and sealed it behind seven gates, allowing him to recuperate and slowly charges his powers. He waits that one day when the time is ripe; his champions will rise and open those gates – bringing him back into this world and grant the humans the freedom they long owed. So that’s it for the story! Quite a fiction isn’t it? Of course all these are just legends written down by the ancestors.”

Sunggyu nods silently to himself, agreeing unconsciously to every of Acedia’s questions. He finds the story rather interesting, although part of his mind is screaming how dramatic the story is and how it is so similar to fictions storybooks possess. But seeing how the time ticks late on his watch, he quickly tries to think of an excuse to leave this place.

“Uhm… Thank you so much for the history lesson but I think I really need to go. I’m kind of late for my lectures.” Acedia starts to laugh again but this time it came out sounding malevolent.

“There is no way out of this place, boy. You see, I’m rather interested in you. You seem to exceed my expectations and now that the gate responds to you, I’m hoping that you would stay a little bit longer until I figure it out how to open it.” He exclaims as he approaches Sunggyu.

Sunggyu instinctively retreats backwards with the same step as Acedia approaches. His retreat did not take him far as he knocks into something that isn’t a wall, but seemly a person. He turns his head and to his horror – just behind him stands a skeleton cloak in black, just like the one Sunggyu saw the other night. He screams and pushes himself away from the grotesque figure and moves away quickly from it. He frantically looks around for the exit.

Just to his west, there lies a door-less pathway. In the pathway, a small glint of light shines through it. Not thinking twice on the authenticity of the exit, Sunggyu dashes for the exit but he did not make it to even the entrance of it. Just a few meters away from reaching, three similar skeletons fell from the ceiling, effectively stopping Sunggyu’s pathway. He watches with disgust as the skeletons slowly patches themselves up and connecting fallen bones back into their joints and he knew another scream is slowly creeping out from his mouth.

Before he could react, a hand swift hits the back of Sunggyu’s head, making the boy go into a state of unconsciousness. Acedia sighs as he rubs his hand, cradling it from the return force of that action. He glances at the fallen boy before shaking his head. 

"Everything will be a lot easier if you did not try to escape, Kim Sunggyu." Acedia mutters.

He gestures to the skeletons to carry Sunggyu away before turning his attention back to the stone gate. Two more skeleton appears and it trots to their master. Acedia smirks in excitement as he couldn’t wait to open the door.

“Prepare the boy for the ritual.” 

To be continued in Chapter 5: Voice

A/N

Very late chapter based on my own habit of updating daily >< 

I changed the way how i structed my paragraphs, hope this is the correct way of doing it soo with the narratives >< (I use storybooks as references)

The next Chapter will presumely be updated later!