Kapitel 1 – Onswill
I was twenty-one years old, traveling alone for the first time. Onswill had been described to me as a quiet, intriguing city, a place where you could move around without getting lost—if you stayed alert. I remember finding that reassuring.
On the second evening, I left my hotel. I had briefly thought about getting something to eat, even though I wasn’t hungry. It was a simple decision, nothing to question. I went out because it felt right to do something. The streets looked normal. People passed me by; some
stopped at shop windows. No one seemed unusual, and that very normality comforted me.
After about ten minutes, I found myself in front of a small kiosk. I stopped, without immediately knowing why. The light above the entrance flickered in a steady rhythm—two short pulses, then a pause. It felt constant, as if it would continue regardless of who was watching.
I moved on. I was sure I was heading in the right direction. Yet, after a while, I found myself there again. In front of the same kiosk. I briefly considered whether
I had been careless. It seemed plausible. I turned and walked on once more.
Later, I took out my phone. The map showed a clear layout, yet it didn’t match what I saw. The street existed on the screen, but not in the way I perceived it. I tried to orient myself. Buildings, corners, pathways. Everything seemed correct, yet every choice brought me back. To the kiosk. Over time, it became less of a destination and more of a recurring state.
At some point, I spoke aloud, saying it made no sense. No one reacted. The man behind the counter didn’t look up. I
assumed he simply hadn’t heard me. Later, I noticed movement at the edge of my vision. Between the buildings, something seemed to shift—not clearly enough to hold, more like a displacement of light, as if the city briefly lost its stability when looked at directly. When I looked again, it was gone.
A bottle lay on the counter later, beside a small stone. I don’t remember placing it there. Yet, I picked it up. At that moment, something changed in a way I couldn’t immediately name. Not the environment itself, more the way I perceived it. The stone was
warm.
I tried leaving the street again. Yet I kept coming back. Eventually, I stopped actively seeking an exit. It seemed to make no difference which direction I chose.
Then I noticed them more clearly. White shadows between the streets. No solid forms, more like states of light detaching from the surroundings. They didn’t move toward me, yet they weren’t random either. It felt as if they perceived me without looking directly at me.
The stone in my hand grew warmer. Not
unpleasant. More like a memory slowly surfacing.
One of these figures came closer. Not by moving, but by the space between us shrinking. I heard a voice—not from outside, but emerging from the moment itself: “You have arrived.” I didn’t understand what it meant at first.
Then came a second realization, clearer than anything before. The accident had already happened. I didn’t see it as an image, but as something suddenly complete. Light, motion, impact, silence. A moment that does not continue because it is already
finished.
The thought of getting something to eat hadn’t been the start of that evening. It was the last thing I did before everything else ceased.
Onswill was not a place I had entered. It was the state I walked in after I never returned.
And only now did I begin to understand that I had been there all along.
