Climbing the eighth staircase was an act of meditation in pain. My body was a map of my sins, every cut and bruise from the forest a topography of my cruelty. Each time my wounded hand gripped the sharp rock, the acute pain reminded me of the broken mirror. Each time my side brushed the wall, the phantom prick of a thorn reminded me of a hurtful word. I no longer fought the pain. I accepted it as part of me. It was the scar tissue that held my new soul together.
The fire of my resolve had burned down, leaving behind the constant, deep warmth of embers. It was a quieter, grimmer determination. No longer the shriek of a man fighting his way out of hell, but the steady stride of a pilgrim who has accepted that the only path is through it. The mantra in my head had changed. It was no longer a desperate "I have to fix it." It was a silent, heavy "I must continue." Continuing was the only form of atonement left to me.
I crossed the archway and the contrast with the organic horror of the forest was so absolute it made me nauseous.
I entered the noontime of a lie.
I was on a suburban street. A street of such impeccable perfection that it was monstrous. The houses were identical, clones of a middle-class dream, with pastel facades, perfect shingles, and white fences that contained nothing. The lawn was an unnatural emerald green, every blade the same size, and I soon realized it was artificial turf. Not a single leaf was out of place. There were no cars in the driveways, no toys on the porches. The houses' windows were panes of dark, lifeless glass, reflecting nothing.
The air was still, not a single breeze. It was dry and smelled of new plastic and fresh paint. And the silence... it was the silence of a movie set after filming has wrapped. An artificial silence, empty of the life that was supposed to fill such a place. This level wasn't an attack; it was a farce. A diorama of a happiness that didn't exist. The subdivision of deception.
My determination, forged in fire and blood, felt out of place here. What do you fight in a place like this? Neatness? Silence? I walked along the immaculate concrete sidewalk, and the sound of my own footsteps, those of a wounded, dirty man, echoed obscenely in the perfect stillness.
I felt drawn to one of the houses. It was an exact replica, down to the smallest architectural detail, of the house I grew up in Mexico City. But it was a sterilized version. The paint wasn't chipped by the sun, the door didn't have the scratches I'd made on it with my bicycle. It was the Platonic ideal of my home, stripped of all history, all life.
The front door was open. I entered with a feeling of deep desecration. Inside, the deception continued. Our furniture was there, but wrapped in clear plastic, like crime scene evidence. There were no photos on the walls, no books on the shelves, no familiar clutter of a lived life. The air smelled of pine air freshener, not the scent of garlic and my mother's cleaning products.
An impulse guided me through the silent, plastic-wrapped house to the back door. It opened onto a patio. The artificial turf stretched out, perfect and green. A perfect white fence. A blue, cloudless sky, painted and static. But in the exact center of the patio, the perfection broke. There was a single rectangle of fresh, dark earth, as if someone had just dug and refilled a small grave.
I knelt beside it. The earth was loose beneath my fingers. And as the smell of damp soil filled my nostrils, the memory enveloped me. It wasn't a violent ambush, but a soft, melancholic fog.
I was nineteen, in my real backyard, and the afternoon sun was real and warm. In my arms, I held Koro.
He was our dog, a sesame Shiba Inu mix we had adopted when I was a child. Now he was old, his fur thin in places and his eyes, once bright and mischievous, were cloudy and tired. His body, once a bundle of energy, was now fragile and trembled in my arms. He suffered from kidney failure. The vet had said there was nothing more to be done.
But the memory wasn't just of that moment. It was a cascade of moments. I felt the guilt, not for one act, but for a thousand omissions. I remembered all the times Koro had rested his head on my lap as I played on the computer, and I had absentmindedly stroked him, not looking away from the screen. I remembered the times I had sighed in annoyance when he brought his worn ball, wanting to play while I was "busy" watching TV. I remembered how, in my teenage years, the chore of taking him for walks had become a burden I tried to palm off on my mother or father.
I accepted his unconditional love as if it were a right, a service included in owning a dog. He never judged me. He didn't care if my grades were bad or if I was an idiot to my parents. His love was a constant beacon, a simple, pure joy in my mere existence. And I had returned that treasure with an absentminded pat, with the leftovers of my attention. My affection had been a convenience. A fraud.
The memory refocused on the end. Koro was curled up in my arms, wrapped in his favorite blanket. His breathing was shallow, a faint, weak bellows. I cried, whispering into his ear what a good boy he was, how much I loved him. In that moment, in the past, my love felt overwhelming and real. But now, reliving it, I felt the nauseating truth beneath it. My outpouring of affection in his final moments wasn't for him. It was for me. It was a desperate attempt to absolve myself, to wash away years of casual neglect in a baptism of last-minute tears. I was trying to convince myself I had been a good owner.
I felt the last, weak beat of his tail against my arm. I felt his body relax, how a final breath, a tiny puff of air, escaped his lungs. I felt the warmth fade, replaced by the dead, inert weight of what had been. I hugged him tight, my face buried in his fur, which no longer smelled of dog, but of nothing.
The fog of memory receded, leaving me kneeling in the fake backyard, beside the fake grave.
The pain I felt was different from all the others. It wasn't the guilt of an active wound, nor the shame of an exposed weakness. It was a pure, clean grief. A mourning for a love so simple and true that I, in my complicated, selfish misery, hadn't known how to reciprocate. Koro had asked nothing of me, save my presence. And I had denied him that too often.
Tears streamed down my face, this time without anger, without hysteria. They were tears of pure, simple sorrow. I cried for him, for my silent friend. And I cried for my own inability to love something as selflessly as he had loved me.
"I'm sorry, Koro," I whispered to the stirred earth. My voice was a broken thread. "I'm sorry, buddy. I was a bad friend. You deserved so much more. You deserved someone who played with you every time you brought the ball. You deserved someone better than me."
I said the words without expecting a reply, just as a confession to the plastic air and the painted sky.
And then, I felt a familiar warmth against my back. And the soft sound of a happy pant.
My heart stopped. Fear and an impossible hope wrestled in my chest. I remained still, afraid that if I moved, the sensation would disappear. Slowly, very slowly, I turned my head.
Sitting beside me, on the artificial turf, was him.
It was Koro. Not the old, sick Koro from memory, but Koro in his prime. His sesame-colored fur was thick and glossy. His triangular ears were perked and alert. And his dark, almond-shaped eyes looked at me with the same intelligence and unconditional affection I remembered. His tail thumped softly against the plastic ground with a gentle "thump, thump, thump."
He looked at me, cocked his head, and let out a single, soft "woof."
It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a ghost. He was solid. He was real. I felt his warmth, smelled his familiar dog scent. He nudged closer and licked the tears from my cheek with his rough tongue.
And I broke. I lunged at him and hugged him, burying my face in the warmth of his neck, and wept as I hadn't wept in my entire life. I wept for my failure and for this unearned grace. He simply stayed there, letting me hold him, licking my hair, his presence a balm to my soul's wounds.
After a long while, my sobs quieted. I pulled back, my hands still in his fur. He looked at me, and then stood up. He walked a few paces, turned to make sure I was watching, and barked once, a clear, expectant bark. Then, he trotted towards the back of the yard.
I looked where he was going. The perfect white fence had vanished. In its place, the ninth staircase stood, a spiral of gray stone climbing into a new darkness.
Koro reached the base of the staircase and sat down, looking back at me, waiting.
He wasn't just a comfort. He was a guide. A silent guardian who had come not only to forgive me, but to show me the way.
I stood up, my body still aching, but my heart... my heart felt different. It was no longer a burning ember of solitary resolve. It felt a quiet warmth, a companionship. I looked at my friend, my faithful friend, waiting for me.
For the first time since I arrived in this hell, I was not alone.
I walked towards the staircase, and Koro stood up, wagging his tail. When I reached his side, he rubbed his head against my leg. I placed my hand on his back, feeling the comforting solidity of his presence. Together, we looked up at the darkness that awaited us. And together, we took the first step.