This lightless realm is not new to me, and it welcomes its visitor with fog lazily grazing my cheeks, tasting as dew does. I walk through the wet soil and grass, heavy mud splattering and collecting between my toes and on the bottoms of my feet. My shoes seem to have disintegrated as I don’t recall removing them. Or perhaps I never wore them and left them with the sun.

The temple I am searching for peels from the inside, widened around the cornered edges, and creaks a welcome upon approach. I can already hear the groggy black spiders with fuzzy abdomens and legs start their task of weaving fresh webs. I have seen these webs discarded and woven upon my exits and entrances. The spiders catch my diseased thoughts like silk dreamcatchers, then collect and consume them for their hibernation.

When I normally return to this place, I never feel the same, look the same, or smile the same, but I am unquestionably there for the same reason – to silence my inquietude. I am possessed by my resentment, dullness, unforgiveness, and especially my loneliness-fed ego.

As I reach the roofed square tower, I eye the stone and its single window situated at the apex. Chipped away at the edges, the window is illuminated by an orange, flickering light, seemingly struggling to stay lit. Each concrete brick of the tower has been laid carefully, and I greedily touch its smooth and cold surface. Storming the edges, breath clouded from the journey and body numb, my mind reels with pasts and futures, all revolving around a single damning thought that I watch circling my inner mind.

As many times as I’ve been here, I still get shocked by its intimidating, yet captivating size. Sometimes I’ve wished this place away. I’ve thought of taking a match to it or bulldozing its existence. But these thoughts only come when I am light, but the moment I fade, this place becomes my purgatory because I have invented it to ostracize myself, to allow me to bare myself. Some have told me it reeks of desperation whereas others have said it is overflowing with arrogance.

As I quietly go beyond the entrance and climb the stairs built against the edge of the walls, I count my breaths and align them with each tensing of my muscles. Before I make my fifth step, I glance behind myself and am relieved to see that the door has gone, that I have now trapped myself in solitude.

Reaching the top of the tower, I immediately look from the window, beyond the dark horizon and try to watch my tiring thoughts. The air feels heavier as the fog thickens, and I hear the spiders spinning their designs and chatting amongst themselves.

Looking beyond the path, I can see the outline of a figure making its way towards the tower and I furrow my brows in discontent and squint my eyes to focus on its details. The dark shape walks with determination, a flashlight guiding its way, bouncing playfully with the white fog. You don’t belong here, I whisper, only I can be here.

The figure stops upon my last word and flashes its light into the window, blinding me momentarily before bringing the flashlight towards the bottom of the tower where the door once was. Slowly coming nearer, the figure’s frame becomes clearer and I can see the shape of the woman I have encountered in the mirror numerous times.

Upon seeing my own image, I turn to the spiders and explain to them, In this realm, only I exist. Why am I here and yet…there?

The spiders simultaneously dangle from their webs, their bodies pulsing, they respond as a chorus, And if only you exist here, then this second self must also be your own.

I’ve never seen this part of myself here before, why has it appeared now?

Because you must be ready for a different kind of change.

But, how can I have two selves? I questioned.

One is the perfect and one is the imperfect. To find peace with both is how you will find your way out of this tower.

Looking down to the figure standing at the bottom of the tower, I give a heavy nod with closed eyes to allow her to enter. And as she climbs the stairs with the same weight as my own feet, I begin to convulse with anticipation and anxiety wondering, Am I not who I used to be?