Beatrice is the invocation—fragile, untouchable, radiant. She stands at the edge of the void, calling not with words, but with absence. This is where the descent begins: with her name on his lips and the echo of her footsteps in the dark. She never enters the Inferno. She doesn’t need to. Her presence is a spell cast from afar, soft and absolute.

The music here is delicate, unfinished. A memory unraveling in slow motion. A prayer spoken by someone who doesn’t believe, but still hopes to be heard.

She is the light he claims to chase.

But this is not her descent.

It’s his.

And she will not follow.

Where is Beatrice? He wakes with soil in his mouth and stars in his eyes. The horizon has collapsed into shadow. Time is meaningless here. He doesn’t know how long he’s been lying in this in-between, this womb of sorrow and silence. All he knows is this:

She is gone.

Beatrice—his compass, his clarity, his pulse—is nowhere.

Not vanished, but withdrawn.

Her warmth has been replaced by cold light. Her voice by the hush of leaves. Her touch by the ache in his chest.

He rises slowly, half-man, half-ghost. His limbs remember a life, but his heart knows only longing. The forest stretches before him like a question he cannot answer, an invitation signed in grief.

He is not angry.

He is not afraid.

He is lost—and that is worse.

He doesn’t cry out. She wouldn’t hear him now.

But her absence rings louder than any scream.

So he steps forward. Into the trees.

Into the mouth of the underworld.

Not to find her.

But because without her, he no longer knows how to stay.