【The Day the Lid Was Lifted…】

In my dream,

I was keeping a massive snake—its skin patterned with bold stripes, its body slick and glistening from a recent shedding, as if reborn.

It lived inside a large clay jar, but it had grown far too big to be contained.

Its muscular body coiled and pressed against the rim, ready to rise, to emerge.

And beside me stood my longtime companion, someone I trusted more than anyone in this world.

“I want you to see this,” I said.

We both peered into the jar.

The snake slowly lifted its head and met my gaze.

In that instant, a voice—wordless, yet deeply clear—resonated within my chest.

“I am the embodiment of stolen lives.

I have come to confront the one who trampled them for his own ambition.”

The scene shifted.

We were suddenly in a lavish bedroom, a place both grand and hollow.

A canopy bed draped in velvet, golden embroidery woven through the carpet, thick curtains blocking out the light.

And in the center of it all, a man lay on the bed.

His name was Alexei Dronov—

a man who had sacrificed countless lives for the illusion of control, who issued commands not for peace, but for power.

Wrapped around his throat was the very same snake.

Its coils tightened as he gasped, his face contorted in panic.

But he was not yet dead.

It was not his end—

It was a message.

The snake was not alone.

It was formed by the silent rage and sorrow of those who had fallen on forgotten grounds.

Those who had been used and discarded.

The voices of the voiceless spoke through it:

“We will not forgive you.”

And yet, even now, Dronov was preparing to “move” again—

to raise his forces once more, in the delicate bloom of early spring,

as though trying to replay a long-faded glory.

But now, those who followed him did so in silence.

Many had no choice.

True loyalty had long since withered.

I stood there, my companion by my side,

watching.

Even after I awoke, the heaviness lingered.

The air of the earth, damp and ancient, seemed to follow me from the dream.

So did the snake’s eyes.

It still waits in the jar.

Its wrath pulsing quietly in the shadows.

And when the lid lifts again…

it may be soon.

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2025.4.18 OliveR

Afterword: Listening to the Voices of the Lost

This story was not merely a fragment of a dream.

The serpent I encountered in that dream was more than a creature—it was a manifestation of lives discarded and disregarded.

Lives forcefully taken for the sake of someone’s ambition or desire for control, transformed into a single entity carrying the weight of sorrow and anger.

There are consequences in this world—though invisible, they exist undeniably.

Those who treat life as expendable will, in time, face the price of their actions.

It may not arrive immediately, but somewhere, silently and surely, it begins to move.

That was the presence I clearly felt in the dream.

Each of us lives with the weight of our choices and their impact on life itself.

To truly live, we must listen to the voices that go unheard.

We must not overlook the meaning of lives lost.

Let us remember: some forces stir beneath the surface—waiting, watching, remembering.

“This is a fictional story. All characters, countries, and organizations depicted are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to real individuals or entities.”