The Curse: the funeral you attend alone
June 10, 2026 · YTHRAL©
There's a version of you that died, and nobody came to the funeral. You didn't go either.
People ask what The Curse is, as if giving it a name might make it gentler. It won't.
You never buried that version of yourself. You just learned to walk around with it inside you.
Nobody tells you that becoming someone new has a price. People only see the result, the set jaw and the way you can make a room go silent without trying, and they admire it without ever asking what had to be torn down first.
Anything that stands went up on top of something that fell, and the rubble doesn't disappear just because something nice was put over it. It stays underneath and slowly rots. That rot is The Curse.
People mistake it for weakness, which is what they saw in you back when you were soft enough to get through, the thing they used and then blamed you for having. Others mistake it for strength, but the strength is an act. It's the version of you that walks into rooms and closes deals, and you put it on top of The Curse so nobody would go looking underneath.
The Curse lives in the gap between the person you buried and the person you turned into, and it belongs to neither of them. It's like a scar, proof that you were hurt and that you healed.
If you want to understand it, look at what the survivor had to leave at the door. There used to be a version of you who believed the world would be fair if he was good enough. He held out his hand without counting his fingers afterwards, and he bled in the open because he thought honesty counted for something. That version is dead. You held the funeral yourself, alone, and buried him somewhere nobody will ever find, because that grave is the one thing that's entirely yours.
The Curse is the funeral you go back to every night and never talk about.
People have words for what you became, like cold or guarded, and they pick whichever one suits the room. They'd never say damaged. They say different, or strong. The cruel part is that the names fit, because the wound is who you are now, and you can't take it out without taking out the person it made.
Don't read this as a pep talk. There's no lesson hidden in here and no sunrise at the end of it, only the cost. You paid with things you didn't know you were spending until the bill arrived, like the trust you gave without doing the math first, and the laugh you never had to rehearse.
The worst part is that you don't regret it. You're sure it had to happen, that the old you had to die so this one could stand up at all. You don't mourn him either, because mourning takes softness, and softness was the first thing The Curse took.
So you carry it the way a skeleton carries its bones. You can't talk about it, because talking would mean opening the one door you sealed yourself, and behind it is the person who felt all of it, with a face that looks too much like yours used to.
So you wear it. You wear Facade, because the truth is an autopsy report and nobody reads those over dinner. You wear Obsidian, because the shade they adore is the same color as everything they destroyed. And you keep walking, admired by people who have no idea what it cost.
The Curse is not what was done to you.
The Curse is what you had to become because of it.
And the cruelest part is that you survive.
That is the punishment.
I'll close the book here, but The Curse doesn't end on paper, and that's the point. When you see the sigil, on cotton or in the silence of someone who gets it, you're looking at a contract signed in sacrifice. The Curse is yours. It always was.
The Curse and your villain era
People call it a villain era, the stretch of life after you stop letting others walk over you. You get colder and you stop explaining yourself, and the people around you notice the change before you do.
Most of what gets written about a villain era makes it sound fun. The Curse is about the other side of it, what it costs. The softer version of you had to go so the new one could stand, and nobody else sees that part.
The collection
The Curse is the thread that runs through Facade and Obsidian. It's about what it costs to become someone new.
Questions
What does villain era mean?
The stretch of life after you stop letting people walk over you, when you get colder and stop explaining yourself. The Curse is about what that costs.
What does The Curse mean?
It's about the version of you that had to die so the person standing now could survive, and about carrying that loss alone.
Where can I buy pieces from The Curse?
Facade and Obsidian are sold at ythral.com and ship worldwide.
