I fell again. But this time, it was not into emptiness. This time, I fell into myself. The moment his hand touched my forehead, the world shattered, breaking into a thousand pieces of light and shadow. Each shard held a fragment of something half-forgotten, images and sounds and sensations that did not belong to me—yet they were mine all the same. I saw a burning sky, streaked with rivers of silver flame. I saw two figures standing upon an endless void, their silhouettes blurred by the sheer power radiating from them. One burned like a dying star, its light desperate and consuming. The other was pure abyss, yet within its darkness, there was something deeper—not just absence, but creation itself.
They spoke, but their voices were distant echoes, distorted and lost to time. Then—a flash. A blade, black as the endless night, clashing against one of brilliant, celestial white. A war waged in silence, the fabric of existence torn apart at its seams. And in the centre of it all—me. No. Not me. Him. The one who had worn my face. The one who had spoken in my voice. The one who now stood within me, watching, waiting. The Shadowborn. The name was not a title. It was not a curse. It was a truth. And I was drowning in it. The visions came faster now, crashing over me like a tide I could not fight. My body was weightless, suspended in a sea of fragmented memories—some mine, some not, some belonging to a time so distant that even the stars had long since forgotten it.
A voice called to me from within the storm. "Wake up, Kaelen."
I fought to breathe, to move, to think—but the darkness held me, dragging me down, deeper, deeper, into the abyss of my own soul.
"Wake up."
The heartbeat returned, louder now, echoing through my chest like a war drum. I gasped—and the world lurched. The visions vanished, torn away in an instant. The weight upon my mind lifted, and suddenly, I was falling no more. I was standing. The black glass plain had returned, stretching endlessly beneath my feet, but this time, it was different. Because now—I was not alone. The figure stood before me again, his form solid now, no longer a flickering wraith of ink and starlight. He was me—but sharper, more defined, his presence heavier. And for the first time, when he spoke, it was not a whisper, not an echo from the abyss. It was clear.
"You are ready to see."
I swallowed, my pulse thrumming in my ears. "See what?"
The reflection's silver-lit gaze met mine. "The truth."
And then, the ground beneath us split open, and the abyss revealed itself.