The smirking entity moved in, its silver eyes shining with an otherworldly light. Rael caught his breath as he automatically stepped back, his fingers going towards his sidearm to realize that it's too late and he was unarmed. The emptiness about them appeared to throb, the air thick with something visible yet invisible.
"Who are you?" Rael asked harshIy, while struggling to keep his voice firm.
The reflection moved its head in a way copying his stance exactly. Then it laughed a rich, layered sound that made him shiver in his own boots.
"I am something you left behind. I am what you will become."
Rael tiightened his fists. "You're lying."
The reflection's smirk grew wider, the edges of its form distorting just like a image shattering. "Then tell me, Rael… do you even remember who you were, before you walked through that gate?"
A sharp pain entered his head. Scattered and warped memories flickered before his eyes. A city that is completely destroyed. His hands covered in blood. A promise that is being spoken in the shadows.
The reflection started to speak in its honey-coated voice with poison mixed in while stepping closer to him. "You don't, do you?"
Rael's sight blurred, his head spinning on the edge of something enormous and hideous. The whispers he remembered earlier became more unpleasant, more urgent, closing around him like unseeing shackles.
"Embrace it."
"Remember."
"Become."
RaeI cIenched his fists, shoving the voices away. No. He will not give up to the starnge feelings.
Breathing hard, he forced his body in action, dashing forward in a desperate attack. His hand went right through the reflection like hitting smoke.
And then
A burning agony felt through his chest.
The reflection had plunged its hand into him, gripping something unseen yet essential. Rael gasped, his eyesight fading and darkening at the edges.
"Not yet," the reflection murmured. "You're not ready."
With a final haunting grin, it faded into the void, leaving Rael buckling up on his own knees. The suffocating presence had vanished, but the uneasiness lingered.
He clutched his chest, his heartbeat uneven. He didn't know what had just happened, but one thing was clear to him that he had lost something in that moment.
And he needed to get it back.