I flinched, hands bleeding, staring at the translucent panel in front of me through blurred eyes, blood dripping to the ground from my fingers.
A status window similar to "Ascension's Path", my game, my stupid dream I'd coded late nights with her asleep beside me, but here it was, completely real, a sick twist of everything I'd lost, everything I'd built for us.
"Get lost," I muttered, voice shaking, swiping at it, fingers passing through the incorporeal light, smearing blood across the air.
Things I shouldn't have known were in my head, the memories of Ethaniel who wasn't even mentioned in the game, somehow his entire life was in my memory as if it had always been there.
Fifty years after the portal opened, with Alaric's death as the catalyst, half a century since I'd held her, watched her die under that car, her scream cut short by the impact. All passed in an instant for me.
She wasn't here, couldn't be, and I was stuck, alive in this nightmare, this life.
"Heir of the Broken Crown?", "Dimensional Collapse"? Alaric's mess held no meaning to me, not in this alien world, that held nothing dear to me, just words to mock me, to rub it in.
My throat burned, a scream building but dying in my chest, choking me, leaving me empty, her death a wound I'd bleed from slowly, a cut that wouldn't close, that didn't deserve to.
A shout broke the silence, harsh, metal clashing outside like a fight I didn't give a damn about.
I dragged myself up, glass sticking to my palms, blood dripping onto the floor, and pulled the curtain back with a numb hand, tearing it half off its rod.
A courtyard sprawled below, stone walls covering the entire perimeter across this vast compound whose size I couldn't yet fathom, banners limp in the windless dawn, armored figures slashing at each other, swords clashing, sweat wetting the dirt.
One voice cut through, sharp and pissed, "Lord Ethaniel! Don't you dare try to dodge the training again!", a knight glaring up, blade in hand, his scarred face filled with annoyance, pointing at me like I'd pissed in his drink.
Another joined in "Move, or we'll drag you down ourselves!" their laughs bitter, barking off the ground, all the other knights also eyeing me from behind them, eyes on me, hard and cold.
I lifted my gaze above them, a city with large Victorian styled towers, palaces, mansions and smaller buildings stood tall against the sky streaked with silver cracks, faint and dead, like veins in a corpse, pulsing faintly with something wrong.
My stomach sank with despair, dread, not captivated, just a weight pulling me down. This wasn't escape, wasn't a second chance.
This was a curse, a world I'd coded in a late night haze that Alaric had damned with his life, and I was trapped, hated already for nothing I'd done, for breathing when she couldn't.
Footsteps thudded closer quick, heavy, shaking the floor then a bang on the door, wood rattling hard in its frame.
"Ethan!" a girl's voice, sharp and pissed, slicing through the confusion in my head. "Move it! The duke's waiting, the breakfast's cold, and the knights are calling you out again! Get up, or I'm breaking this damn door down myself!"
I turned towards the door, head heavy, blood dripping from my hands, pooling on the floor in dark smears, staining my feet.
Duke? Knights? Lord? They can be damned for all I care, swallow me whole, let it end here, now. I wasn't moving for them, for anyone, I wasn't playing their game.
"Go away," I muttered, voice flat, dead, barely a whisper, lost under my ragged breaths, my chest hitching with anger and frustration.
Suddenly my fragmented mind calmed down, Alaric's cold smirk flashed inside, his sharpness a faint hum in my skull, taunting me with his self control, but it was useless, I was broken, not him, a husk with nothing left, nothing worth saving.
The girl banged again, "Now, you idiot! The duke will disown you, and I am not saving you!" I slid back down, glass cutting deeper into my knees, tearing skin, staring at the blood, at the cracked mirror, at her face burned into me, her grin fading with every second I lived without her.
The status window hung there, glowing, the "Warning" pulsing red now, the consequences of that portal, Alaric's fault, my burden, my chains.
The air shivered, a low hum from the silver cracks outside growing louder, rattling the window frame, dust falling from the ceiling, the walls trembling faintly like something was breaking loose.
"Dimensional Collapse Imminent", it wasn't just words; it was a threat, a crack in this world that I didn't want to be in, Alaric's ruin was bleeding through, his victory my punishment.
The entire life I had lived and built up was gone just like that and now here I am. Ethaniel Arventis just a husk, youngest son of a duke, fifty years after Alaric tore everything apart, leaving me here to rot.
I'd coded many things, reincarnation, system, noble houses, scribbled it out with her head on my shoulder, her breath soft against my neck, but it was a nightmare now, a pit without her, a life I'd never choose, never survive.
The door's latch gave out from the relentless banging, Lirien, Ethaniel's second sister and now mine too, slammed in, her footsteps created an unpleasant sound that made me almost snap, but I barely held in.
Her appearance, short, wiry, black hair yanked back in a braid, gray eyes cutting through the gloom. "Ethaniel! Get up, you useless lump and move!".
Lirien's voice sliced the air, boots crunching glass across the floor, my second sister, leagues above me in every way that counted.
She stopped, staring at the blood streaking my hands, dripping on the floor, her lips twitching but not with disgust, not quite, but close. "Bleeding again? Gods, you're a wreck. Father's waiting, don't make me drag you down there."
I didn't move, slumped against the cracked mirror, glass biting my knees, her words buzzing past like static.
I wished to completely ignore her words and her existence, let myself break down completely, but her intense gaze would not leave me this way and I also knew it.
Lirien didn't pity me nor did she care even though I was bleeding and a complete mess, why would she? I was nothing to her, to any of them, the talentless bastard.
Awakened four years late, when the expected age is 12, barely able to use mana even after awakening, a walking disgrace and they'd carved that truth into me with every glare, every silence.
"Up!" she snapped, grabbing my arm, yanking me so hard my shoulder screamed. I stumbled upright, legs trembling, glass grinding under my bare feet, blood painting the floor as she hauled me to the door.
"You think I like this? Breakfast's cold, the knights are waiting, and father is pissed. Move, or I'll shove you down the stairs myself." Her grip was strong, her voice sharp, duty, not care.
She was nineteen, awakened at eleven. She'd killed her first rift-beast by 14.
But me, I couldn't light a candle. I was the shadow, the blight on the almost timeless history of Arventis pride, and she despised me for it, even if she'd never say it aloud. Her eyes did, cold, gray and accusing.
The hall stretched dark and solemn, stone walls pristine and almost shiny, My feet touched the floor, blood dripping, stinging raw skin.
Lirien dragged me across the hallway, past the portraits of dukes and heirs glaring down, all sharp jaws and glowing eyes, none with my hollow stare.
Midway the air shivered, a low hum rattling the walls, I froze, breath shaking, silver light flared in my mind, once again reminding me of the fate of this world, heading towards destruction due to Alaric's portal.