Kael's eyes snapped open, but the world was gone.
There was no sky. No ground. Just endless… nothing.
The Pulse wasn't humming anymore.
It was screaming.
And then, the screams became voices.
"You left me alone…"
"Why did you leave me, Kael?!"
"Why are you doing this?"
Kael stumbled through the black void, his steps distorted, bending, like the very air around him was warping. His breath felt heavy, thick, as if the atmosphere was pressing against him.
He spun, his mind trying to find something to cling to—anything—but there was no escape. The voices… They were everywhere. He couldn't tell where they came from anymore.
Then, a figure appeared.
Her.
Her hair was matted with blood, her eyes glowing hollow and black, her mouth twisted into a painful grin. "Kael," she whispered, "It's all your fault."
"No…" Kael gasped, backing away, but he couldn't move. His legs were stuck in place, like gravity itself was playing with him. "Please… stop!"
"You left me!" she screamed, her voice tearing the air apart. "You abandoned me, and now, you'll never get away. We'll always be together. Forever."
The world started to crack—lines appearing like fractures in glass.
Kael looked at his hands, and they were bleeding.
Bleeding with memories.
He screamed. The pain—intense, excruciating, like his own mind was tearing itself apart. The ground beneath him cracked open, but it wasn't the real world that broke—it was his soul.
The walls of the void shifted, and a thousand faces appeared—each one distorted, each one a fragment of someone he had known, someone he had loved. And they all whispered the same thing.
"You can't escape us, Kael. We're already inside."
The face of the girl—her broken face—flashed in front of him. Her mouth opened wide, gaping, as she screamed with a sound that wasn't even human. It cracked through his mind like thunder.
"I will never forget you, Kael."
The whole world shattered.
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