Alvin's eyes snapped open.
For a moment, he didn't breathe. He lay still, staring up at a ceiling he hadn't seen in what felt like… centuries.
Carved obsidian beams. Silver inlay shaped like layered spell matrices. The faint glow of runestones pulsing like slow heartbeats.
His ceiling.
The ceiling of the Abyss Tower.
His room.
A cold, automatic calm settled over him before he even fully realized what he was seeing. His fingers twitched against the familiar silken sheets, and he pushed himself upright slowly, quietly, as if sudden movement would shatter whatever strange illusion he'd woken into.
"What…?"
His voice was steady, but something inside him trembled.
This place was real. The mana density, the hum of the tower responding to his awakening, it was unmistakable. But something was wrong. He could feel it like someone had taken a knife and carved out pieces of his memory cleanly, leaving raw edges behind.
He knew he was missing something.
