The Obelisk towered before us.
Even in its fractured state, its presence was overwhelming. The surface, dark and polished like obsidian, pulsed erratically with deep crimson veins that crawled across it in chaotic, jagged lines. It wasn't stable. The light within it flickered violently, like something trying to hold itself together but failing, unable to find its balance.
I could feel it.
Something about the way it hummed, the way the energy in the air pressed against my skin, made my tiny body tense. A weight settled over my chest, heavy and unrelenting, and the crack along my arm pulsed, sending a sharp, searing pain through me.
The system flickered to life in my mind.
[Stabilize the Obelisk. Anchor at risk.]
A deep, twisting nausea coiled in my stomach.
Mira held me closer, her grip almost too tight, her fingers curling into the fabric of the blanket wrapped around me. I could hear her breathing—uneven, shaky. I could feel the way her heart pounded against my back, frantic and desperate.
Lucien stood motionless beside her, his sword still drawn, but for once, he wasn't tense. He wasn't preparing for a fight. He just watched the Obelisk, his eyes sharp, calculating. He didn't trust it.
Charlotte shifted beside him, wincing slightly as she adjusted her stance. Her injured arm remained cradled close to her chest, but she forced herself to stand tall, ignoring the exhaustion evident in her posture.
Mira swallowed hard.
"Tell me what to do," she whispered, her voice raw. "How do we fix this?"
The Obelisk answered.
The chamber trembled as a deep, reverberating voice filled the space—not loud, not aggressive, but vast, like something ancient speaking from within the cracks of time itself.
"The anchor must endure. The vessel must heal. Prove your worth."
A shockwave pulsed from the Obelisk.
It wasn't an attack, but it hit like one. The force sent a sharp, crushing pressure through my entire body, locking my tiny limbs in place. My mind reeled as my vision blurred, my breath caught in my throat.
And then, the world shattered around me.
---
I wasn't in Mira's arms anymore.
I wasn't anywhere.
The space around me dissolved, folding inward into something vast, infinite. It wasn't black, wasn't white—it was something in between. A void filled with shifting fragments.
I was floating.
No, not floating. Suspended.
Drowning in an abyss of fractured light.
Thousands-no, millions-of shards surrounded me, each one glimmering with a sickly luminescence, flickering like the dying gasp of a candle before it's snuffed out. They spun around me in slow, erratic motions, whispering in voices I could not hear but somehow understood. Not mere shards. Not mere fragments.
Memories.
Not mine.
Anchors.
A kaleidoscope of souls frozen in time, trapped within these remnants of light, clinging to existence long after their bodies had crumbled into nothingness. Each shard carried a weight-an unbearable, suffocating weight-that pressed into me, a gravity of loss so heavy I could scarcely breathe. The air around me was thick with something beyond sorrow. It was deeper, blacker, a grief so absolute it bled into my bones, filling the spaces between my ribs with an ache that refused to fade.
And then, they began to play.
A man.
Not Lucien. Someone older. His body was a ruin of exhaustion, his breath shallow and labored, his very presence sagging under the crushing force of something unseen. He stood before the Obelisk, its form stretching endlessly above him, a monolith of judgment, of indifference.
His arm was cracked-just like mine.
The Obelisk pulsed.
He screamed.
His voice was not a sound. It was agony made real, a shriek so raw it carved itself into the air, lingering even after his lips had closed. The cracks along his skin glowed a sickly red, veins of light spidering outward, widening, splitting, peeling him apart from the inside out.
He clawed at his own body, nails raking across flesh that was no longer flesh, gasping, choking on screams that had nowhere to go. His chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven convulsions. A futile struggle. A pathetic attempt to keep himself whole.
And then-
He shattered.
Gone.
No corpse. No remains. No echo of his presence left in the world.
Erased.
As if he had never existed at all.
Another.
A boy. Younger than the first. Barely old enough to be considered a man. He stepped toward the Obelisk on trembling legs, his breath coming in quick, erratic bursts, his hands clutching at the air as if reaching for something-anything-that could save him.
"The anchor must endure," the voice intoned.
A sentence. A decree. A death sentence.
The boy's eyes widened, the whites of them stark against his paling skin. His lips trembled. His chest heaved.
"I can't," he gasped. A whisper, barely audible. "I-I can't do this."
The Obelisk did not respond.
It did not need to.
The cracks on his body split open like the yawning mouth of a starving beast. His flesh -no, whatever was left of it-ruptured, splitting apart in silent, horrifying finality. There was no time for another breath. No time for another plea.
His body collapsed inward.
And then, there was nothing.
Not even dust.
One after another.
Anchor after anchor.
Failure after failure.
I watched them all break.
Some screamed. Some begged. Some didn't even make it to the Obelisk before the fractures overtook them, their forms unraveling like worn fabric coming apart at the seams.
None of them succeeded.
None of them survived.
And yet, I understood.
I shouldn't have.
I was a baby. My mind should not have been capable of grasping the enormity of this moment, of comprehending the sheer weight of their suffering, the terrible finality of their ends.
But I did.
I felt it all.
The terror. The hopelessness. The unrelenting certainty that no matter how strong they were, no matter how determined, they would be undone.
Because that was the truth of the anchors.
That was the truth of this trial.
A test designed to kill.
And for the first time, fear did not merely settle into my bones.
It consumed me.
What if I was next?
What if I failed?
What if I ceased to be, wiped away like the others, my existence reduced to nothing more than a fragment of forgotten light?
The shards around me shifted.
The system flickered in my mind again, faint, distant, barely a whisper against the deafening hum of the Obelisk.
[Crimson Insight Activated.]
The world around me peeled open, revealing a new path. A deeper understanding.
I saw why they failed.
Not because they were weak.
Not because they weren't strong enough.
Because they resisted.
Every single one of them had fought the pain.
Had tried to push it away, to reject it, to claw their way back to a place where it did not exist. They had clung to themselves, desperate to remain whole, desperate to endure.
And that was their mistake.
That was why the Obelisk shattered them.
The realization was not grand. Not dramatic.
It was quiet. Small.
Like the breath before a scream.
I was a baby.
I could not fight.
I could not resist.
So I did the only thing I knew how to do.
I let it happen.
The pain surged.
White-hot, all-consuming, a tidal wave of agony that could not be fought, could not be endured. It was not something to be overcome. It was absolute.
But this time, I did not resist.
I let it in.
I let the Obelisk's energy flood through me, let the cracks in my body widen, let the fire beneath my skin take hold.
I accepted it.
And the Obelisk stilled.
The violent pulsing of its veins slowed, steadying, settling into something rhythmic, something deliberate. The fractures along its surface did not widen.
Then-
A pulse.
Not of pain.
Of healing.
It spread outward, a shockwave of restoration.
It passed through me first, soothing the raw, burning agony in my arm, dulling the sharp ache that had embedded itself into my chest.
Then, it spread.
To Mira.
To Lucien.
To Charlotte.
To all of them.
And in that moment, as the echoes of the anchors' screams still lingered in the air, as the remnants of shattered souls drifted like dust in the void, I realized something.
I had survived.
I was still here.
And the Obelisk-
Had accepted me....I think
Mira gasped softly, her fingers twitching around me as warmth surged through her limbs. Charlotte exhaled, her stance steadying, the pain in her injuries easing slightly. Even Lucien, though his face remained impassive, relaxed in the faintest, smallest way.
The Obelisk had healed—slightly.
But the trial wasn't over.
The voice returned.
Mira's entire body locked up.
Her breath hitched violently, her arms tightening around me with a force that bordered on desperation. "No," she whispered.
Lucien's eyes darkened. His grip on his sword tightened.
Charlotte's expression flickered—something close to dread flashing across her features.
The Obelisk pulsed one final time.
And then, the chamber collapsed.
---
The walls shuddered. The ground cracked.
Everything splintered around us as the structure began to fall apart. The once-restored energy twisted, warping, destabilizing again.
Lucien moved first.
"Move!" His voice was sharp, cutting through the rising chaos.
Charlotte pushed forward, her boots skidding against the breaking stone as she forced herself toward the exit. Lucien reached for Mira, grabbing her wrist. "Now, Mira!"
She didn't move.
She was frozen, her wide, panicked eyes locked onto me. "No," she whispered, shaking her head violently. "No, no, no—"
Lucien pulled her forward. "We don't have time for this!"
Mira sucked in a sharp, broken breath and finally, finally ran.