There was no light.
No sky. No ground.
Just… floating silence.
And Seraphina's breath.
She opened her eyes and found herself suspended in an endless void, the stars above fractured like shards of a shattered mirror.
> "Where am I…?"
Her voice echoed, but the world did not answer.
Until it did.
---
Scene Break – The Gate Within
A doorway appeared—black, ancient, pulsing with Kaelith's essence. It was shaped like a wound in the fabric of space, stitched together with threads of crimson light.
Her instincts screamed to run.
But her heart whispered: He's in there.
Seraphina stepped through.
---
Scene Break – Kaelith's Mindscape
She emerged in a twisted version of the palace garden—the place he'd first kissed her. The flowers were wilted, bleeding black sap. The fountain ran red. The statues of angels wept blood.
And in the center—
Kaelith stood.
But not as she knew him.
His back was turned. His body cloaked in black mist, his arms chained to stone pillars carved with her name.
"Kaelith," she whispered.
He flinched.
Then slowly turned.
> His face was blank. Hollow. Possessed by the void Aetherion left behind.
"You shouldn't be here," he said in a voice not his own.
"I came to bring you back."
He laughed bitterly. "You keep doing that."
She stepped forward. "Because I love you."
"That love is going to kill you."
> Shadows slithered from the cracks in the ground, coiling around him. His arms tensed against the chains—but he didn't fight them.
"You gave up," she said softly.
His eyes flickered. "I gave in."
"To him?"
"To everything."
> The garden trembled as the chains pulled tighter. Thunder cracked above. From the sky, a single black feather fell—then a thousand more, turning the air into a storm.
Seraphina moved closer, dodging the whips of wind.
"You're still in there," she said. "You always were."
He clenched his jaw.
A tear slipped down his cheek.
"I remember you… the first time I saw you," he murmured. "You looked at me like I wasn't cursed."
"You never were."
"Liar."
---
Final Scene – The Truth Beneath
She touched his chest.
The chains recoiled, hissing.
Seraphina whispered something so soft, only his soul could hear it: "Let me in."
Suddenly—snap.
The mist exploded outward.
Seraphina was thrown back, tumbling across the dreamscape as a monstrous figure emerged—part Kaelith, part something else. Horns. Claws. Eyes like twin galaxies collapsing.
The soul of the curse.
Aetherion's echo.
> And it smiled at her with Kaelith's face.
"I was hoping you'd come," it purred. "Now we can begin."