Leonardo blinked, his amber eyes fluttering open. The first thing he noticed was the light—blinding, overwhelming, almost searing. He squinted, trying to adjust to the brightness.
Then, just as suddenly, it was gone, replaced by an impenetrable darkness that made him feel like he was falling into a void.
He sat up slowly, his mind sluggish, trying to make sense of where he was. "Where am I...?"
The space around him was nothing short of a paradox. It was both the brightest light one could ever conceive—the kind of brightness that might exist within the heart of an exploding star—and the darkest abyss, deeper and colder than any black hole.
The two extremes coexisted, swirling in a chaotic dance of light and shadow. Leonardo found himself at the border, where the two forces met and clashed.
"What's happening?" His voice trembled, and just as he asked the question, glowing text appeared before him, shimmering faintly in the air:
[Border. No current sins available.]
"Sins?" he muttered, confusion setting in. His heart raced. "Wait... Am I dead? Is this heaven?" Panic set in; his breath quickened as fear clawed its way through him.
New text flickered, glitching: [NOT DEAD. LOCATION: ██████]
"I can't—" His voice cracked. "—understand!" Frustration and fear mingled in his throat. His mind raced, trying to make sense of everything.
"I shouldn't have apologized," he whispered, his voice breaking as his thoughts spiraled. "I shouldn't have! Why apologize to someone who wasn't sane?!"
As the words left his mouth, a tendril of darkness coiled around him. He didn't notice at first, the chill settling deep into his skin.
His right hand scrabbled across his face—still there, still solid—then slid downward... and plunged into nothing.
Where his left shoulder ended, a vortex of emerald light churned. Instead of bones, a sound: hissing, spitting tendrils of viridian void.
His eyes widened in shock.
His left hand... it wasn't there.
No, not gone. There was something, but it wasn't right. A glowing green hole was where his arm should have been.
Leonardo's breath hitched. He lifted his right hand, hesitating, as if the simple act of acknowledging it would make it worse. His voice wavered, and then the pain hit him all at once.
The emptiness.
The agony.
Agony unmade him. Not pain, but the realm itself screaming through the raw nerve endings of a phantom limb. His spine arched; teeth ground to powder as he vomited soundless screams.
"DAD! MOM!—RONALD!" The names tore his throat, swallowed whole by the hungry dark.
For what felt like hours, he sobbed uncontrollably, the tears mixing with the cold sweat that drenched his body.
Then, through the haze of pain and fear, Leonardo noticed a figure in the distance.
He tried to blink away the blur in his vision, but the figure remained there—a being of pure darkness, yet there was something strange about them. Where their heart should be, there was a single, glowing white hole.
"Help me..." Leonardo whispered, his voice hoarse from screaming.
The figure stepped closer, their movements slow and deliberate. "What are you doing here, S—" Their voice was emotionless, almost hollow, and yet it reverberated in the space between light and dark.
"And you are?" The voice wasn't sound—it was frost forming on his soul.
"I'm..." Leonardo's voice faltered. A cough wracked his body. He couldn't bring himself to say what had happened in Ghent. Survival was all that mattered now.
The figure tilted its head slightly. "How old are you?" it asked before Leonardo could answer.
"Sixteen," Leonardo croaked, his gaze still locked on the glowing hole in the figure's chest.
"I'm four thousand two hundred and fifty," it replied, its tone matter-of-fact, as though that number held no significance.
Leonardo blinked. "What?" His voice was flat, disbelieving.
"So tell me, what's actually your name?" the figure finally asked, allowing Leonardo to answer.
Think of something other than Leonardo. Anything.
"If the world unmakes me, let me be remade like The King of the white cloth's children: in light, not shadow," He remembered an Àyàngalú screaming during the night shifts of the mine.
How the woman foretold the death of the current overseer. She was right.
"Aether," he muttered quickly.
If I can find a way to escape here... I don't want it knowing my real name, he coughed, thinking. Yes... I don't need it using me. I could use it while here.
Then the realization struck him. I'm dead. There is no escaping. There is no freedom. There is no moon. What even is the point of surviving? Aether is my name.
"Family name?" the figure continued.
"Salvius Nox," Leonardo muttered. Lies are roots here.
A pause. The void itself held its breath. "Oh."
Several minutes later
"This is the Crucible," the figure hissed, form fraying at the edges. "Not hell. Not purgatory. The place where souls are changed or unmade before—"
Aether's breath came in shallow shards. "Then what is it? The grave? The final sleep?"
"Before rebirth. After decay," it answered.
"This is the ██████!" it screamed, its voice rising into a piercing wail, the sound reverberating through the endless expanse.