Ikai walked deeper into the ruins, where the sand turned a deep, dark color, and the wind gradually died down, giving way to an oppressive, still silence.
This silence reminded him of shrines long forgotten, where no one offered prayers anymore. Or perhaps those where people were afraid to enter.
He didn't know exactly what he was looking for. He didn't know who he was looking for. But there was an unwavering certainty within him: he had to be here.
The first thing that caught his attention were the bones at the base of the collapsed vault. They were faded, scattered in the sand like unremarkable remains. Almost ordinary. Almost. And then he noticed more. And more.
Soon, he found himself in front of a strange semicircle of human bodies, frozen in a lotus position. Their appearance was eerie: they were not mummified, but rather looked withered, as if burned from the inside.
Ikai froze in place. His fingers clenched involuntarily. There was no warmth or cold in his chest. Only a tense feeling of anticipation.
"It doesn't look like a cemetery. It's a circle."
"The place where they sat. Waiting. Or becoming part of something bigger."
He walked closer, his footsteps echoing softly in the dimly lit room. The air was filled with dust and an eerie silence, broken only by the faint rustling of fabric against ancient stone.
One of the skeletons, half-buried under the rubble, seemed... fresher than the others. Its bones glimmered faintly in the flickering light, as if something otherworldly had touched them.
The ribs were carved with symbols – not just words, but intricate phrases, their lines precise and deliberate, as if they had been engraved by a skilled and desperate hand.
Ikai Liu crouched down, his breath slightly ragged as he reached out. His fingers touched the bone, tracing the carvings.
Warmth. Barely perceptible, but undeniable. It was like the faint, warm breath of a living creature lingering in cold, dead matter. The sensation sent chills down his spine, mingling with a growing sense of unease.
And then, at that moment, a voice spoke. Not from the outside, not from the shadows or the walls. It came from within the bone, from the very essence of the skeleton.
A whisper, soft and insistent, with a power that exceeded its quiet tone. It seemed to penetrate his consciousness, enveloping his thoughts like swirls of smoke.
Ikai froze, his hand still on the bone, as words, or perhaps not words, seeped into his mind, leaving a strange, unsettling echo.
"You… are not the first. You… are too late…"
Ikai recoiled, but did not run.
His heart pounded in his ears. The voice continued:
"They tried to stop her. But each of us… only opened her further. The star is not a gift. It is an echo. She follows the path of everyone who carries her. In you, we hear ourselves... again."
Other bones began to resonate, their hollow echoes filling the air like distant thunder. The sand beneath Ikai's feet trembled, the grains shifting and whispering as if the earth itself was agitated.
In one of the skulls, a single eye stared back at him, frozen and cloudy like old glass, yet strangely alive, filled with an invisible force.
Ikai felt a chill run down his spine. He knew that if he dared to look directly into that eye, he would see something much more than a reflection.
It was not just a relic; it was a portal, a warning from beyond the veil of time. The weight of invisible stories pressed down on him, heavy and suffocating.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the frightening sight. But even with his eyelids tightly closed, he could feel a presence—ancient, patient, and unyielding.
"These are not just bodies. They are… records left behind. Memories in bone. Scars in time."
As he stood, the dim light of the flickering torch revealed something chilling—a name was etched into each chest, now faded and blurred by time.
The letters seemed to dance in the uneven light, as if resisting reading. He strained his eyes to make them out, but most were blurred, lost in the destructive processes of decay.
And yet, one name stood out more clearly than the rest – "The Second".
It wasn't just legible; it seemed to radiate a faint, eerie glow, as if the name itself held some meaning he couldn't yet comprehend.
The other names that had once belonged to these silent beings were crossed out, their lines sharp and final, as if someone had deliberately erased their identities.
The skin around the marks was tight, as if it had been branded. These were not just graves; they were erasure marks, deliberate and deep.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he heard a faint whisper, not in his mind, but in the air itself. One skull, which lacked a lower jaw, seemed to move slightly, its empty eye sockets staring into the void.
His voice was barely audible, a hoarse hiss that sent chills down his spine.
"Third… Don't go there. Don't go… into… the… shadow…"
The words hung in the air, full of warning. The skull's whisper was not just a plea, but an order, filled with a force that sent chills down his spine.
He felt the weight of invisible eyes upon him, as if the silence around him was watching and waiting. Was the third him? What was so dangerous about that place in the shadows?
He took a step back, his breathing quickening. The names, the whispers, the warnings—it was all too much. But the skull continued to move, its whispers growing more insistent, more desperate.
"Listen… you shouldn't leave…"
He walked away from the circle of bones. He didn't look back. Not because he was afraid–because he didn't see the point.
"What good is fear when you're already a corpse, just breathing?"
"They're all dead. Some people are faster, some people are inside themselves. I'm just in line. I'll be there in a little while."
The sun still wasn't shining. It was just hanging in the gray sky, like an eye that wasn't blinking anymore.
On the slope of the ruins, he noticed a small, almost intact structure. The stone walls had collapsed on one side. Inside, there was dust and emptiness.
And... a mask.
It was lying on a stand, and its presence seemed almost intrusive, as if it had been hastily removed from someone's face and then carelessly discarded.
It was perfectly smooth, with no openings—no eyes, no mouth, nothing to indicate that it had ever been intended for human use.
Its surface was jet-black, but with an eerie purple tint, like a piece of coal that had been exposed to the elements for too long, and its once-bright fire had become nothing more than a memory.
Ikai moved towards it deliberately slowly, his footsteps on the cold stone floor barely audible. His breathing was even, but his mind was far from calm.
He had felt this warmth before – that strange, unnatural warmth that spread through his chest whenever something ancient and powerful was nearby.
He had also heard whispers, faint and insistent, as if the very air was trying to tell him something. But now there was nothing. No heat. No whispers. Just an oppressive silence that seemed to hang in the air like a warning.
The star he had come to rely on, the one that always seemed to know when danger was near, was silent.
It pulsed weakly in his chest, its usual bright glow dimmed to a barely perceptible flicker. It was not just unusual, it was alarming.
Something was wrong, Ikai could feel it in every fiber of his being. The mask might seem like nothing more than a strange artifact, but he knew it was not. There was a power here that was waiting – and perhaps watching.
"Interesting. You usually twitch when something is wrong. And now you're silent?
"Are you pretending to be dead? Or are you waiting for me to walk into a trap myself?"
He reached for the mask, and at the moment of contact, reality twitched.
***
Ikai Liu stood in a different body, disoriented and unsteady, as if the world itself had shifted beneath his feet.
The weight of his unfamiliar limbs felt foreign yet vaguely familiar, like a half-forgotten dream lingering on the edge of his consciousness. He turned, his movements slow and unnatural, as if time itself had fractured around him.
The reflection was fragmented, shattered like broken glass, but it continued to flicker with frightening clarity.
Next to him stood another version of himself, holding a mask in his trembling hands. The air between them thickened with tension, filled with something unsaid, something ancient and unsettling. The other man spoke, but the voice that emerged was not his own.
It was rough, cracked, as if it had been pulled from the depths of a forgotten abyss.
"She doesn't remember faces…"
The voice was hoarse, each word filled with desperate urgency.
"It's the fear. It's the emotions she remembers. Don't wear it."
The words hung in the air, heavy and ominous. They carried more than just meaning, as if they were a warning from a place where time and reality blurred together.
He stared at the mask, whose surface was dark and featureless, but which emitted a faint, unnatural light.
It seemed to be calling to him, promising something; knowledge, power, or perhaps something much more terrible.
But the voice in his ear, the one that sounded like himself but wasn't, repeated again:
"Don't put it on."
He screamed:
"Stop!"
But the sound was silent. Only a sharp screeching inside his skull.
Ikai suddenly pulled his hand back, as if he had touched something scorching hot. The mask slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor with a thud, the sound echoing ominously in the silence.
He hastily took a step back, his chest filled with ragged breaths, his eyes wide with shock and realization.
"It's not an artifact"
He muttered under his breath, more certain than ever.
"It's a vessel. But not for power… for pain."
The words hung in the air, filled with deep meaning. The design of the mask, its texture, even the faint traces of something unsettlingly familiar – everything fell into place. Too recognizable. Too human.
A bitter chuckle escaped his lips.
"Maybe that's why I wanted to wear it"
He mused aloud, a touch of self-reproach in his voice.
"To hide? To drown myself in something that understands my pain?"
He spat on the ground.
"My face is not for the light. Thank you, no."
He walked over to the wall. On it was scribbled:
"If you look within yourself, don't forget who you were. At least try."
He turned away.
"Why? No one in this world will ever say my name. Even I'm not sure who I was anymore."
Ikai Liu turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing softly as he left the room. The mask remained where it had fallen, its surface covered in a thin layer of dust that clung to its contours, a silent witness to its abandonment.
As the last echo of his departure faded into silence, an eerie calmness filled the room.
Not a single sound broke the silence – no creaking floorboards, no distant voices, just an oppressive silence that seemed to grow thicker with each passing second.
And then, almost imperceptibly at first, the mask began to move. Its edges trembled slightly, as if obeying an invisible force.
Slowly, against the force of gravity and logic, the mask lifted itself off the ground and hovered just above the dust-covered surface.
The movement was deliberate, purposeful, as if it had been waiting – patiently, endlessly – for this moment...