Nyra slammed into the ground, hard enough to rattle her teeth. The storm had thrown them onto cracked stone, but the sky above wasn't a sky at all—it was a roiling swirl of gold and black, like molten suns devouring each other.
Kiel landed beside her, breathing hard. His knuckles were white around the hilt of a blade that hadn't been in his hand before. The moment she noticed it, he frowned. "I didn't summon this."
The blade shimmered—and then twisted, reshaping into something else. Blood dripped from its edge. Nyra recognized it instantly. "That's… from the siege at Varlis."
Kiel's expression darkened. "It's pulling from my memories. Turning them into reality."
---
A voice boomed through the air, each word echoing in their bones. "Every choice you made. Every failure you buried. Let's see how you survive them this time."
The world rippled—and suddenly they weren't alone.
Dozens of enemies closed in from all sides: soldiers with burning eyes, the ones they'd fought years ago. But these weren't ordinary foes. Their faces shifted mid-step, morphing into the people Kiel had failed to save—comrades, allies… even children.
Nyra stepped in front of him. "Don't hesitate. They're not real."
Kiel didn't move. His jaw clenched, hands trembling. "They feel real."
One of the figures stepped forward—a woman with a shattered sword and an arrow through her chest. Her voice was soft, broken. "Why didn't you save us?"
---
The hesitation almost killed him.
A spear shot toward Kiel's side, and Nyra yanked him out of the way just in time. She spun, driving her boot into the attacker's throat, the body dissolving into black ash.
"Focus!" she barked. "You can hate yourself later. Right now, we fight."
Something in her tone snapped him out of it. Kiel's blade blurred, slicing through the phantom soldiers. Each kill sent a shockwave through the world, splintering the battlefield into fragments of different memories—blazing deserts, frozen cliffs, bloodstained cobblestones.
---
The shifting terrain made every step dangerous.
One moment they were standing on the deck of a burning ship, flames licking at the rigging, the next they were waist-deep in a swamp under a blood-red moon. Every change brought a new kind of threat—ice collapsing beneath their feet, arrows raining from phantom towers, the ground itself splitting to swallow them whole.
Through it all, the shadow's voice followed them. "Do you think you can outrun guilt? It will always find you. It will always chain you."
---
They stopped running when the ground ahead split open into a chasm of pure darkness. On the other side stood a door—massive, iron-bound, glowing faintly with the same golden light that had been in Kiel's eyes before.
"That's the way out," he said, but his voice was strained.
Nyra squinted at him. "And the catch?"
He hesitated. "…That's where it hides the worst memory."
The shadow's chuckle rolled through the air like thunder. "Oh, yes. The one you've never told her. Shall we share?"
Kiel's grip tightened on his sword. "We go through it. Fast."
---
They charged.
Phantoms poured from the walls, clawed hands and twisted faces grasping at them. Nyra slashed her way forward, each swing cutting through a blur of smoke and sorrow. Kiel fought with precision, every strike a defiance against the weight pressing down on him.
As they neared the door, the ground buckled. From the darkness beneath, a colossal hand emerged—black as the void, with fingers long enough to encircle a tower. It slammed down, scattering debris and forcing them apart.
Nyra rolled to her feet, shouting, "Kiel!"
He was on the other side now, barely keeping his footing as the hand rose again. The shadow's massive form began to rise with it, pulling itself from the chasm.
"If you open that door," it said, "you'll see the truth she'll never forgive."
Kiel looked at Nyra, pain flashing in his eyes.
Nyra's voice cut through the chaos. "Then we walk through it together."