The sound of wind was the first thing Kael heard.
It whistled through the broken arches of Arkanveil Academy, carrying with it the scent of dust and iron.
He opened his eyes slowly.
Stone columns reached up toward a colorless sky, and fragments of glass glittered like ice across the marble floor.
Kael pushed himself upright. Every muscle ached, every thought felt like it was dragging through fog.
For a moment, he couldn't tell if he was still dreaming.
"Not again…" he whispered. His voice cracked in the empty hall.
The last thing he remembered was the flash of blue light, the collapsing mirror, and that whisper—
Wake up, Kael.
But wake up where?
He looked down at his hands. They flickered. For a fraction of a second, he saw tubes, wires, and the pale glow of hospital lights. Then, just as quickly, the image vanished, replaced by the ruined academy once more.
Two worlds. One body. Both claiming to be real.
Kael stood, brushing the dust from his coat. The air shimmered faintly around him; this place felt unstable, like it could crumble if he breathed too hard.
Somewhere deep within the ruins, the academy's great bell began to toll.
A single, low note that vibrated through his bones.
He followed the sound.
---
The corridors were lined with old portraits—mages, scholars, soldiers of Aetherion.
Their painted eyes seemed to follow him as he passed.
Some faces flickered, changing shape, melting into doctors in white coats before returning to brushstrokes again.
He stopped before the last portrait in the hall: Archmage Seran, the founder of Arkanveil.
The plaque beneath it read: "He who conquered dreams."
"Conquered dreams," Kael murmured. "Or got lost in them?"
A faint laugh answered him. It came from the shadows behind the portrait.
Kael froze.
"Who's there?"
The laugh came again, deeper now, familiar yet wrong.
He turned—and the world rippled like disturbed water.
He wasn't in the academy anymore.
The floor beneath his feet became white tile. The air smelled of antiseptic. Machines beeped in a steady rhythm beside a hospital bed.
A woman sat nearby, head bowed, clutching a limp hand—his hand.
Kael's breath caught.
"Mother…?"
She didn't react.
The nurse beside her spoke softly, "He's showing brain activity again. Increased delta waves. It might be a sign."
Kael tried to step forward, to speak, but his voice echoed soundlessly in the sterile air.
The nurse adjusted the monitor, and the beep quickened—like a heartbeat.
The bell in his head tolled again, dragging him back—
—and suddenly the tiles cracked, the walls peeled away, and he was back in the ruins.
Kael staggered, gripping a column for balance.
Two realities, overlapping like mirrors.
One of them had to break.
---
At the far end of the hall, the Grand Mirror of Arkanveil stood whole again.
Last time he saw it, it had shattered into a thousand shards. Now it gleamed, flawless, runes pulsing with cold blue light.
He approached cautiously.
The air grew colder with each step, breath turning to mist.
In the mirror, his reflection stared back—same face, same scar beneath the eye—but there was something off about the expression.
It smiled. He didn't.
"Finally awake," it said.
Kael's pulse quickened.
"You're… me?"
The reflection tilted its head. "Am I? You've been asleep for so long you've forgotten which side of the glass you started on."
Kael shook his head. "No. I'm real. You're—"
"—the part you buried." The reflection's voice grew harder. "The memories you left behind when you crossed into this coma realm. But time moves differently here, Kael. I learned to live in it. To rule it."
Kael stepped closer. "What do you want?"
"To trade places."
The mirror's glow deepened to crimson. The runes flared, humming like a heartbeat.
"You can't exist without me," Kael said.
"Exactly," his reflection replied. "So one of us has to disappear."
The reflection reached behind itself and drew a blade—the Crimson Dagger of Aetherion. Its edge shimmered with light that devoured the air around it.
Kael stared. He'd lost that dagger in his first journey through the dream realm.
"How do you have that?"
"I never lost it," said the reflection. "You did."
Then it stepped through the mirror.
---
The world shuddered.
Kael was thrown backward as the reflection landed on the marble, the dagger clattering in its hand.
Energy rippled outward, splintering the floor.
Kael rolled to his feet, summoning a pulse of etheric light around his palms.
"Get back where you came from."
His double smirked. "Or what? You'll erase me? You can't even control your own reality."
Kael lunged, releasing a burst of light. The reflection twisted aside, the dagger slicing through the air and grazing Kael's shoulder. The wound burned—not just with pain, but with memory.
Suddenly he was in the hospital again, convulsing on the bed, nurses shouting.
"BP dropping!"
He gasped, and the vision snapped. Back in the ruins.
Blood ran down his arm, glowing faintly blue.
"Every time you fight me," the reflection said, "you're killing yourself out there."
Kael clenched his fist. "Maybe that's the only way to wake up."
They clashed again. Light met shadow. The mirror pulsed like a living thing, reflecting hundreds of versions of them fighting in infinite repetition.
Each impact echoed across worlds.
Then Kael caught the reflection's wrist and slammed it against the mirror.
Cracks spider-webbed across the glass.
The reflection hissed. "Break it, and you break everything."
"Maybe that's the point."
Kael drove his palm into the mirror.
It shattered—
—and both of them screamed as the shards turned into streams of light, swirling into a storm that swallowed them whole.
---
When Kael opened his eyes again, everything was silent.
He was lying on the floor of the academy—or what was left of it. The ruins had turned into a vast, empty plain of white mist.
The mirror was gone. The dagger lay beside him, dull and lifeless.
He touched it carefully. The metal was cold.
Somewhere far away, a faint monitor beeped.
He realized with a chill that the sound wasn't coming from the world around him. It was coming from inside him.
From the part still lying unconscious in the hospital.
"Am I dead?" he whispered.
A voice answered from the mist.
"No. Not yet."
He turned. A figure was walking toward him—a woman in a hooded robe, eyes glowing faint gold.
He recognized her instantly.
"Seran," he breathed. "You're supposed to be—"
"Gone," she finished softly. "Like you will be if you keep tearing the veil."
Kael frowned. "Then tell me how to fix it."
She looked at the dagger. "That blade doesn't belong to either world anymore. It's a key. Use it wrongly, and you'll wake in a place that isn't yours."
"I just want to go home."
Seran's expression softened. "Then remember which world is real, Kael. Because one of them is starting to forget you."
The mist thickened, swallowing her shape.
Kael shouted after her, but only his echo answered.
---
In the distance, he saw movement—a faint silhouette standing among the fog.
It was him again.
The reflection.
But this time it looked… different. Faded, almost translucent.
Kael approached warily. "You're still here?"
The reflection smiled weakly. "You broke the mirror. Now there's no separation. You and I are… entangled."
Kael stopped a few steps away. "So what happens now?"
The reflection raised a trembling hand. "We decide who wakes up. Only one consciousness can survive the merge."
Kael's heart pounded. "Then I'll fight for it."
The reflection shook its head. "You already did. And maybe that's the problem. You keep fighting yourself."
Before Kael could reply, the reflection pressed the dagger into his hand.
Its form began to dissolve into particles of light.
"Take it," it said quietly. "End the loop."
Kael stared down at the blade. It pulsed faintly—half-alive, half-dead.
He looked up again, but the reflection was gone. Only the mist remained.
He stood there, alone, clutching the dagger as the world around him began to fracture—sky splitting, ground trembling.
---
The beeping returned, louder now.
Somewhere far beyond the mist, voices cried out:
"He's stabilizing! Heartbeat detected!"
Kael's knees buckled. The light consumed everything.
He saw the hospital room again—his mother rising from her chair, tears streaming down her face.
He tried to speak, to call out, but his throat wouldn't move.
His reflection's last words echoed in his mind:
> "When the dream dies, the traveler wakes."
He exhaled—and the world turned white.
---
When the light faded, Kael found himself standing not in a hospital or a ruin, but in a place that was neither.
A boundless corridor of mirrors stretched infinitely in every direction. Each one showed a different version of him—alive, dead, dreaming, awake.
And at the very center stood a door made of light.
Its surface rippled gently, waiting.
Kael tightened his grip on the dagger. He could feel both worlds pulling on him, trying to claim him.
He took one last breath.
"Let's find out which one's real."
And he stepped through the door.