The bridge stretched ahead of them, a ribbon of stone and light suspended over the endless mirrored plain. Each step sent a ripple of silver across the surface below, as though the realm itself acknowledged their passage. Ethan tried not to look down, but the vast emptiness beneath tugged at his stomach.
Beside him, Elara walked with measured grace, her eyes fixed on the towers ahead. The crystalline spires shimmered brighter with every step, twisting upward like threads of glass spun by unseen hands. Her fingers brushed the shard she had taken, still glowing faintly in her palm.
Neither of them spoke at first. Silence felt safer here, as though words might disturb the fragile balance of the path. But Ethan's thoughts pressed against his chest until he couldn't hold them in.
"Do you think..." he began, his voice echoing strangely along the bridge, "this place is even real?"
Elara glanced at him, her braid catching the glow of the bridge. "It feels real," she said softly. "The air, the ground, the light... I don't think it matters if it or isn't. We're here."
Ethan nodded, though unease still stirred in him. Sofia's face flickered across his memory, her tired smile, her fading texts, but here, walking beside Elara, those worries felt both sharper and more distant. He pushed them down, focusing instead on the strange mark on his wrist. The faint wing etched there pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, as though it were alive.
Elara's mark glowed too, a crescent with three stars. She kept glancing at it, her brows drawn. "That figure back there," she murmured, "the one in the mask... it called us Seekers. Do you know what that means?"
"No," Ethan admitted. "But I don't like the sound of 'paths have a price.'"
The bridge hummed under their feet, vibrating like a plucked string. Ahead, the towers flared brighter, and a low wind swept across them. It carried faint whispers, fragments of a language Ethan couldn't understand. He looked back instinctively, but the plain behind them stretched empty, endless.
Almost empty.
For a moment, he thought he saw a smear of shadow moving across the mirrored surface, slithering where no reflection should be. His chest tightened, but when he blinked it was gone.
"Did you see that?" he asked.
Elara slowed, her hand brushing the hilt of the sword that hadn't been at her side before she put on the visor. It had appeared with her reflection, a weapon shaped from her will. "See what?'
"Nothing," Ethan said quickly, though his eyes lingered on the plain. I don't want to scare her. Not yet.
They pressed on.
The further they walked, the more the bridge changed. The light-stone beneath their feet flickered with images, glimpses of scenes that weren't their own: a boy kneeling before a grave, a woman fleeing through fire, a city crumbling into dust. Each vision lasted only a heartbeat before dissolving, but Ethan felt weight of them settle in his chest.
"Elara..." he said, "are you seeing this too?"
"Yes." Her voice was low. "Memories. But not ours." She touched on briefly with her fingertips, and the image flared into color: a young man clutching a crown, his face streaked with both blood and tears. Then it vanished, leaving only the glow of the bridge.
"They're warning," she said, pulling her hand back. "This realm is showing us what choices can do."
Ethan swallowed hard. "Then we should be careful."
The words felt too small for the weight of the place, but he couldn't think of anything else.
The bridge narrowed as they neared the halfway point. The spires loomed higher, their shapes bending into impossible angles. The hum beneath their feet grew stronger, like a drumbeat rising. Ethan's pulse quickened to match it.
Then came the first crack.
It started as a hairline fracture in the stone, splitting outward like ice breaking. Ethan froze, staring as the fissure spread across the bridge. Silver shards dropped away into the void, vanishing before they touched the plain below.
"Elara," he said, his voice tight," we need to move."
She nodded, but even as they quickened their pace the bridge buckled underfoot. The humming became a roar, and from the edges of the light-stone rose shapes of shadow, coiling like smoke made solid.
This time Ethan didn't imagine it. The shadow had followed them, and now it had found them.
The shadow rose like smoke given hunger, stretching long arms that ended in claws of ink. Its form shifted with every second, one moment a man-shaped silhouette, the next a serpent coiling around the bridge. The mirrored plain below reflected nothing of it, as though the realm itself refused to acknowledge its existence.
Ethan's throat tightened. "What the hell is that?"
Elara's hand closed firmly around the hilt of her sword. The blade gleamed with a pale light, born of her will and her shard. "Not of the realm," she said. Her stance lowered steady, but Ethan could hear the catch in her breath. "It's following us."
The creature lunged.
Stone cracked beneath its weightless body as it surged forward, claws swiping across the bridge. Ethan stumbled backward, heart hammering, nearly losing his footing to the void. The light-stone beneath him flickered, unstable as if the realm were testing whether he deserved to stay.
Elara moved faster than he could track. Her blade carved a glowing arc, slicing through one of the shadow's reaching arms. The severed piece evaporated into smoke, but the wound only slowed it for a heartbeat. The arm reformed, stretching longer, sharper.
"It doesn't break!" Ethan shouted.
"It will," Elara snapped, "if we find its core!"
The shadow coiled again, and this time Ethan saw something glint in the heart of its writhing mass, a faint shard of crystal, buried deep within the smoke. It pulsed in rhythm with the marks on their wrists.
"Elara! he yelled. "There, its chest!"
The thing shrieked, a sound like tearing metal, as if it had heard him. Its body split into multiple limbs, clawing at the bridge in a frenzy. Shards of light-stone rained into the void. The bridge trembled, forcing Ethan to drop to one knee. His shard slipped from his hand and skittered toward the edge.
"No!" He lunged after it.
The crystal teetered on the brink, glowing faintly, ready to vanish into the abyss. Ethan's hand closed around it just as the shadow's claws slammed into the bridge beside him. The impact jolted through his body, nearly shaking him free.
"Elara!" His voice cracked.
She was already moving. Her blade cut into the shadow again, forcing it to reel back. "Hold on!" she shouted. The glow of her crescent mark flared brighter, feeding into her weapon. She pressed forward, striking again and again, her movement sharp with practiced precision.
But the creature was vast, more smoke than solid. Every blow only slowed it, never finished it. And the bridge... the bridge was failing.
Ethan force himself to his feet, clutching the shard so hard his knuckles whitened. Think. Think! His gaze darted between his crystal, the glowing mark on his wrist, and the pulsing shard buried in the shadow's chest.
They match.
"Elara!" he called again, louder this time. "I think I can stop it!"
She risked a glance at him, sweat beading at her temple. "How?"
"I don't know," Ethan raised his shard, and for an instant the light within it pulsed in sync with the shadow's core. "But it reacts to this."
The shadow lunged again, massive arms sweeping across the bridge. Elara darted in front of him, her sword catching the blow, sparks of light scattering like stars. She pushed back with a fierce cry, then shot him a look. "Then use it!"
Ethan swallowed hard, heart pounding. The shard vibrated in his hand, almost as if it wanted to leap free. He raised it higher, focusing every ounce of will he had left. "Come on," he muttered. "Work. Please work."
The crystal flared.
A beam of light surged outward, striking the shadow in the chest. The creature convulsed, its body twisting, limbs flailing. The glint inside it, its core, pulsed violently, as though trying to resist the pull.
Elara didn't hesitate. She sprang forward, her blade blazing brighter than ever, and drove it through the spot Ethan had exposed.
The sound was deafening. The shadow shrieked as its from split apart, smoke unraveling into a storm of fragments. The bridge shook violently beneath them, but then, as the last of the darkness scattered into the void, silence fell.
Only their breathing remained.
Ethan staggered, nearly collapsing. He still clutched his shard, its glow dimming back to a faint shimmer. His legs shook beneath him. "Did we.. did we kill it?"
Elara stood with her blade lowered, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She looked back at the empty span of bridge behind them. The cracks were already healing knitting themselves shut as if the realm had never been broken. "No," she said at last. "Not kill. Banish. It'll return."
Ethan's stomach dropped. "Return? You mean that thing's not gone?"
Her eyes met his. For a moment, the guarded strength in her gaze faltered, and he saw the shadow of fear there. "Things like that never vanish. They wait. They follow."
Ethan dragged a hand down his face. He wanted to laugh, or cry. He wasn't sure which. "Great. So we're being stalked by a smoke monster that doesn't die."
Despite herself, Elara almost smiled at his phrasing. "Then we move faster. We reach the tower before it finds us again."
Ethan looked up at the spires. They still shimmered in the distance, impossibly tall, impossibly far. He tightened his grip on the shard. "Fine. But when it comes back, we'll be ready."
Elara nodded once, firm, then sheathed her sword. Without another word, she started forward. Ethan followed, his steps heavy but steady.
The bridge had gone quiet again, but Ethan couldn't shake the feeling that the realm was watching. That every choice he made, even doubt, every hesitation was being weighed by something unseen.
And somewhere, beneath that silence, he swore he heard a laugh.
The bridge stretched on, longer than seemed possible, as though distance meant nothing here. Ethan's legs ached, but time itself felt slippery, he couldn't tell if minute or hours had passed. The spires ahead loomed closer, yet the path never seemed to shorten.
The silence between them was heavy. Elara's hand hovered near her sword, but her gaze remained forward, fixed and steady. Ethan tried to mimic her calm, though his thoughts churned.
That was when the first vision came.
It started as a flicker at the corner of his eye, a face, familiar and fleeting. He turned sharply, heart leaping, and froze.
Sofia.
She stood on the bridge behind him, hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes tired but warm. "Ethan," she whispered, her voice carrying impossibly across the void. "Why are you here? Come back. You're leaving us."
His chest constricted. She looked so real, more real than this impossible place. The bridge wavered beneath his feet. "Sofia?" he breathed.
She reached toward him, hand trembling. "You don't belong with her. You belong with me."
"Ethan!" Elara's sharp voice cut through the haze. He blinked, and Sofia was gone. The bridge stretched empty once more.
He staggered, clutching his shard. "Did you... see that?"
Elara's lips were pressed into a thin line. "No. But I felt it."
Before he could answer, she stiffened. Her eyes darted to the side, and Ethan followed her gaze.
Rowan.
The figure walked along the opposite edge of the bridge, as solid as if he'd been conjured from memory. Tall, confident, his armor gleamed as it once had in Elara's recollection. His smile was sharp, familiar, cruel.
"Elara," he called, his voice a low echo. "How easily you forget. I bled for you. I stood beside you. And you cast me aside."
Elara's sword was in her hand before she realized it. Her grip trembled. "You're not real," she said, her voice low.
Rowan's smile widened. "Then why does your heart still falter at the sight of me?"
The bridge warped, shimmering beneath his steps. Ethan reached for her arm. "It's an illusion. Don't,"
But Elara was already moving. She slashed at Rowan with a furious cry, blade cleaving through him, and meeting nothing but mist. His image dissolved like smoke, leaving only silence.
Her breath came fast, sharp, almost ragged. Ethan steadied her shoulder. "They're testing us," he said. "This place.. it know."
Elara swallowed hard, forcing her sword down. "Then we don't look back," she whispered.
Together, they pressed forward, eyes fixed on the Tower.
The illusions returned again and again, flashes of family for Ethan, of battlefields for Elara, but neither gave them voice. The realm whispered and tugged, but they kept moving until at last the bridge ended.
The Tower gates rose before them.
They were colossal, carved of stone that shimmered like obsidian, veined with silver light. Strange runes covered their surface, winding patterns that seemed to shift when stared at too long. The doors towered so high Ethan couldn't see their tops.
He exhaled. awe and dread mixing in his chest. "How do we even open something like that?"
Elara lifted her wrist. Her crescent mark blazed, casting starlight onto the stone. The runes nearest her began to glow in answer. Ethan raised his own hand, the wing-mark flared, sending a ripple across the doors.
With a deep groan, the gates shuddered.
For a moment, Ethan thought they would simply open. But then a figure appeared, stepping between the shifting runes.
It was not a shadow. Nor the masked being from before. This one was clearer, tall, robed in deep violet, with a mask of pale bone that concealed its face. Its eyes glowed faintly through the sockets, unblinking.
"Seekers," it said, voice smooth as glass. "You approach the Tower unbidden."
Ethan tensed. "We were told to come here. The bridge led us."
The figure tilted its head, studying him. "The bridge does not choose. You chose."
Elara stepped forward, her sword low but ready. "Who are you?"
"I am the Gatekeeper. It is my task to weigh those who would enter. Many arrive. Few pass."
The runes brightened around it, forming a halo of light. The Gatekeeper's gaze lingered on their marks. "Two paths, woven together. But they will not remain so. One of you will betray the other. One of you will fall."
The words landed heavy as stone. Ethan's pulse quickened. He looked at Elara, but her face was unreadable.
"That's a lie," Ethan said quickly.
"Is it?" The Gatekeeper's voice was calm, almost kind. "The realm thrives on choices. And choices always divide. Already the cracks show."
It gestured, and the air shimmered. Ethan saw Sofia again, reaching for him, tears in her eyes. Elara saw Rowan, whispering promises of devotion. Their illusions overlapped in the air between them, a cruel mirroring.
Ethan's breath caught. He wanted to reach forward, but Elara's hand closed around his wrist, grounding him. Her eyes, steady now, lock on his. "We don't listen."
The illusions shattered.
The Gatekeeper inclined its head. "Perhaps you are stronger than most. But the Tower does not yield easily. You will pay for every step."
The door behind it groaned again, opening just wide enough for light to spill through. The Gatekeeper stepped aside. "Enter, Seekers. Enter, and claim the weight you were meant to bear."
Ethan hesitated, staring at the blinding light beyond. His shard pulsed in his palm. Beside him, Elara's mark flared as though urging her forward.
He swallowed, throat dry. "Do we trust this?"
Elara's voice was steady, though her eyes betrayed a flicker of fear. "We don't trust. We move."
Together, they stepped through the gates.
The instant they crossed, the light swallowed them whole. The world tilted, sound collapsing into silence. Ethan reached blindly, his finger brushing Elara's, then the floor vanished beneath his feet.
He fell.
The last thing he saw was her face, wide-eyed as the light tore them apart.
And then,. nothing.