I heard the female voice again, resonating inside my head. It was soft, but this time clearer… closer, as if it were just an inch from my ear.
The echo did not belong to the forest. It wasn't birds or wind. It was a murmur seeping directly into my thoughts, as if someone had pierced through the walls of my mind and slipped into the deepest part of me.
I closed my eyes for just an instant, and the world collapsed.
I found myself transported to a place completely dark. There was no ground or sky, no horizon or shadow. Only nothingness. A black void that stretched endlessly in all directions, crushing, eternal. I could see absolutely nothing, yet I felt everything: the cold creeping up my skin, the silence pressing against my chest, the loneliness weighing in my bones.
It was similar to the place where I first awoke, before leaving the capsule… but this was even emptier, colder, lonelier. The air—if there even was air—was dense, as if each breath stole pieces of my very essence.
Suddenly, a metallic sound broke the stillness. A dry creak, like the groan of a forgotten hinge. And then I saw it: a colossal door emerged from the darkness.
It was no ordinary door. It was titanic, so tall it vanished into the blackness, so wide it seemed impossible to go around. Covered in thousands of rusted chains that creaked as they moved, it loomed like a wall between worlds. The chains vibrated with an almost living rhythm, as though they breathed, as though they were eager to contain whatever lay behind.
At the center of that door, a female figure was bound.
She had long, dark hair that fell in tangled strands over her face. Her body was wrapped in the same chains, as if she herself were the lock sealing that threshold. The bindings encircled her arms, her legs… even her neck. Her pale skin bore marks and wounds that looked ancient, yet fresh at the same time.
Her gaze, lost and dim, reflected a pain so deep, a suffering older than time. There were no tears in her eyes; perhaps she no longer had the strength to cry.
I approached cautiously, each step echoing as if I were walking on the very heart of darkness. She murmured something, barely audible. Her voice was so weak it blended with the silence. I had to lean in, straining my ears, almost holding my breath to distinguish it.
When I was finally close enough, she lifted her head. Her eyes, dark and profound, locked onto mine. And with visible effort, she tilted her face toward mine, until I felt her cold breath brush against my ear.
—All his power is behind this door… you must stop him.
The phrase struck me like lightning.
I didn't understand what she meant. Whose power? Who was he? And why was she, chained in this impossible place, speaking to me?
—Who are you talking about!? —I shouted, shaken, desperate for answers, my voice reverberating against the nothingness.
But she did not respond. She kept silent, as if my words had been lost to the void, swallowed by the infinite black.
I couldn't hold her gaze after shouting. I felt I had desecrated something sacred, that my questions were too small for the weight of her chains.
I whispered an apology, my throat tight, but my eyes refused to meet hers. There was something in that woman, in her pain, that broke me inside. I tried… but something within me wouldn't let me.
So I turned away and walked into the darkness, not knowing where I was going or why. The nonexistent ground beneath my feet seemed to dissolve with every step, as if I were walking on liquid shadows.
I didn't know why, but something inside urged me to keep moving, as if leaving her behind were the only way to escape that cold, dark place. Every fiber of my being screamed for me to run, not to look back.
Then, her voice shattered the silence.
—Kurayami!
I froze.
No… it wasn't my real name. It was the name I had given myself. The same one that woman, in that blurred memory, had spoken to her son. The name that kept echoing in my mind… as if some part of me were trying to remember everything.
That voice, that memory, surged again… but this time faint, like a distant whisper stirring something deep within me. An ember suddenly rekindled.
I turned slowly, my heart pounding violently. She was still there, chained, but now her gaze was no longer dim. There was fire in her eyes. A weak fire, but real.
Before I could say anything, she spoke again, her tone firm and desperate:
—Listen… I know you don't understand, that you're lost, but you must remember this: don't let him take control.
Her words cut through me like blades.
—He…? —I tried to ask, but she continued, as if running out of time.
—And above all… —her voice trembled, torn, as if each word was a sacrifice— don't allow anyone to pierce your heart. Don't let it be harmed… because if that happens, everything I am doing… no, everything we are doing, will be for nothing.
I wanted to approach again, to break those chains, to free her fragile body. But my feet were rooted to the ground. My hands trembled. Something invisible restrained me, as if the darkness itself told me: not yet.
And after those words, her figure vanished, swallowed by the darkness like a reflection in water. The door itself collapsed with a muffled crash, the chains dissolved like smoke, and everything returned to nothingness.
When I opened my eyes, gasping, I was no longer in that dark place. I was back in the forest.
The smell of damp earth, the distant song of insects, the filtered light through the treetops: all of it returned at once, as if I had awakened from a dream too real.
The pain was gone. My wounds were completely healed. My skin bore no scars.
I rose slowly, still confused, trembling from head to toe. I looked at my hands, turned them over, touched them again and again. Impossible.
And at that moment, a sword fell before me, sinking slightly into the earth.
The impact resonated in the ground like a heartbeat. The blade was polished, gleaming, with an edge so perfect it seemed to drink in the light. The hilt, adorned with symbols I did not recognize, shone under the filtered light of the trees, as if nature itself sought to frame it.
It was beautiful. And at the same time… dangerous.
Then I heard a familiar voice shouting from afar, strong, clear, laden with authority:
—I'm lending it to you, for now! Don't break it!
It was the knight.
He appeared among the trees, his armor stained with mud and blood, yet his steps firm like those of someone who never doubted. The sun, or what little remained of it, reflected off his pauldrons, giving him a solemn air.
I looked at him, confused, my breathing still ragged.
The knight smirked faintly, with that blend of mockery and respect that seemed natural to him.
—Rise, Kurayami —he said, using that name I had until now only heard in my mind—. The battle isn't over yet.
And for the first time, I understood that this name… was no longer just a memory. It was a destiny.