----Chapter 5----
Darkness pressed in on all sides, heavy and suffocating, like swamp water turned to tar.
I tried to move, but my body did not answer.
It was not mine anymore.
Zeberu's laughter surged inside my skull, triumphant and sharp.
Finally… my body, mine at last His voice slithered through every fiber of my being, a poison-laced thrill of victory.
This is it, boy. You are nothing. Every breath, every swing of your blade, all of it mine now
I tried to shrink away, tried to hide, but I could not move.
He roared inside me, a dark, boiling triumph, tasting the victory he had long sought.
And then… it shifted.
A faint twinge began at the base of my skull. A headache, sharp and sudden, slicing through the euphoria Zeberu had built.
His voice faltered for a heartbeat.
Damn you, boy! He hissed, more venom than triumph now.
Even inside me… you are resisting me!
I clenched my teeth.
I did not yet move, I did not yet speak, but the presence of that tiny, defiant spark inside me made the darkness around him ripple.
Zeberu recoiled, confused, frustrated, furious.
I am not done… not yet…
His voice faded slightly as the headache pulsed again.
••••
Then I saw her.
A figure in a white hood emerged from the shadows, blindfolded, a single black eye painted across the cloth where her eyes should be.
She did not walk so much as arrive, one step after another, silent and deliberate.
And yet I felt her stare pierce straight through me.
"Hey, kid", her voice was soft, like a whisper carried on a dead wind.
I wanted to answer. I wanted to stand. But I could not.
My body trembled where I sat in the corner of the darkness, too weak to even lift my head.
I am done. Totally done.
I just do not want to suffer anymore The thought spilled out of me, raw and broken Why do I have to go through this over and over again
This betrayal. This cycle.
Why have I not learned from the first time I faced it
The hooded figure stopped only a few steps away. The painted eye on her blindfold seemed to shift, opening and closing as though alive.
Zeberu hissed from the dark inside my skull, but for the first time it sounded wary.
"Do you know" she said, her tone sharpening
"Those things you believed in were a lie from the very beginning"
Her words struck me like cold steel
"Right"
Her voice rose, echoing through the darkness
"It was a big, fat lie"
I looked up at her, listening intently. Her voice, her tone, every word she spoke felt like a hook pulling me closer, dragging me out of the corner
"Yes" she whispered now, lower, softer
"You are a seeker of truth. That is what you are"
Her blindfold shifted. The painted eye blinked again
"And the one thing you must do" she said "is reclaim what is yours"
My mouth opened. I wanted to answer. I wanted to ask her what she meant, but no voice came from my throat.
Only a strangled breath
The hooded figure tilted her head, almost pitying
"Oh, pardon me. You cannot speak, can you"
Her blindfold shifted, the painted eye glinting faintly
"That means that thing lurking in you has locked you up in here. Even your voice, he has claimed as his own"
She stopped a step away from me
"Such cruelty" she murmured, and for a heartbeat her words felt warm against the cold void.
She crouched, her glow spilling across the black like candlelight over oil
"You are struggling to speak"
Her fingers hovered just above my forehead, not touching
"Yes, hmm, you are asking me how, are you not"
A faint smile curved her lips
"Well, it was easy. But I wanted you to figure out everything on your own"
Zeberu hissed from somewhere deep, but the sound warped, like static
"But still"
She continued softly
"I will give you a hint. On how you can get your own body back"
Her voice deepened, becoming something older, heavier
"I will only explain it once. No more, no less. Because it is taboo for Heavenly beings such as me to interfere in mortal circumstances"
She leaned closer.
"However, I sense something different coming from you. Maybe you can do it. The one thing no mortal has ever done"
My heartbeat roared in my ears. Her glow pressed closer. Even Zeberu went silent
"Now, listen, kid"
She raised her hand. The painted eye on her blindfold opened wide, black and endless
"Seek the truth" she intoned "and unravel the lies that eyes can see but words cannot say"
Then she vanished. Her glow flickered once, twice, then snuffed out completely, and the pitch black swallowed me whole
••••
I was alone again. Darkness heavier than ever. Zeberu's presence coiled inside me, waiting, but for the first time I felt a small, sharp crack in the cage he had built
I forced myself to think. To remember
What is wrong with all of this?
Why do these pieces not fit together?
The coins, the dagger, Nicaea, the swamp, the adventurers. What is real and what is his lie
••••
The void around me shifted. Pictures appeared, floating in front of me, each one a memory.
They were vivid, moving slightly, almost alive. I reached toward one. The first was waking in the forest, the coins already in my pocket.
Zeberu's laughter, Kaleen and Deran's greedy faces, Nicaea's blank aura.
The second picture was the swamp.
Goblins lunging, venom hissing, my body moving almost on autopilot. The dagger left behind when the Aetherwyrm vanished.
Something felt… off. I noticed how that same dagger had been the weapon used to stab me in the real world, the reason I had ended up in this strange place in the first place.
The third picture was Kenji, guiding me home, and small moments with Nicaea.
Yet the colors felt muted, faintly wrong. Each memory carried inconsistencies.
Something was hidden, something I had missed.
I scanned the gallery. One picture was blank. Completely empty.
I reached toward it, hesitant. My fingers touched it and slowly the image began to form, hazy at first, then sharper.
My heart pounded.
I can feel it now.
Something is different here.
The blackness around me began to ripple. Faint light seeped in, illuminating the void. My thoughts sharpened.
The cage Zeberu had built in my mind felt thinner, fragile at its edges.
I understand something… I can see a path, but the proof is still ahead.
I did not move, but I felt the first spark of resistance. Something inside me had shifted.
Then I felt it... the false world trembling.
The forest blurred, leaves melting into thin streams of smoke.
The swamp's stagnant water hissed and vanished like steam.
Nicaea flickered, her form dissolving into mist before my eyes.
Everything Zeberu had made to control me was collapsing.
His lies burned away silently, leaving only shadows where they had been.
Something was changing. Something was real, and I could feel it stirring beneath the ruins of his illusions.
And then, as if the world itself breathed, I woke.
I lay on the Aethergrass, the faint chill of dew under my fingers.
The sky stretched above me, quiet and endless. I did not yet notice the coins or the dagger.
Their meaning, their confirmation, was still to come.
But a sense of certainty hummed through me, small and electric, waiting.