"Status!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, but nothing happened. Nothing came out of the ordinary.
The skulls scattered across the floor and the stained walls around me were too much to bear, yet I had no choice but to keep moving. I crept slowly toward the hallway, where a dark door waited. Serpents wound across its surface, their coils twisting as if alive. I was too afraid to touch it. Instead, I picked up a skull from the ground and threw it at the door. The bone struck hard, broke apart, and fell in pieces. Nothing changed.
I stood still, forcing myself to breathe, to calm down, to find some courage. At last I stepped closer. My hand rose, shaking as it reached for the door. The fear that one of the snakes might lunge at me made my stomach curl, but I knew there was no other way. If I turned back, I would wander the darkness for hours, maybe forever, and there might not even be another way out.
So I touched the door.
The darkwood door opened before me. The chamber beyond was empty, drowned in a suffocating silence. A heavy miasma of death clung to the air, twisting and swirling toward the center, where a mirror stood waiting. A voice I could not place screamed within me, urging me to turn back, but my body moved on its own. Each step drew me closer, as if the darkness itself was pulling me forward.
The mirror showed a man. His face was pale, almost bloodless, his black hair streaked with an unnatural green tint. A faint purple hue spread across his skin, the color of bruises, as though invisible fingers were wrapped tightly around his throat. His eyes opened and closed with my every blink, long and shadowed, but they did not feel like mine.
It was me, yet not me.
My chest tightened as I stared. The reflection leaned closer, though I had not moved. Its lips parted in silence, but the glass vibrated faintly, as though something was trying to speak from the other side. The air grew colder, the miasma thickening until it felt alive. I could not tell if I was suffocating, or if the mirror was breathing for me.
"YOU HAVE AWAKENED!"
The voice thundered across the chamber, rattling through the walls, the floor, even the air itself. The miasma did not stir, yet the walls seemed to ripple, shifting faintly as though they were listening to the sound.
I stood frozen as the room began to unravel. The dark corners peeled away, and the suffocating blackness was replaced by a stark, blinding white. It spread across the surfaces like fire racing through dry grass, erasing the shadows until nothing familiar remained.
The brightness grew unbearable. My eyes burned, and I was forced to shut them, covering my face with my hands. It was too much to take in, too much for the naked eye to endure. My body shook as the silence returned, broken only by the echo of that terrible voice that seemed to linger in the back of my mind.
"Damien! Damien von Todesmal! Wake up!"
My eyes opened slowly. Shapes loomed over me, blurred in the haze of my vision. People stood in a circle, their presence heavy, their faces framed by dark hair that seemed to drink in the light around them. An ominous weight lingered in the air, clinging to them like shadows that would not let go.
I strained to focus, but my strength was failing me. Their features slipped in and out of clarity, strange and indistinct. My chest felt hollow, my body weak, as if something had been drained from me.
Before I could understand who they were, the world tilted, the figures swayed, and darkness pulled me down once more.
The second time my eyes opened, the air was thick with voices. They spoke in a foreign tongue, yet somehow I understood every word.
"Another failure from Todesmal. What a surprise."
"The family is doomed anyway. Better they remove themselves from society."
The words cut deep.
Something inside me stirred, as if those voices had unlocked a door in my mind.
A sharp pain spread through my skull, and I cried out as memories I did not know I carried forced their way into me.
"Todesmal."
A family of necromancers who once stood supreme among the Great Four.
"Necromancer?" I gasped.
The flashes of memory continued....
I saw their valor and fame, their high standing in society, their unmatched power, and a bloodline both revered and feared in equal measure...
Suddenly, the scene changed, and time sped by in a blur.
Generations came and went, each heir more fragile than the one before, all failing to live up to the legacy etched in bone and shadow.
The memory spoke again, revealing a secret silently passed among the four families, a secret that felt etched into my very being.
It wasn't meant for me, yet I heard it because Damien needed to, and for now, I have become Damien.
Becoming someone else felt strange, but my state of mind was far better than most would have been in the same situation. I had read novels regarding transmigration, therefore could easily grasp this unnatural phenomenon.
A whisper from an old lady, brittle as a dried stalk, reached my ear.
I never saw her, yet somehow, knew who she was. The First Seer.
The First Seer once foretold a dire fate to then family head of the four.
She proclaimed that in fifteen years, the world would face its end.
Her premonition dream told her that the earth's foundations would shatter, shadows would seep across the sky, and all life would fall silent.
She warned that only the Keys of the Four, held by rulers, could prevent catastrophe.
Yet, she predicted that three would abandon their duty, leaving the last to decide between salvation and ruin.
I was utterly confused, feeling the weight of a looming cycle of destruction. Holding my head, pain surged with each new revelation.
Suddenly the scene shifted.
I saw a stone, a tablet etched with foreign symbols, yet I understood it deep within my bones, what was content of it....
This was a prophecy inscribed on the stones of the ancient Necropolis, safeguarded by the Pact of the Great Four.
Once again, the scene shifted.
This time, I saw floating keys, each obscure yet revealing a silhouette. Among them, one stood out, a dark key with green veins running through it. Unlike the others, this key I could see clearly, its pattern etched with intricate detail...
I was just about to grasp the pattern.
When, my memory became hazy once more.
What was the pattern again?..
I questioned myself.
I know I've seen it before, but I find it difficult to recall...
Before I had any time to ponder on the question.
Damien's memory flooded my vision once more.
I saw a tower and a council of four, seated high above me.
A key dangled in front of them.
My lips trembled as I spoke, "The Four Supreme Families?"
Without waiting for.
Each figure raised a hand, and in their palms gleamed ancient Keys, shaped from the remnants of a divine seal. Dark's Key burned darkest, its light swallowing color and darkening the surroundings alike.
The others held theirs in silence, fear flickering behind their unmoving gazes.
A pact hung between them, subtle and toxic, like a promise whispered in Eden.
It looked peaceful, calm, and blissful; there was an eternal serenity here. Kindness and love etched themselves into me as I was utterly bewitched by the sight.
But then....
With a snap, the Divine realm was corrupted.
With the passing time it worsens and just like that....
Fifteen years slipped by like withered petals, wasted in rot and silence.
The world below fell ill.
The skies darkened to the hue of tarnished one.
Revoked again and again. the life quivered in the face of corruption.
The air grew thick with the stench of decay, rot spreading over every surface it could cling to.
Insectile priests wandered across the cursed land, chanting and conducting their rituals amidst the corruption. Their carapaces bore tiny vents, releasing poisonous rot wherever they went.
With the scene shifting once again.
I saw the seals that had bound the abyss, and it began to shudder.
The dent on its surface is becoming more prominent before my eyes.
With enough dent a gaping hole appeared, and tentacles from some abomination trying to invade our world shot forward out of the dark void that the seal could not close.
For a moment, I thought it would grab me and drag me into its abyssal home.
I turned my gaze downward, avoiding the scene.
For it, watching this abyssal monster, even if it was just a memory, brought me pain as I slowly lost my sanity.
Downward...
The earth below shifted as the dead began to rise.
And when the final year dawned, only one figure stood where the others had fallen, their 'Key' pulsing with a dim, resentful glow.
A whisper slithered through the air, soft, inevitable.
"The ???? will decide… not mercy, but retribution."
Then everything collapsed into darkness.
My consciousness slipped back into my body.
I was in the infirmary.
Everyone had already left, and I was alone now.
But the thought still lingered.
It had been five years since the seer announced it, and now, with only ten years remaining, I felt both fear and joy. At last, I could embrace the roles I had always dreamed of, breaking free from the mundane life on Earth. It was a blessing, a wish granted by the universe, and I was ready to face the challenge.