It wasn't a fall…
It was a drowning — into nothingness.
The black light that had swallowed him in the sky didn't fade; it spread through him, until he could no longer tell where his body ended and the void began.
The wind was gone.
Even his heartbeat had vanished.
Then he heard it — a strange pulse, not coming from within, but from everywhere at once.
As if the void itself was breathing.
He opened his eyes to find himself standing on a glasslike surface floating over a sea of black mist.
No horizon, no sky — only strands of gray light hanging from above like the broken strings of some forgotten instrument.
He tried to move, but each step sent ripples across the surface beneath him, as though he were walking on frozen water.
A whisper came from behind him:
> "How many times have you thought you'd awakened?"
He turned.
Someone stood only a few steps away.
Identical face. Same hair. The same exhaustion carved beneath the eyes.
Only one thing differed — the eyes themselves.
They were completely black. Lifeless. Hollow.
Novan: "Who… are you?"
Shadow: "Wrong question, Novan. I am who you truly are."
Novan took a step forward, and the air thickened around him.
Dark tendrils began to seep from the shadow's body, curling slowly like living smoke.
Novan: "I don't understand… Is this a dream?"
Shadow (faint smile): "You call it a dream because you can't bear it being real."
Novan: "Reality? But the village—"
Shadow: "An illusion. Just like you."
Novan froze.
Each word struck his mind like the echo of an old wound.
Shadow: "The world you saw was only an echo — a shell your mind built to protect itself. But the spell is fading, and your pulse has begun to return."
Novan pressed a trembling hand to his chest.
He felt heat beneath his skin — something trying to break free.
Novan: "I… I'm not like you."
Shadow (calmly): "You are me… You've only forgotten."
He stepped closer until their faces were inches apart.
And then the world began to move — the ground cracked, the mist boiled, and the gray sky melted like ink in water.
Shadow (softly):
> "Do you hear it? The sky is still calling you."
Novan (whispers): "Why? Who am I?"
The shadow's smile shifted — sad now, almost human.
> "You are the last to remember… the pain that began it all."
Then countless black tendrils erupted from the shadow's body, wrapping around Novan and dragging him upward.
The air turned to fire, and black light ignited within his eyes.
Novan (screaming): "Let me go!!"
Shadow: "You don't want to be freed… you want to remember."
The light exploded.
Flashes — a woman's hand grasping his, a face drowning in darkness, a village burning under a broken sky.
Everything fading except for one echo, whispering through his mind:
> "When mirrors shatter, you don't see the truth… only what you feared to see."
The shadow vanished.
Novan collapsed to his knees, gasping.
The void around him crumbled — the ground splintered, turning back to dust.
Before the final darkness swallowed him, he caught his reflection in the shattered glass below.
One eye brown. The other — pitch black.
> "The fusion has begun…"
And he fell once more, this time toward a distant white light.
He didn't feel the impact — only a strange warmth, like the silence before rain.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
He was lying in a field of ash.
The sky above him was neither black nor white — but both, as if it hadn't yet chosen a side.
The air was still… yet it pulsed like a living heart.
Weary, he ran his fingers through the gray soil.
When he looked up, he saw the ruins of a familiar village.
The same windows. The same well. The same fog-laced road.
But everything was tilted — as though the place had remembered its shape too late.
The wind's whisper wasn't natural this time.
It carried a rhythm, repeating softly — an inhuman cadence:
> "Welcome to reality, Novan."
His body stiffened.
He slowly lifted his head toward the horizon.
And there — amid the ashes and mist — stood someone.
They didn't move.
But their voice crossed the distance, clear as if it were spoken beside his ear:
> "You have crossed the gate… survivor of eternity."
Then the world trembled,
as if creation itself was taking its first breath again.
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