Elias stepped forward, his heart pounding as the chamber around him trembled. The Guardian's form flickered, as if disturbed by his resolve. The Dreamscape was shifting, reacting to his decision.
The symbols on the walls pulsed faster, their patterns breaking apart, rearranging into something new—something unstable. The air itself felt heavier, thick with unseen forces pressing against his mind.
"You walk a path that cannot be undone," the Guardian warned, its voice layered with countless echoes. "The deeper you go, the more the Dreamscape will fight back. It does not wish to be unraveled."
Elias exhaled sharply. "Then let it try."
The chamber shattered.
Reality fractured into spirals of light and shadow, the ground beneath him dissolving into an abyss of memories. He tumbled through the void, his senses overwhelmed by the flood of fragmented visions—past selves calling out, endless variations of himself lost in the tides of possibility.
Then—silence.
Elias found himself standing in a vast, desolate landscape. The sky above was a swirling expanse of shifting colors, torn between twilight and dawn. The ground beneath him was neither stone nor earth, but something that pulsed with a quiet, rhythmic energy, as though the land itself was breathing.
And in the distance, he saw her.
Lyra.
She stood on the edge of a broken bridge, her figure barely illuminated by the shifting sky. Her back was to him, but he knew—knew in the depths of his soul—that it was her.
"Lyra!" His voice cut through the stillness.
She did not turn immediately. For a moment, he feared she had not heard him. But then, slowly, she glanced over her shoulder.
Her eyes were filled with something he could not name. Sorrow? Relief? A warning?
"You shouldn't be here, Elias," she whispered.
Elias took a step closer. "I had to find you."
Lyra shook her head. "This place… it's not what you think. The Dreamscape isn't just a prison. It's alive. It changes, it learns. And now that it knows you're here—"
A sound rumbled through the horizon. A deep, resonant tremor that sent ripples through the very air.
Something was coming.
Elias clenched his fists. "Then we leave. Together."
Lyra hesitated, her gaze flickering between him and the storm forming beyond the broken bridge. Then, with a deep breath, she reached out.
Their fingers barely touched before the world around them collapsed.