The air thickened, pressing down on Kaelen's chest like unseen hands tightening around his ribs. Every breath felt heavy, as though the Rift itself resisted his existence. The unnatural sky above continued to shift, violet hues twisting and colliding like celestial storms trapped in a void of endless night.
The whispering wind was no longer just wind. It was voices. Faint. Distant. But growing closer. "Kaelen..."
His entire body stiffened. The voice was familiar—too familiar. It was his mother's. A cold dread clawed its way up his spine, and he turned, scanning the jagged terrain for a sign of life—of anything. But there was nothing. Only shifting shadows and the eerie glow of the Rift's endless abyss.
It's a trick. He had to believe that. The Rift was toying with them. Testing them.
Rina grabbed his arm, snapping him back to the present. Her grip was tight, her knuckles white. "We have to move. Now."
Kaelen shook off the lingering chill of the voice and nodded. "Agreed."
The entity—the one who had dragged them here—watched in silence, its ember-like eyes flickering with unreadable amusement.
Rina shot it a glare. "Are you actually going to help, or is standing there being cryptic just your thing?"
The entity's expression didn't change, but the air around it seemed to ripple—as if the Rift itself responded to its presence. "To help would be to interfere," it said smoothly. "And the Rift does not abide interference."
Kaelen exhaled sharply, frustration mounting. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
The entity gestured toward the distance—toward a looming monolithic structure jutting from the cracked earth like a broken fang. It pulsed with a dim, silver light, veins of shifting energy coursing along its jagged surface.
"You seek answers," the entity murmured. "Then follow the echoes to their source."
Rina crossed her arms. "And what's waiting for us there? A bigger, nastier version of whatever's crawling around this place?"
The entity smiled—a slow, knowing curve of the lips. "Perhaps."
Kaelen was already moving.
The ground beneath them was unstable, shifting with each step as though resisting their presence. The Rift was alive. Not in the way the forests of Vael'Zyrenn were, but in a way that suggested an ancient sentience—one that had no love for the things trespassing upon its domain. The closer they got to the monolith, the louder the voices became. Echoes. Faint glimpses of a past long forgotten—or a future yet to come. Kaelen's heartbeat quickened as he heard them more clearly.
A battle. A war.
Blades clashing.
Screams.
And beneath it all, a single name.
His name.
Kaelen stopped dead in his tracks, his pulse hammering.
That wasn't possible. These were memories of something ancient. Something lost to time. And yet… the Rift knew him.
Rina noticed his hesitation. "Kaelen?"
He swallowed hard, his voice rough. "Keep moving."
The monolith loomed over them now, its energy pulsating in steady intervals, like a heartbeat.
Kaelen reached out. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, the Rift shattered. Reality collapsed inward. And suddenly, he was falling.