Darkness overtook me, cold and suffocating, a void that crushed everything.
Claire's eyes seared my head, wide, terrified, her scream drowned by the tire's screech.
My chest palpitated, a sharp pain where the car should've hit, but the sensation warped, clawing through me like jagged steel, shredding who I was.
The screech of tires faded, replaced by a low chant, harsh, croaking, words that gouged my skull, foreign and relentless.
My hand, trembling, wet with blood that stuck to my palms. The stench hit thick, choking and my gut heaved, bile rising in my throat.
I barely managed to open one of my eyes, getting rid of the darkness momentarily, Claire's eyes were already closed. She was gone.
I'd let her die. The next moment darkness overtook me once again as I lost all the remaining sensation in my body.
I thought this was my end but in the next moment suddenly sight came back to me, unending and cruel, light bleeding through cracks like a wound.
I knelt in a cavern of black rock, walls inscribed with red runes pulsating, casting a faint, sickly glow.
Bodies sprawled around me, robes torn, faces locked in silent despair, dark and sticky blood pooling under them, some still twitching faintly, fingers clawing at nothing.
My hands clung to a staff, its wood cracked and splintered, tip flickering blue, a weak, stammering glow that dimmed with every breath.
My coat, long, heavy, not the jacket that I was wearing before, was soaked red, a gash across my chest leaking fast, blood dripping down my ribs, pooling at my knees in a warm, sticky mess.
Like countless needles being stabbed in my head at the same time, a bombardment of information entered my mind.
I tried to clutch my head in pain but my hand didn't move as if it wasn't mine to begin with and that's when the sudden revelation hit me.
I wasn't Ethan now, not the guy who had died with her, who'd choked on "I love you" as the car roared in, glass shattering around us. I was Alaric Thorne, bleeding out in my own lair.
"Traitor," a voice spat, cold and venomous, cutting through the haze.
A cultist loomed over me, hood hiding all but a sneer, his dagger coated with an immense amount of mana, created a sound that rhymed with my racing heartbeat.
Six more pressed in, shadows gathering in a formation, their figures imposing, foreign emotions entered my head; deep, relentless fury burned in my head, rattled my teeth, buzzed in my bones.
They'd ambushed me here, in my sanctum, destroying my research. I had burned countless years of my life for.
Layers of mana shields woven tight, now shattered like brittle glass, their edges glowing faintly on the floor. My legs trembled.
Vision dimmed at the edges, blood loss pulling me down yet my mind, not even under my own control, somehow stayed sharp, ice-cold, calculating, racing through equations.
Mana flows, rift vectors, Drigonia's resonance I'd solved them all when the council was still debating dusty theories, when these cultists were groveling to shadows in forgotten holes.
I coughed, blood staining my lips, splattering the stone in dark spots, and forced a grin, thin, bitter, defiant, teeth gritted against the pain.
"You're late," I said, voice steady despite the agony tearing through my chest with every word. "I finished it hours ago."
Seven on one, my strength draining fast, no way out, they thought they'd won, thought they'd pinned me here like a rat.
Fools. I am Alaric Thorne, nobody could beat me, not the council's stiff-necked puppets with their endless votes, not these cultist worms crawling from the dark with their borrowed blades.
I'd seen this coming months ago, traced their steps, turned their ambush into my play, a checkmate they'd never see. They were already dead, they just didn't know it yet.
The leader growled, stepping closer, dagger glinting in the rune-light, his boots crunching bone underfoot, snapping a rib from some fallen fool. "Your arrogance dies with you, Thorne. The dimension stays shut."
"Wrong," I said, and slammed my staff down. The stone cracked loud, a deep split creeping out under me, runes blazing white as power surged, raw, jagged, my last stand tearing through the air.
I'd figured it out: the leyline buried under this floor, pulsing faint beneath the rock, the exact method to rip space apart, my life as the price to lock it in forever.
My blood hit the rock, hissing, steaming, a sharp tang mixing with the iron stink, and the air tore open with a shriek that echoed in my skull.
Silver light burst above, bright, fierce, wild and unstoppable, flooding the chamber with a glare that burned my eyes. mana roared in sharp, biting, a gust that stung my face.
The cultists staggered, their voices breaking into screams, hoods slipping to show wide, panicked eyes, mouths gaping like fish.
"No, Stop him!" one yelled, lunging forward, blade slashing down through the dust, a desperate arc.
"Too late", I laughed cold, ragged, choking on blood, the sound rough and broken as the rift stretched, silver edges snapping into shape, a perfect circle of energy searing the air, its heat licking at my skin.
"You wanted power?" I rasped, voice slicing through their chaos like a blade, sharp despite the blood in my throat. "Choke on it."
The cavern shuddered, walls splitting with loud cracks, dust and stone raining down, assaulting my shoulders as the portal growing, permanent, unyielding, my final scar on this world, a wound they'd never close.
They charged, knives flashing, desperation twisting their faces, boots slipping in the blood, but the silver pulsed, dragging at them, at me, a pull I couldn't fight, wouldn't fight.
The leader's dagger struck, fast, deep, straight through my chest, metal grinding past bone. Pain exploded, hot, searing, a scream trapped in my lungs, then faded to a dull, empty ache, my body going slack.
My knees slammed the stone, staff clattering away, rolling into the blood with a hollow thud.
I smirked, eyes locked on the ever growing humongous portal, its silver glow washing out their screams, their clawing hands.
I'd won, and they'd pay, burn or drown in what I'd unleashed, a tide they couldn't stop.
Their shouts blurred, frantic trying to run away, but the silver swallowed me and them whole, and I let go, Claire's face flickering in the dark as I started to gain some sense of self, her hand slipping from mine, her scream fading with the crash.
My failure to protect her carved into my bones, deeper than the dagger, my thoughts growing dull as I started to lose consciousness.
I snapped awake, choking on a scream, air clawed down my throat like sandpaper, scraping it raw.
My hands, small, pale, not mine tore at silk sheets, soaked with sweat, twisted tight around me like a knot, sticking to my skin.
My chest throbbed, the dagger's afterimage slicing deep, a phantom wound pulsing under my ribs, but there was no blood, no torn coat, just a bed, too soft, too wrong, mocking me with its warmth and stillness.
Claire's cry "Ethan!" —had rung in my ears, her eyes wide with terror, her hand slipping from mine as the car roared over us, metal crumpling, glass exploding in a shower that cut her away from me.
She was dead, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, her absence a fist around my lungs, squeezing until I broke, until my chest caved in on itself.
"Claire!" I yelled, voice raw, cracking on her name, echoing off stone walls that swallowed it whole. The room stayed silent, dead, hollow, a tomb with no air, no sound, just the weight of nothing.
My head pounded, memories smashing together, the car revving, shaking the street, her scream cutting off as the headlights swallowed her, Alaric's blood soaking the stone, that silver light pulling me under.
She was gone, really gone, and I was here, alive, alone, when I should've died with her, should've been crushed beside her, not left in this empty shell.
I shoved the sheets off, legs buckling as I stumbled up, bare feet hitting the cold floor that bit into my soles, sharp and unforgiving.
The large room was surrounded by stone walls, not my chipped plaster with her doodles in the corner, tall windows with curtains swaying slowly, heavy with dust that choked the air, the ceiling adorned with a luxurious chandelier, flashy and useless.
This wasn't home, wasn't the cramped apartment with her laugh in the walls. This was a coffin, and I was buried in it without her, suffocating slowly.
I staggered uncontrollably to a mirror, breath ragged, gasps fogging the glass in uneven bursts, and looking dead.
Not my face, too young for it, pale as dead, dark jet black hair falling over sharp features, bright silver unnatural eyes staring back, empty and wrong, like a stranger's corpse wearing my grief.
Ethan Carter was dead, crushed with her, lost in that wreck, my body probably cold beside hers, and I was this thing, this shell I didn't know, didn't want.
"Claire," I whispered, voice cracking, hands slamming the glass so hard it cracked loud, splitting under my fists, shards slicing into my palms, blood welling up hot and fast.
I didn't feel it, didn't care. She'd been my everything for eight years, my anchor, the one I'd loved more than my own life, the one I'd die for if I'd just been faster, stronger.
I saw her last month, curled on my couch under that cozy blanket, laughing as I burned toast, her voice soft "You're hopeless, Ethan, but I'll keep you anyway", and I'd meant to propose, had the ring in my pocket, pictured her smirk as I fumbled it out, but I'd waited, choked on the words, and now she was gone, dead, cold, because I couldn't save her, couldn't hold on tight enough.
My chest heaved, sobs ripping out, loud and ugly, wet against the glass, and I sat down, glass crunching under my knees, cutting deeper with her laugh, her warmth, her hand in mine, gone forever, my fault, my weakness.
A sharp pain stabbed my skull, loud, scrapping, a cruel jolt that made my head ring, my vision blurred as words flared in the air, glowing blue, hovering like a taunt, like a curse:
[System Initialized]
Name: Ethaniel Arventis
Age: 16
Class: Awakened (Partial)
— Attributes —
Strength: F-
Agility: F-
Speed: F-
Intelligence: D+
Mana: G-
Mana Pathways: Underdeveloped
— Skills —
None Registered
— Titles —
Heir of the Broken Crown
[Other titles unavailable – Lacking Casuality]
— Memory Archive —
Recovered: 1 / 7
> [1] – Alaric Thorne [Partial Access]
>Memory sync: 10%
> Memory Lock: can be unlocked further by retracing the past.
> [2–7] – Locked
> Access Denied: Bound by Causality
— System Warning —
[Dimensional Instability Detected, Collapse Imminent]
>Collapse progress: 80%