He lived peacefully for thirteen days.
No whispers.No blood.No chains.
The river ran clean.Birds sang.
He laughed.
Once.
But on the fourteenth day—he dreamed.
Not of death.Not of fire.
Of her.
The girl.No name.Just eyes like broken glass.
She smiled in the dream.Touched his face.
And whispered:
"Wake up. It's not over."
He woke up screaming.
But not from pain.
From memory.
The kind that wasn't his.
The eye was still gone.
But something remained.
A pressure in his chest.A hum behind his thoughts.A silence too loud to ignore.
The village found him by the water.
He didn't remember his name.
Didn't remember his age.
Only that he shouldn't be alive.
They fed him.Clothed him.Asked nothing.
But they watched.
Every night, they watched.
Like they expected something to break loose from his mouth.
Or his mind.
On the seventh night—
the sky tore open.
No lightning.No thunder.
Just a line.
Thin.Clean.Precise.
The stars flickered once—and rearranged.
Back into the old pattern.
The Vault sigil.
He felt it return.
The weight.
But not inside him.
From the earth itself.
It was happening again.
Only this time—
he wasn't the one opening the doors.
In the morning, the elders summoned him.
Three old men.One blind.One burned.One already dead.
The dead one spoke.
No mouth.Just voice.
"You brought silence to the Vaults."
"But silence breeds echoes."
The blind one leaned forward.
"You do not remember what you were. But others do."
The burned one snarled.
"Something has started hunting Vault-kin again."
The boy stood in silence.
He didn't understand.
Didn't want to.
But his hands moved again.
Drawing in the dust.
A pattern.
The same one from his dream.
A girl.
No face.
Just eyes.
Shattered.
That night—
he fled.
He didn't say goodbye.
Didn't pack.
Just walked into the woods.
The pressure pulled him now.
Like a thread wrapped tight around his lungs.
He reached the edge of the forest by dawn.
A crater waited for him.
Perfectly circular.
Fresh.
No fire.No chakra.
Just a single mark burned into the center:
A door.
He knelt beside it.
Not to pray.Not to think.
To remember.
And the memories came like knives.
Vault One.Vault Two.Vault Three.
Every face.Every chain.Every lie.
And her.
Always her.
The mark pulsed.
A voice followed.
Not his.
Not hers.
Something older.
"New gods rise where old ones are buried."
"The Vaults were never prisons."
"They were wombs."
He stood.
Something changed in his shadow.
It moved on its own.
A shape stepped out.
Not a man.
Not a mirror.
Something in between.
Wrapped in bandages.Eyes stitched shut.
But the boy recognized it.
His own face.
Distorted.Angry.Unfinished.
The creature spoke.
Voice like rust and thunder.
"You closed the sixth Vault."
"You stopped the scream."
"But not the chorus."
The boy stepped back.
"Who are you?"
The thing bled through its teeth.
"I'm the part of you they couldn't seal."
"And I'm not alone anymore."
The wind stopped.
The trees bent.
And far, far away—
six more Vaults cracked open.
But these weren't the same.
These were different.
Older.
Unmapped.
And they weren't sleeping.
They were calling.
The boy clenched his fists.
No sword.
No eye.
Just memory.
And rage.
For her.For himself.For the world.
He turned east.
Toward the first forgotten god.
And whispered:
"Let them come."
"This time—I'm not chaining anyone."
To be continued…