### **1**
The darkness in Nimora's sky tonight was not ordinary. It wasn't merely the absence of light—it was as if the sky itself had retreated, leaving behind a breathing void. **Zera** stood beside **Adam** atop a jagged plateau, overlooking the valley where Nimora's shadowed heart pulsed.
Her whisper cut through the silence:
*"Do you feel it? This air… it doesn't belong to any living world."*
Adam didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the moon's reflection in a shard of **black glass**—the one he'd found in his grandmother's room after realizing everything he'd known was a fragment of a greater truth. The shard trembled as he neared it, as if it recognized him.
Zera stepped closer. She wasn't wearing her armor today, just a long gray coat that draped her slender frame. Her storm-sea eyes flickered, her lips quivering—from the wind, or something else? Adam couldn't tell.
*"This… is part of the Original Mirror,"* she said, tracing the shard's edge. *"The one that hid the truth from the world. If you gather all the pieces, you could see… everything."*
*"Even your past?"* he asked.
Her smile was bittersweet.
*"Especially my past."*
---
### **2**
The next evening, campfire flames danced between them as Adam and Zera hunched over an ancient map inked in the blood of Nimora's first creatures. At its center lay the **Gate of Oblivion**—a place no one had dared approach for centuries.
Zera's finger hovered over the parchment.
*"Your grandmother… knew this path. She walked it alone. But she never told anyone what she sought there."*
Adam's voice was rough.
*"Maybe she was trying to seal the rift between Nimora and Earth. Or… to open something worse."*
Zera shook her head. *"She was protecting the truth. But I think she hid something from *you*, Adam."*
His heart stalled. *"What do you mean?"*
Her voice dropped to a whisper, like a secret unearthed:
*"An old legend says the last bearer of the Heart of Light isn't from Earth… but from *the Mirror*."*
---
### **3**
Adam didn't sleep that night. He watched Zera instead—the way her chest rose and fell, her lips slightly parted, her hair splayed across their makeshift pillow. For the first time, her presence comforted him more than even Laboubo's.
But he knew… this peace was fleeting.
At dawn, the mirror's whispers woke him. A fractured voice, like his grandmother's but distorted, called from a black lake where a half-sunken mirror stood. It reflected only his shadow—never his face.
*"Adam…"*
The voice came from *inside* him.
*"What did you hide from me?!"* he screamed. No answer came—only flashes:
- His grandmother weeping before a nameless grave.
- Her hands handing a baby to a shapeless creature at Nimora's gate.
- A ring… *his* ring, glowing on the hand of a man who wasn't him.
---
### **4**
The next day, as they trekked through the **Forest of Black Thorns**, the trees began to whisper. Forgotten tongues curled around Adam's name—as if they'd known him for centuries.
Zera eyed the shifting branches. *"We're close to the truth. That's why Nimora fights back."*
Adam's laugh was hollow. *"What if the truth itself is the enemy?"*
Zera stopped. Then, in a sudden motion, she cupped his face, her eyes searching his.
*"If the truth hurts you, I'll fight it with you. No matter who you are… I'm with you."*
For a suspended moment, her lips brushed his—a fleeting kiss that silenced the storms outside.
---
### **5**
That night, Adam wrote in his grandmother's notebook, now a ledger of his own doubts:
> *"I don't know what I am. Maybe not her grandson. Maybe not even human. But I know this: I'll uncover the truth—even if this world burns for it."*
---
### **6**
As they crossed the **Gate of Oblivion**, the sky exploded into dark blues and blacks. A storm swirled above them—and for the first time, a new shadow emerged.
Not one of Nimora's beasts.
A figure with Adam's face.
But with eyes of glass.
---
### **Closing Quote:**
> *"Truth can only be lived when you're ready to lose everything for it."*
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