Astherin's POV
I woke up in the school clinic. The nurse was gone and the lights were too bright.
"what's with waking up without memories of how I got the place? Is it now a trend or something?" I asked trying to calm the throbbing pain in my skull.
Taryn was sitting beside me, he chuckled, he passed me a cup of water and started brushing something off his sleeve.
"You saw it, didn't you?" he asked softly. "The second collapse."
I swallowed the water, but my throat still felt raw and dry. My hands were shaking.
"That wasn't my memory."
"No," he agreed. "It was mine."
Images from the flash still burned behind my eyes. A throne room on fire, bodies in armor lying still under a red sky, a broken symbol I didn't recognize burned into someone's chest, people running and the grounds tearing apart.
"I don't understand," I whispered.
Taryn looked at me with something I couldn't quite read in his gaze. "You're not supposed to. Not yet."
Then he reached out. Not to touch me, just to show me his hand. And there, on his wrist, was the same glowing mark I'd seen on my chest in the mirror that morning.
He smiled sadly. "You summoned me. I'll explain the rest soon but first we need to get your memories back."
By the time school ended, I wasn't the same or rather I wasn't thinking the same. Alexis walked me home while babbling about how she told me I needed sleep and I thought she was mad. Actually, I suppose I'm the mad one.
I laid on my bed while replaying my day in school. I walked the halls like I'd been sleepwalking before. The faces I passed looked strange off, like they were wearing skin instead of having it. One boy's eyes flashed gold. Another girl's nails were too sharp to be real. No one else noticed or rather I don't think they cared. But I did, I saw it and now I couldn't unsee it.
I stood up, walked to the mirror and I checked my mark again. The skin on my chest pulsed faintly, as if it knew something I didn't. I took a warm bath, sat in tub and allowed my body to absorb the steam. I felt no I know I was hearing whispers but I chose to ignore it. I was already tired but I know this wasn't even the beginning.
I went back to sit on my bed after my bath, window open, staring at the same street I'd lived on my whole life. And yet… the stars above me? They weren't in the right positions. The sky was unfamiliar everything felt unreal.
This wasn't Earth or maybe it wasn't my Earth. Now I'm thinking absolute nonsense and I blame Taryn for that. But what was that vision, he never told me who he was.
Either way, one thing was clear. I remembered dying, but I had no idea what I had come back as.
I don't remember falling asleep.
One moment I was staring out my window, watching stars I didn't recognize blink across an alien sky. The next, I was falling.
But not the falling you feel in dreams, this was deeper. This was like being pulled backwards with force through time, through lifetimes.
It was dark, cold and haunting. Yet somehow… burning.
I stood in a field of ash. No sky, no sun. Just swirling grey dust and the bones of something ancient rising in the distance monoliths made of gold and obsidian, fractured, bleeding starlight. My bare feet crunched over shattered glass. I turned. And there he was.
A man made of smoke and ruin. Gold tattoos ran down his arms like chains, and his eyes were endless filled with void and fire. He didn't speak, but I felt him in my blood. He was in chains and had a smile that could make any mortal melt.
My heart screamed Solon, but my mouth couldn't form his name.
Behind him stood four shadows. Each wore a different crown. Each bled light from their eyes. One had wings. One had horns. One had a broken sword. One had a golden chain around his throat. All four chained to him.
I didn't know them, but my soul did. It ached with recognition.
The god Solon, or something wearing his face and he held out his hand.
And I heard a voice.
My own voice.
But from another life.
"If I die again, there won't be another cycle."
"This time, the multiverse ends with me."
The sky cracked above us like shattered glass.
And from it, a single word rained down like thunder:
"AWAKEN."
I jolted upright in bed, choking.
Sweat drenched my body and my sheets were twisted around me. The mark on my chest was glowing, hot to the touch, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
And even though the dream had ended, my body still whispered a truth I hadn't accepted yet:
This wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
And something was coming for me.
The next morning, the dream engraved its way into my memory. My mark hadn't stopped glowing. I wore a hoodie to cover it, but the skin beneath it was hot like there was a sunburn pulsing underneath my chest. I tried cold water, an ice pack. Nothing worked.
Alexis greeted me at the gate like nothing had happened, like I hadn't told her yesterday that time was unraveling and our lives were on a cosmic loop. She was talking about Taryn, of course. Again. At this point I rather they get married or something along the lines of that.
"I'm telling you, he's not normal," she said, bouncing on her heels like the caffeine had finally cracked her.
"He's literally from another species of hot. Like vampire royal family meets K-pop villain arc. No wait K-pop demon hunters!!!! Exactly" she ranted on.
If only she knew how right she was. But I still didn't know what or who he was. I'll ask him today, that's if I see him.
I stayed quiet, watching the other students file past. I couldn't unsee them now. The glamour was gone. The boy with the red hoodie didn't blink at all. The girl who used to sit behind me in lit class? Her reflection didn't match her body. Everyone was wearing skins that didn't fit. And I was stuck pretending I couldn't see the zippers.
The walk to homeroom felt like a funeral march. The energy was draining but physically everyone was their normal chattering self.
Taryn wasn't there when I stepped inside. That should've been comforting but it wasn't. Because someone else was.