They say when gods dream, stars are born.
I think the Rift was dreaming me.
Because when I stepped through it, I didn't fall.
I didn't rise.
I simply… was.
Suspended between pulses of thought.
Floating in the gap between existence and recollection.
And then—
I heard her voice.
"You're not supposed to be awake yet."
She didn't sound surprised.
She sounded annoyed.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice echoing through nothing.
"I'm the one they tried hardest to erase."
She laughed then. Soft and sharp, like broken glass humming in tune.
And with that laugh—walls cracked.
I didn't mean to tear them.
But something about her name—whatever it had been—unlocked something deeper than my bones.
The Rift behind me pulsed, and suddenly…
I was inside the facility again.
Same halls.
Same lightless corridors.
Same oppressive, sterile air.
But now they bent wrong—the angles curved inward like reality was folding around me. Doors curled open like paper peeling back. Walls shimmered and peeled away, revealing… stars.
Not skies.
Actual stars, hovering just behind the plaster and steel, like the facility had been wallpapered over the cosmos.
And through it all, I heard her again.
"They hid me. Behind numbers. Behind algorithms and silence. I was their first mistake."
I ran.
I didn't know where.
But my body knew. My blood pulled me left, then right, through passageways that had never existed before, or had been hidden by some digital amnesia.
Sirens started behind me—though I hadn't triggered anything.
I passed shattered containment pods, all empty. Names scrawled in half-erased marker:
Subject-03: Eirin [REDACTED]
Subject-07: Kael | Status: Unstable
Subject-09: Lyra [TRANSFERRED TO LIMINAL-ARC]
My breath caught at the last one.
Lyra.
That name cracked something behind my eyes.
"She was mine," I whispered. "Wasn't she?"
"She still is," said the voice. "She just doesn't remember."
Footsteps pounded behind me.
Not mine.
Not Lucien's.
Others.
Security, probably. Or worse—augmented.
I stopped at a corridor junction and turned to face a mirror at the far end of the hallway.
No.
Not a mirror.
A viewport.
It wasn't reflecting me.
It was showing me her.
A girl in white, slumped in a floating capsule, eyes closed, hair drifting like smoke through liquid starlight. Tubes buried in her spine, her wrists, her temples.
Her lips moved—
And though I couldn't hear her, I saw the word.
"Run."
That's when the door beside me exploded.
A blast of light. Metal shards. Screaming.
Three figures stormed through—black armor, visors humming, weapons drawn.
I didn't think.
I reacted.
My hand moved in a shape I'd never been taught.
And the wall opened.
Not collapsed.
Not shattered.
Opened.
Like a page being turned.
Beyond it—only stars.
Not the night sky. Not the cosmos.
A corridor of starlight.
Flowing.
Living.
Calling me.
"You have to go," the voice said again, sharper now. Urgent. "Before Lucien finds you again."
"Who are you?" I demanded. "What are you to me?"
"I was your promise."
"Your path."
"Your first sin."
I stepped into the corridor.
Behind me, the soldiers shouted.
Their bullets passed through me—literally.
The starlight devoured them midair, dissolved their shape, and scattered them as particles along the path.
The tunnel wasn't space.
It was intention.
Somewhere between desire and direction.
I ran.
No footsteps. No weight. Just acceleration. Like every step pulled me deeper into something older than time.
The walls pulsed.
Symbols rose around me—some written in tongues I didn't know, some made of sound and color, some that hurt to look at.
One phrase burned brighter than the rest.
PATH: UNWRITTEN
I stopped.
Beneath my feet, the starlight slowed—thickened into a floor of living crystal.
Ahead, the tunnel split—three paths.
And waiting at the center…
Her.
The girl from the capsule.
But older.
Eyes glowing.
Hair wreathed in light.
"You asked who I am?" she said, stepping toward me, barefoot across stars.
"Yes."
"I am your tether," she whispered. "I was your balance. You broke the world to save me."
"And now?"
"Now you'll break it again."
The corridor behind me imploded.
Lucien stepped through, cloak shredded, eyes wide, bleeding.
But not with awe.
With panic.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" he screamed, raising his weapon.
Too late.
She touched my chest.
Not hard.
Just enough.
And with her touch—
My chains broke.
Not the metal ones.
The unseen.
The ones that bound my mind to silence. That erased my name across timelines.
They shattered like glass.
And for the first time in this life, I said it out loud.
"I am Aetherion Vale."
The stars bent inward.
The corridor collapsed.
And I ascended.
Lucien's scream was the last thing I heard before the world shattered.
And in the silence that followed—
The Rift whispered:
"Now… begin."