Kael slept as though the world had already ended. His breaths came shallow, uneven, and the faint hum of magic around him seemed to pulse with anticipation, like it knew what was coming. Shadows gathered at the corners of his room, soft and restless, writhing like ink in water, waiting for him to drift far enough from the present.
The first pull was subtle. His eyelids fluttered, heavy as lead, and the silence of the room deepened into something else—something colder, older. A wind that smelled of iron and ash whispered along the walls. The ceiling above his bed melted into nothingness. The soft glow of his crystal lamp warped into a sickly orange hue.
And then he was somewhere else.
Somewhere that didn't exist.
The floor beneath him was black stone, slick with dew that shimmered like molten silver. The air tasted metallic, thick, heavy enough to press against his chest. Shapes moved at the edges of his vision, blurred, shifting—but when he tried to focus, they vanished. Every heartbeat screamed against the silence.
A mirror appeared before him. Not the familiar kind in his room, but one framed in twisted roots of shadow and silver, tall enough that the top disappeared into darkness. Kael approached it instinctively, the echoes of something long buried thrumming through his veins.
And in the mirror, a figure waited.
Not him—not the Kael of today—but someone else. The same face, yet sharper, fiercer, older in a way that time couldn't account for. Eyes that burned with knowledge of battles he had never lived, of promises broken and blood spilled. The reflection didn't just look at him; it judged, challenged, and remembered.
Kael reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the cold glass, a whisper scraped across his mind.
"Protect him… don't let him go… not again."
The voice was ragged, torn between anger and grief. It was him, and yet not him. Past-life Kael. Memory incarnate. And as the words sank in, the mirror shuddered. The reflection moved—slightly forward, slightly away, flickering like flame caught in wind.
Kael's heart slammed. "Wait—" he whispered, voice trembling, but the image recoiled.
And then the air around him twisted violently. Shadows rose from the floor, tendrils of darkness reaching hungrily toward him. The room—if it could still be called that—stretched and bent, walls curling into impossible angles, ceilings folding like paper. From somewhere in the distance, a sound: a low, guttural laughter, layered and impossible to place. The sound scraped against his mind, making him stagger.
The mirror cracked. A single line split down its center, yet the reflection remained whole, smiling faintly, mocking him. Kael pressed his palm harder against the glass. "Who are you? What do you want?"
The voice came again, now multiple, overlapping, urgent:
"Protect him…""He cannot fall… not again…""Do you remember?"
Kael staggered back. The shadows at his feet writhed as if alive, claws stretching toward his ankles, wrapping him in cold, electric fear. His own magic pulsed involuntarily—bright, violent, raw, refusing his control. Sparks danced along his arms, crackling against the warped floor.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. Another figure appeared—smaller, fleeting. A boy, pale, hair like silver threads catching an impossible light, lying prone on a ground that seemed to be made of smoke and stone. Kael recognized him instantly. Elior. Or at least… a memory of him, pulled from a time he had never truly known.
And he was dying.
The sight made something inside Kael snap. His magic exploded outward, a wave of force that threw him back, rattling the mirrors, sending shards of shadow twisting through the air like snakes. He crawled toward the boy, fingers reaching, desperate, claws of light scraping the black stone.
"No… you're mine…" Kael whispered, voice ragged with something raw and primal.
The reflection in the mirror cracked further. Now, multiple versions of himself shimmered, half-formed, screaming silently. Each face twisted with grief, rage, longing. Some eyes burned with fire; others with ice. Each whispered a fragment, a warning, a memory Kael could not yet understand.
A sudden flash—pain, light, sound—split the air. Kael stumbled backward, clutching his head as the voices rose into a cacophony:
"Protect him…""Do not fail…""He is yours… and you are his…"
The shadows leapt. They weren't just darkness—they were forms of past lives, of wars waged in silence and blood. Kael could see flashes: stone halls collapsing, swords dripping in unholy light, creatures with eyes too many and mouths too wide, screaming in languages that clawed at the soul. And Elior—always Elior—caught in the center, fragile, bright, bleeding into every frame.
Kael fell to his knees, trembling, unable to shut out the vision. His own voice rang in his ears:
"You will not take him. Not again."
The mirror shattered. Shards spun in the air, catching flashes of faces, screams, and memory. Kael lunged toward the largest fragment—inside it, a fleeting image of himself from centuries past, reaching, calling, desperate. He tried to touch it—tried to anchor himself—but the fragment dissolved, carried away by a wind that smelled of fire and frost.
"Stop… wait…" Kael gasped.
The shadows thickened, crawling up the walls, twisting into grotesque shapes. The air pressed against him like a vice. The whispers became screams, then laughter, then silence. And yet, through all of it, one thread remained—soft, faint, insistent:
"Watch the present. Protect him."
Kael looked around, eyes wide. The floor beneath him pulsed like a heartbeat. The mirror fragments floated, hovering impossibly. And then he saw it—a smaller, darker version of himself standing just behind his present body, unseen by the world outside the dream.
"Watch…" the whisper urged again.
The shadow of past Kael reached toward him. He could feel the pull, the ancient memory of rage, love, and obsession. He raised his hand instinctively, pointing, trying to tell his present self what to do, what to feel, what to fight for.
And the dream shuddered.
The walls dissolved. The floor cracked. Light and shadow collided in violent arcs. A shape loomed above, massive, silent, a presence that felt older than time itself. It was not a demon. Not human. Something else. Watching. Judging. Waiting for the first step of his awakening to falter.
Kael's hands shook. He pressed a palm to the black stone floor, trying to ground himself, but the pulse beneath him matched his heartbeat—wild, untamed, impossibly ancient. His vision blurred.
"Do not lose him…" The voice was everywhere. Inside. Outside. Within the cracks of his own consciousness.
The spectral Elior fell to the ground again, face pale, eyes wide with silent plea. Kael reached, screamed, grasped… but his fingers passed through. Reality, dream, past and present—they were all bleeding together now.
Kael felt the raw surge of power rise from within—his magic, his soul, the echo of centuries, all clawing toward one purpose: to claim, to protect, to remember.
The shadow of himself—past Kael—spoke one last time:
"Do not let the present fail…"
A bright flash. Pain, heat, wind. Kael opened his eyes violently.
He was in his room. Morning sunlight sliced through the curtains, washing the polished floor in gold. Sweat clung to his hair. His chest heaved, breaths sharp and shallow. Every nerve, every muscle, every scrap of magic inside him throbbed with something he had only begun to understand.
The mirror in the corner of his room reflected him—not the past, not the dream—but him. His eyes glowed faintly, just enough to betray the stirring within.
He could feel it. The first step of awakening had passed. And now the second had begun.
A faint, insistent hum vibrated beneath his skin. He pressed a palm to the glass, almost afraid to see what would answer him.
Nothing moved.
But he could feel the echo. The presence. The warning:
"Watch him… protect him… or the past will claim what is yours again."
Kael exhaled shakily. He dropped to the edge of the bed, fingers curling into fists. The magic didn't fade. It lingered, restless, impatient, alive.
The shadows in the corners of his room stretched, quivering, as though aware of the stirring within him.
The feeling didn't end here. It couldn't.
Because the past had begun its second step, and Kael… Kael was already lost within it.
A soft, almost inaudible whisper drifted through the air, barely brushing his ear:
"You've only just begun…"
And he knew—without question, without hesitation—that nothing would ever be the same again.
— by Aurea;"The soul remembers what the body forgets; and the heart awakens before time dares to call it."