Aboard Captain Hirota's vessel, silence clings to the walls — thick and heavy, like the gravity of a dream.
In the medbay, dim lights flicker. The stabilizers hum low and steady, like distant hearts beating in another world.
Three figures — Ivor, Camilla, and Nicholas — sit in quiet meditation,
drawn inward,
as if caught in the orbit of their own minds,
drifting free from the world outside.
Reality fades.
Unravels.
Vanishes.
Only one thing remains:
Silence.
Absolute.
Alive.
They leave behind their bodies, time itself — even thought.
Their awareness descends, deeper and deeper,
into a realm without dimension.
Where it begins:
The Desert of Forgetting.
—
Before them stretches an ocean of burning sand,
scorched by the breath of an ancient star.
The dunes shimmer under the weight of the heat.
The air pulses —
a living fabric, stitched with hallucination.
At the center of this wavering mirage —
a boy floats cross-legged in the lotus pose.
He does not move.
He does not breathe.
And yet, it feels as if this entire world is suspended from him alone.
Around him gathers a crowd —
humans and androids alike,
travelers from the Earthbound realm.
Ritual robes, battle armor, homespun shirts —
so many faces, yet one shared expression: unease.
And somewhere among them,
sparks of faith —
flickering still, not yet gone out.
—
"What are we supposed to do now\...?" Nicholas murmurs hoarsely, glancing around.
His voice dissolves into the thick, syrupy air,
like a thought too fragile to be born.
Ivor's eyes stay fixed on the boy.
Mirages and ash reflect in his gaze.
"We must rebuild the Altar of Rebirth," he says.
His voice is steady.
But within that steadiness lies a vow.
"Otherwise… all of it was for nothing."
—
A shadow falls across the sand.
Alive. Heavy.
Like a fracture in the fabric of reality.
From it steps a being —
short, broad, alien.
Each step sends ripples through the desert,
as if the earth recognizes the weight of his destiny.
The crowd holds its breath.
A wind rises, carrying with it the taste of a distant storm.
"My name is Tonzil," the newcomer says.
His voice is coarse, weather-worn, like a language carved in stone.
"I come from another world.
We heard the call… of the god Kyros."
The boy slowly turns his head.
His eyes hold a timeless wisdom —
something far older than childhood.
"Kyros knows nothing of this place," he replies.
"But you… I remember you.
Why have you come?"
Tonzil lowers his gaze.
His lips press together, as if holding back the wind of ruined worlds.
"The Desert of Forgetting…" he breathes.
"You think the path belongs to you alone?
I am the only one of my kind who uncovered its secret.
And now… you will understand why I will never bring anyone here again."
He lifts a hand.
And then —
A wave.
Not of sound.
Not of light.
But of memory.
Foreign.
Blistering.
Ivor, Camilla, Nicholas, the adepts — all are swept away.
The heart stutters.
Breath falters.
And suddenly they are elsewhere.
A harsher world.
Rock-strewn, unforgiving.
Under storm-swollen skies that press low like judgment.
Tonzil's people stand there,
in the same desert.
Before the same boy.
But this —
this was millions of years ago.
—
"We are enough now," says the Boy.
His voice is the breath of mountains.
"I will lead you to the Altar of Rebirth."
He touches the ground.
Leaves no mark.
Speaks no more.
Begins to walk.
The people follow.
At first, slowly. Hesitant.
Then faster.
Their footsteps begin to echo with the rhythm of the cosmos.
Sand sears their feet.
Silence hangs on their chests like a weight.
And then — in the distance — a plateau.
Flat.
Carved with symbols
whose meaning slips away like a name forgotten in a dream.
"We have arrived," the boy says.
But it's not him who feels the danger.
"Look!" someone cries from the crowd. "What is that?!"
At the edge of the plateau — two figures.
One wields a sword of fire.
His strikes flare — bursts of light, storms of war.
The other — fluid as smoke.
Flickering in and out,
locked in an endless dance with no form, no end.
**
"That's Kyros," Ivor says, fists clenched. "
And the other... Gorgoroth.
The Maker of Gods."
The boy pays no heed to the battle.
His voice is stripped of emotion — cold, like a sentence passed.
"There is a well at the center of the plateau.
That is the Altar of Rebirth.
Jump — and you will be born anew."
They run.
The first ones.
Blind.
Eyes filled with light.
With faith that has never been tested by pain.
Kyros raises his sword.
A flash —
The first row vanishes.
No screams.
No trace.
Like dust, swept away by a god's breath.
But the crowd doesn't stop.
They are entranced,
spellbound by an image,
a mirage of salvation.
Another strike.
Then another.
Sand becomes ash.
Gorgoroth raises his hands.
His voice thunders across eternity:
"STOP!
This is not rebirth.
This is DEATH!"
In the swirling sands, one figure stands frozen.
Tonzil.
Alone.
Motionless.
Like a stone inside a firestorm.
His eyes — wide with horror.
He watches the faces of his people disappear,
one by one.
Like candles
no hand will ever light again.
He clenches his fists,
but all he finds in them is helplessness.
"Why do you stand still?"
The boy's voice is even. Icy.
As if beyond time, beyond feeling.
"I order you to go to the Altar of Rebirth."
Tonzil answers barely above a whisper —
as if his voice must claw its way out from the depths of his being,
through fear,
through the ashes of memory,
through the pulse of his breaking self:
"What is the point…
if beyond the edge there's only the end?"
"My purpose is to lead.
Yours is to follow."
The boy's voice doesn't tremble.
His eyes do not blink.
He isn't alive —
he is a mechanism.
A judge without passion.
Scales without heart.
Tonzil takes a step.
Heavy.
As if carrying the weight of his entire race.
The sand crunches underfoot —
like the bones of history.
Another step.
And another.
He nears the edge.
His lips tremble.
His face — drained of color,
like ash.
He stands between a moment and forever,
between choice and eternal dark.
And then — a voice.
Not from outside.
From within.
Gorgoroth.
Not a shout.
Not a command.
Just a word — clear as glass:
Stop.
Tonzil stops.
As if the whole cosmos holds its breath with him.
His body —
poised on the threshold of the abyss.
His soul —
on the verge of shattering.
He stands still.
And the world
no longer breathes.
—
Consciousness returns
like a ragged gasp
after too long underwater.
The sand is beneath their feet again —
hot, trembling.
The sun hangs low,
an unblinking eye of a merciless god,
watching those who choose.
But the air —
it has changed.
It's thick, electric,
like the moment before a storm
that ends eras.
Tonzil stands in the center of the circle.
Alone.
Bent.
Shoulders bearing the weight of memory.
Eyes — black whirlpools where all his blood is drowning.
His story. His people.
"This world will be no different,"
he whispers.
His voice is the scrape of dead leaves
across the stone floor of fate.
"The boy will lead you to the Altar.
And you will go.
But at the end of the path — not life…
death.
It was so.
It will be so."
The crowd trembles —
a living creature
trapped in a cage of sand and fear.
Someone steps back.
Someone grips a nearby hand.
Someone shuts their eyes,
as if darkness makes truth easier to bear.
Hope…
cracks,
like ice beneath the feet.
And then,
from the shadow,
he steps forward.
The boy — Term.
Until now —
he stood silent.
Like a statue carved from silence itself.
Now —
he moves.
One step.
And it is enough
to tilt the world.
His voice —
low, like the rumble of tectonic plates.
Not merely sound.
Weight.
"It doesn't have to be this way," he says.
"Everything can be different.
One of you can change the course of fate."
"Who?!" someone cries.
"Who is the one?!
How do we know?!"
"What choice?!"
another voice shouts.
"Where is it?!
Where do we go?!"
The boy opens his eyes.
His face is still — a mask carved by time.
But in his pupils —
depth.
Depth that swallows worlds.
"One of you will find the path,"
he says.
"The answer is already here."
He closes his eyes again.
Rises above the ground,
legs crossed.
The sand beneath him trembles —
as though even the Desert fears to disturb his breath.
And all —
falls still.
The Desert listens.
The silence rings.
Everything is possible.
Everything is terrifying.
Everything — hangs in balance.
The answer —
lies ahead.
Or —
within.