In an open field, beneath an eternal eclipse, I found myself lying under a firmament that bled without end. Before me, a man stood upright, his hair undulating in the air despite the absence of any breeze. I felt as though time and space twisted around him, reshaping themselves so that his presence could fit within that impossible world.
The air weighed like soaked lead. Every particle of my body rebelled against the corrupted logic of that place. The sky appeared as an open, pulsing wound, spilling blood and a cosmic lament — the echo of an ancestral pain. The grass beneath my back took the form of a gray, silky down, murmuring secrets in dead tongues at the slightest touch.
And he… the man. He was the axis around which all that insanity revolved. His hair, black as the void between stars, moved in a silent choreography, indifferent to the nonexistence of wind. The very air seemed to divert itself so as not to disturb him, forming around him a halo of absolute stillness. Reality yielded to his presence, adjusting itself to his back like an invisible mantle. Space dilated and contracted to the rhythm of his breathing — almost imperceptible, yet undeniable.
I felt it. I knew it.
Then came the voice. His mouth remained motionless, a severe line upon a pale marble face, while the voice emerged directly within my mind. The voice simply arose inside my thoughts: deep, resonant, marked by a strange blend of authority and infinite weariness.
— The stillness that precedes the storm is always the most tedious of hours, would you not agree?
The thought — who is he? — dissolved like a fragile bubble before that invasive consciousness. He turned. The gesture dissolved into a change of state, like one painting being replaced by another. His eyes met mine. They were pools of phosphorescent amber. They themselves emanated the light of the eternal eclipse. They carried the threat of an abyss — not one that devours, but one that demands to be understood.
There was the weight of millennia within them, and a melancholy vast enough to wound with a mere glance. The madness consuming me was born from confronting something so monumental that my own existence began to seem like a risible error.
— You seek questions whose answers would shatter gears not yet anointed, oh small being.
The realization came without judgment, merely as a fact.
— You are a question mark cast upon the fabric of time, and yet you insist on seeking the final sign.
He raised his hand, not toward me, but toward the bleeding sky. His long fingers traced a symbol in the air, and the blood bent away from its outline, forming a temporary void in the shape of a glyph — so intense my eyes ached when I stared at it.
— This place is an echo — he proclaimed, and the landscape trembled. — The echo of a scream not yet uttered. A potential. A cosmic what if. And you…
His amber eyes returned to me, and for the first time I perceived something akin to curiosity.
— …you are the only solid thing in this vale. The paradox made flesh. The seed of a chaos not yet sprouted. Admirable.
A subtle smile appeared on his pale face. For him, it was exhilarating. For me, incomprehensible.
Beneath the eternal eclipse, my body was nothing but an insignificant weight against the pulsing ground. The sky did not weep — it bled in silence, each thick drop like molten metal spilling from a divine wound. Before me, the imposing figure distorted the very air, his black hair dancing in that profane harmony.
Who is he? And what is this place? I thought, my mind in vertigo.
Accepting my insignificance, I forced myself to raise my body. My voice escaped. Fragile, a breath lost in the oppressive vastness:
— Who are you?!
The answer was not a sound, but an implanted thought, clear and cold:
— Do you not recognize the face of the one who begot you?
— I do not blame you. It is something I understand without need for reflection. It is something quite justifiable.
He was suddenly standing before me — as though he had never been facing away. His yellow eyes locked onto mine. They were eyes that had witnessed the creation and ruin of worlds, carrying millennial wisdom and exhaustion. The threat they emanated was existential: the silent call of an abyss that demands contemplation.
Sanity dissolved. I lost all sense of body and form. I was nothing but consciousness, a drifting gaze in the void, seeking a root, a point of origin.
The pain became metaphysical, sharp, and made me long for the end — though I knew, with terrible certainty, that not even death would free me from that place or that gaze.
Like a drowning man dragged to the surface, I returned. I felt the ground beneath my back once more, the weight of iron-saturated air. Confusion replaced delirium. Then the voice returned, gentle, almost tender:
— Breathe, then. Do not surrender to despair. Soon, everything will find its place.
It was disturbingly paternal — the voice of a father soothing his child amid a nightmare.
I lifted my head with effort and faced him. Now I could see his details clearly: tall, slender, yet radiating an immanent force. His long hair, the color of jet, fell like a living mantle. His skin was pale, immaculate. And his eyes — those golden eyes, ignited like a thousand suns — told tales of hells crossed and paradises lost.
— I am Solomon — he declared, and the name resonated through the foundations of my soul. — Servant of the Most High. Watcher of the ages.
The world stagnated. The blood suspended in the air congealed, motionless, as if time itself had held its breath. Reality around him warped beneath the weight of that truth, groaning like a structure on the verge of collapse.
— This place — he continued, with a solemnity that crushed the spirit.
— Is a Threshold. The boundary between what was, what is, and what is yet to come. A dominion set apart from the world, prepared for this hour.
He took a step forward, and the ground beneath his feet bloomed into geometric patterns of golden light.
— And you, David, are more than a wandering student. You are heir to a legacy that surpasses the limits of the firmament itself.
The promise in his words carried a devastating power, capable of shattering everything I believed myself to be. Solomon. The name was not merely a name, but a key unlocking abysses within me. The king. The sage. The father.
The world bent beneath the weight of that identity. The blood falling from the sky took the shape of a symbol: a severed bond crying out for recognition.
— Servant of God — he repeated, softly, laden with invisible crowns. But for you, another word should resound.
He extended his hand in invitation. In his palm, the same glyph glowed, now contained, like a signature of light.
— This place is the Womb of Forgetting. A plane where reality is still malleable, where secrets that cannot exist among men are kept… or abandoned.
His gaze pierced through mine; beyond the king, the architect of my isolation revealed himself.
— They pursue the lineage of Apollyon — he warned in a grave tone. — The bearers of the spark of primordial chaos. You are the last. The purest. And the most vulnerable.
He closed his hand, and the symbol was extinguished like a suffocated star. The field began to unravel, colors running like paint beneath rain.
— Awaken — he commanded. — Return to your world. This was not an accident, but a warning. Next time, it will not be I who pulls you back.
Darkness enveloped me, and his whisper was the last thing I heard:
— When the hour comes, my son, break the chains imposed upon you. And if necessary, cleave the world.
Then there was only silence.
I awoke in a train car. The metallic roar of wheels against rails composed a constant orchestra, while wind rushed through the window, chilling and thinning the air. I opened my eyes with difficulty and teared up at the light. Voices murmured around me. I blinked.
— That dream… what did it mean?
The images were still etched behind my eyelids: the bleeding sky, the amber eyes, the voice that was not sound.
Solomon.
A shiver ran down my spine. I clenched my fists, driving my nails into my palms to anchor myself in that reality — the train, the passengers, the scent of metal and mold.
Which one was real?
Then, like an alarm clock buried within my mind, a familiar melody began to echo.