Two

The smell of the garbage, rotting meat and spoiled milk, made him gag, and that's what woke him up. His entire body screamed as he shifted, pushing himself up to a sitting position, as best he could.

The heat was gone...and now he was just cold and in pain, the physical reality of what he'd done not quite connecting with what he had intended.

He squeezed his eyes shut so hard it hurt, and after a moment of suppressing a scream, he looked down at his arms and legs, knew he needed to figure out what was wrong with him, but as he looked, it seemed like other than some minor scrapes and a bruise along his waist, there was nothing out of sorts.

The skyscraper loomed over him, all three hundred stories of it laughing at his attempt to end his own.

Sighing heavily, he fought past the pain and stood up, almost immediately falling back down as the world spun around him and his head felt like it would implode.

A small gust of wind blew and he got a full nose of the garbage around him and he waved his hand in disgust.

The trash bags around him lifted into the air and away from him, alleviating some of the smell.

"How fitting," he growled, "that I wake up in literal trash."

It felt like the universe was rubbing salt in the wound; not only had something saved him, but having his opinion of himself manifest as literal trash upon waking up felt like it was just too much.

He took a deep breath, hard and slow, and checked his phone...which was...destroyed.

More salt.

Standing up, Auros fought down a scream and started walking, though he wasn't sure where to go. He'd never had to navigate without his phone, and the prospect of doing so under these circumstances made his head pound even worse than it already was.

Leaving the protection of the Sundover Medical Corporation building's shadow, he was almost immediately blinded by the sun marching ever onward toward noon.

Raising a hand to to block it out, he asked a person at a nearby stand for directions to the Bureau of Communications, and they called him an idiot and told him to use his phone.

Knowing he couldn't explain why he didn't have one, he just feigned ignorance and walked away, suppressing another scream.

The concrete beneath his feet lit up as he walked, flickering a path toward what he hoped was the Bureau he needed. He didn't know how a lot of the tech and magic the city used to assist its citizens worked, but he knew he could probably trust it to get him somewhere useful, though he knew he'd have problems at a checkpoint without his phone.

If he'd studied Magical technology like his girlfriend...ex-girlfriend had suggested,he could have just repaired the phone, but no, he'd mastered in Force and Movement.

Sighing hard, he gestured and suddenly he was moving, the concrete shifting to carry him along the glowing path.

Cracking and groaning as it carried him and sifted back into position, the ground raced him along at a decent pace, though after twenty minutes of this, he was starting to get worried.

Not that he worried about his mana, he'd been born with an abnormally high amount, but rather that he officially didn't know where he was anymore.

Back by the Sundover building, he at least had an idea of how to get home, but this part of the city was strange and unusual.

The ground still glowed for him, but the building in this area seemed to be made of a different kind of material than he was used to. There was black and green ooze all along the ground where it wasn't glowing, and it had started to creep up and along the walls of the nearby walls.

The glow led him to an alleyway, a shortcut he assumed, and as he was carried into it, the entrance seemed to close up behind him, the ooze forming a thick barrier behind and above him. His only light source now being the glowing ground, those feelings of concern came back in much stronger force.

He hadn't even considered that this might be a trap.

Who would want to trap him?

He didn't have any money or real power, barely even had a family, let alone connections to kidnap him for.

He was nobody...and the feeling came back again, that darkness in his heart that had led him to that rooftop the night before.

Sliding to a stop, Auros's heart dropped as the glow began to fade away and the ooze began to encroach the now dark space around him.

"Looks like I'll get my wish after all…"

A voice rang through the darkened edges of his mind, shaking cobwebs loose and rousing him, "So much pain in one so young."

He looked around, his head darting violently from place to place, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Look as hard as you want, child, you won't find me here," the voice sang in a playful tone.

It rang like bells, the small ones you see in those old ceremonies, beautiful and clear.

"Such high praise from one so cynical, especially for one so old."

The voice shook something in him, something he'd forgotten, though he didn't dare hazard a guess as to what it was.

Speaking aloud, he asked, "What's going on?!"

"We are as surprised as you, little one. Your mind sings out along the leylines as though you were deliberately trying to get our attention," the voice whispered, almost coyly.

Auros felt a sharp pang right behind his eyes, and he said, "Whatever it is you want, I'll do, just stop this pain, please!"

A second voice, stern and deep, deep as the void, said, "We are not responsible for this pain, boy. Whatever door you have opened, we have not provided the key...and it is not our concern to help with it."

The bells continued, "The Council has brought you here because someone precious to us is in incredible danger right now."

The pain intensified, radiating out from behind his eyes to every part of his body, new and increasing pain beyond anything he'd felt before.

The voices clamored on and on about something, but he could no longer hear them over the new sound that filled his head.

A noxious ripping sound, like thousands of sheets of paper all being torn at once deafened him, the sound growing by the second until he felt it would manifest physically, a spirit of sound digging sharpened claws into his temples.

The darkness wrapped around him like a lover, dragging nails along his body and filling him with its all encompassing touch, until his entire reality was nothing but darkness and tearing, visceral agony lancing through the very fabric of his soul.

Just beyond his reach, almost within touching distance, was a door with him behind it. Looking through a crack in the door, he looked back out at himself, his eyes glowing bright red in the gloom, beckoning him to join himself.

Who was this council and what had they done to him, why had they violated and defiled him so thoroughly. What had he done to deserve such brutal and disruptive abuse from beings so ancient and unknowable.

For a moment, he was not Auros, and the him beyond the doorway was neither Auros nor council, they were together and apart, now and then and future.

The darkness around him stretched onward to infinity, and now standing, he looked left and saw infinite Auros' looking to their left.

Looking to his right, he saw infinite Auros' looking to their right as well.

In front of him, he saw the backs of an Auros he might be or might have been.

Suddenly, he was looking at the back of his own head, and the him that he had been before turned back to see the him he was now, screaming at what he saw.

The him that he was now screamed back, because the him that he had been had eyes of burning red, and behind him, red eyes stretched on and out to time immemorial.

Then, in an instant, the door closed and Auros was himself again, the form of the door shifting to a shining mirror, casting light in the darkness that was his world.

He walked to the mirror where he heard voices calling for him from just beyond its threshold.

Threshold?

Threshold.

The mirror was a doorway, a door that had been opened and could never be closed again.

His eyes flickered, black as ink, in the liquid of the mirror.

Raising his hands to his eyes, Auros screamed...but no voice came out.

All around him, glowing lines of every color raced outward from him to every corner of reality, shifting lines forming shapes his mind couldn't hope to comprehend.

A voice called out, one he did not know, had never heard before, and when she spoke his name…

He woke.