Kian Emris [2]

The massive door creaked shut behind me, sealing me in a silence so thick it felt like I had stepped into the void itself.

My first thought was that I had gone blind. There was nothing. No light. No sound. Just the oppressive darkness that seemed to swallow me whole.

I reached out instinctively, but my fingers touched nothing but the cold, empty air.

I stood still for what felt like an eternity. Or perhaps it was only seconds.

Time, in this place, had no meaning.

It stretched and contracted like a thin thread pulled too tightly. My breath, though quiet, seemed deafening in the void. It was the only thing that reminded me I still existed.

Why was I here?

What did Neo want from me?

Where am I?

The questions flickered like dying embers in my mind, but they felt distant, almost irrelevant now. It didn't matter. There was only the dark. Only the nothingness.

I began walking, though I wasn't sure where I was going. Each step felt hesitant, my body unsure whether the ground beneath me would vanish into the same nothingness that surrounded me.

But it held, solid and cold. The silence was absolute.

And then, without warning, I bumped into something. I stumbled back, startled. My heart suddenly pounded in the quiet.

I reached out again, my fingers brushing against the surface of the thing. It was rough, almost jagged, like stone.

As I traced its outline, a faint glow began to emanate from it. It was a dull red that pulsed weakly, like the dying embers of a fire.

"What…?"

The light spread slowly, casting the darkness in a dim crimson hue. I stepped back, my eyes adjusting to the change, and looked at the object more closely.

It resembled an asteroid, rough and irregular in shape, as though it had been ripped from some distant world and left here to decay.

"Dinosaurs… and asteroids?"

I murmured to myself. But something about it felt right. Something ancient and familiar tugged at the edges of my mind. A connection, a thread linking two things that shouldn't have been linked at all.

"Extinction? Wait. No. That isn't it."

As the asteroid continued to radiate its crimson light, the darkness around me began to shift. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the space transformed. What had once been an endless void now revealed itself to be something far more disturbing.

A mountain of corpses.

The bodies lay in grotesque heaps, piled on top of each other. Their limbs twisted and broken, and their faces frozen in expressions of pain and horror.

Blood pooled around the base of the mound, glistening darkly in the red light. The stench of death was overwhelming, suffocating, and I had to fight the urge to retch.

Urgkh.

And there, at the very top of the mountain, a figure knelt.

He was still.

His head bowed, as though in prayer.

A sword pierced through his heart, the blade gleaming faintly in the crimson glow. His black hair was matted with blood, hanging limply around his face, and his body was covered in dark red scales that shimmered like embers.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't breathe.

There was something about the figure that drew me in. There was something that made my chest tighten with a strange, unbearable weight.

His eyes, or rather, the one eye I could see, was a deep, dark crimson, slowly turning black, as though life was being drained from him.

Beside him, a shattered crown lay discarded, broken beyond repair.

"Fallen…"

I couldn't hear what he was saying at first. His lips moved, but the words were a murmur, barely audible over the roar of blood in my ears.

But then, slowly, they became clearer, as though the world had chosen to focus on that one sound.

…That one voice.

"Fallen… power… undone by my own hand…"

The words sent a shiver down my spine, though I wasn't sure why. There was something ancient in his voice, something that resonated deep within me. A warning, perhaps. Or a lament.

"Fallen… power…"

His head lifted then. Slowly, his gaze locked onto mine.

The world seemed to stop. His eyes that were now almost entirely black bored into me, and I felt as though I was being pulled into the abyss, into the same darkness that had consumed him.

And then he moved.

Before I could react, he lunged forward. Though the sword was still embedded in his chest, his body moved with a terrifying speed.

The distance between us evaporated in an instant. My heart raced, panic flaring in my chest, but there was something else too—something that stirred deep within me like a flicker of familiarity.

He looked like me. Or rather, the Cyan back on Earth.

He was close now with his hand reaching for me. His eyes were filled with a wild rage.

But then, as if by some miracle, another figure appeared. He seemed to materialize out of thin air, stepping between us with an effortless grace.

I barely had time to process what was happening before he reached out, his hand stopping the first figure's advance with a casual, almost lazy motion.

The collision of their hands sent a tremor through the ground beneath me, splintering the earth like glass under immense pressure. Cracks spider-webbed outwards, jagged and chaotic, and I could feel the force reverberating through my bones.

The first figure, his dark crimson-red scales gleamed under the dim light. He grit his teeth, and the ground beneath his feet gave way, collapsing into craters under the weight of his stance.

He was rooted, immovable, a pillar of raw, destructive power.

His fingers tightened around the hand of the second figure, the knuckles of his grip white-hot, veins bulging under his skin like thick cords threatening to snap.

The air around them crackled, vibrating with the tension of two forces meeting in perfect opposition.

With a sudden twist of his arm, the first figure attempted to throw the second back with sheer strength so overwhelming that the ground beneath them exploded in a shower of debris.

But the second figure was already moving. He didn't meet the brute force head-on. Instead, he shifted like liquid, sliding with the momentum of the attack and stepping sideways, almost disappearing from sight in a blur.

His movement was too fast for me to catch up.

Though the first figure's power was a violent force that broke anything in its path, the second figure danced around it, cutting through the air with an elegance that left me momentarily stunned.

They clashed again, this time mid-air.

The first figure's hand descended like a hammer, the ground beneath him shattering even before the blow landed.

But it didn't hit him.

The second figure twisted his body mid-flight, dodging the strike by mere inches, his blue-scaled form blurring as he zipped past the attack.

The first figure's fist collided with the earth instead, and the ground that was already shattering before, exploded. A shockwave rippled outward as if the very land was tearing apart at his command.

Rocks and dirt shot up in a deadly arc, the ground beneath them caving in, leaving a massive crater.

I watched in awe as the second figure before he launched himself forward. Again, he was too fast. His feet barely made contact with the broken earth, and with a single leap, he was behind the first, his hands a blur of motion.

He struck with precision, driving his elbow into the small of the first figure's back. There was a sickening crack as his scaled arm connected, sending the first figure staggering forward.

But even then, the first figure didn't fall despite his previous injuries. His feet dug into the broken ground. The crater beneath him widened. The sheer pressure of his stance pulverizing the rock beneath his boots.

He swung his arm backward, a wild arc of pure muscle and force, aimed directly at the second figure. His fist moved with the weight of a falling boulder, the sheer wind pressure from his swing tearing at the ground and scattering dust in a massive cloud.

But the second figure was already gone as he darted to the side. Where he stood moments ago, the first figure's blow connected with the earth, and the ground erupted in a thunderous explosion.

For a brief moment, the air around them seemed to thicken. The pressure building with each second of their gazes.

The first figure roared. It was a deep, primal sound that shook the ground beneath us. His frustration was palpable, and his body shook under the relentless onslaught.

He then released a burst of energy, a shockwave that knocked the second figure off balance, if only for a split second.

That was all the first figure needed.

He lunged forward, his fist crashing down with enough force to level mountains, aimed squarely at the second figure's head.

But the second figure twisted in midair, narrowly avoiding the blow. He took a few steps backwards, a few meters away to get out of the first figure's reach.

And as they exchanged blows all this time, the flying debris passed through me.

Literally.

And then I realized I was not the one who was truly here. I was a spectator, watching a scene that had already been set into motion.

It wasn't me whom the first figure locked his eyes on earlier, but the one behind me—the second figure.

Standing still, the second figure stood tall. His posture was relaxed but commanding. His body was shrouded in scales. They were deep, almost iridescent blue that shimmered in the crimson light. His eyes were a piercing yellow that held none of the madness that consumed the first figure.

From his forehead to his eyes, the scales formed a crown-like shape, giving him an air of authority, of power that seemed to radiate from him in waves.

The two figures stood meters apart now, the tension between them palpable.

The first figure, the one kneeling on the mountain of corpses earlier, stared at the other with a mixture of hatred and something I couldn't quite place.

Was it fear? Or enjoyment?

It flickered across his features. It was too brief to capture fully, but it was there.

"..."

"..."

Neither of them spoke.

"..."

Neither of us spoke.

The silence stretched out as if the entire world was holding its breath, waiting for something—anything—to break the stillness.

Even my own breath came shallow as my pulse pounded in my ears.

But I couldn't tear my eyes away from them.

The figure with the blue scales reached out, his hand resting on the hilt of the sword that was still embedded in the other's chest. His fingers tightened around the grip, but he didn't pull it free.

Instead, he leaned in, his lips brushing against the other's ear as he whispered something too soft for me to hear.

Whatever it was, it made the kneeling figure flinch. His hand twitched, as though he wanted to lash out, to strike the other down, but he didn't. He remained frozen, his body trembling with some unspoken emotion.

And then, without warning, the blue-scaled figure straightened, his hand falling away from the sword.

He took a step back, his gaze never leaving the other. For a moment, the world seemed to teeter on the edge of something terrible.

But I never saw what came next.

Because the darkness swallowed them both.

The dim red light flickered once, twice, and then vanished, plunging me back into the suffocating darkness.

The last thing I heard was the echo of the first figure's voice, low and broken, as though he was speaking from the depths of a nightmare.

"Fallen… by my own hand…"

And then, silence.