I walked across an empty land

As Cypher reached out to touch the shadow's outline, it, too, reached for him—not in the physical sense, but in the way it threaded itself through the fractures of his mind, piecing them together in unfamiliar patterns.

The soul space darkened. The walls of his reality shrank inward, the void compressing, folding in on itself until nothing remained but the suffocating calm

He closed his eyes. A weight lifted from his chest. His thoughts drifted, untethered, slipping into a state that was neither sleep nor wakefulness.

Then came the realization - something was wrong. His body no longer responded. It felt distant, uncooperative, as if the link tethering his mind to flesh had been severed. The thought should have disturbed him, but it didn't. He understood, on a level beyond logic, that parts of himself had been overwritten. What was once his had been replaced - something foreign, something new.

And yet, he welcomed it.

"Do not resist, Aleck. Do you remember the story I told you in that cold, dark basement? Tell it to me."

The voice. He heard it again. The man in the wall. A whisper meant only for him.

But he could see nothing.

No perfect white floor. No madman spinning in the distance. No veil separating him from the presence that called to him.

Only darkness.

His lips parted. A memory surfaced from the depths of his mind, one that had been taken from him long ago.

And he spoke.

"I walked across an empty land,

Where shadows stretched across the sand.

And in that place, I saw a man,

Behind a wall, his figure grand.

His eyes were dark, yet full of light,

A glimmer, faint, in endless night.

He whispered soft, a voice that twined,

A twisted song within my mind.

"I know your thoughts, I know your fear,

Come closer, child, and I'll be near.

The world you seek is just a lie,

Come, let me show you how to fly."

I stepped toward him, slow and still,

His voice, a tug, a binding will.

He spoke of secrets, truths untold,

Of kingdoms vast and powers bold.

The wall was high, but did I see,

A crack, a gap—a path to me?

"Step closer," he said, "and you shall know,

The price to reap what you will sow."

The land grew dark, the wind grew cold,

A shift began, my soul it pulled.

The man in the wall, now all I knew,

His voice, his will—it was my cue.

But in that silence, deep and wide,

I realized I could not hide.

For he was me, and I was he,

The man behind the wall, no cage can keep."

---

Back in the ballroom, Corydon's monstrous frame recoiled. The hand that had touched Cypher fractured, splitting apart like brittle glass before dissolving into drifting particles, shifting like sand caught in acid water. A moment later, under the eerie glow of his emerald ring, his hand reformed, pieced back together by instinct alone. But his focus was elsewhere.

The mask Cypher had worn fractured. A single, hairline crack ran from forehead to chin before the entire thing shattered. The broken fragments tumbled to the crimson-stained floor, scattering into broken porcelain.

Above them, candlelight twisted unnaturally. Flames flickered, caught in a battle between steady, controlled glow and wild, chaotic flares. The very air seemed uncertain of its own nature.

The Jester tilted his head. A slow, measured breath escaped from the void beneath his mask, curling outward as tendrils of black mist, as though reality itself exhaled in response. He watched, his expression unreadable—caught between curiosity and coldness, something like recognition.

Corydon leaned in, studying Cypher's face as the last remnants of the mask slipped away.

Then, silence.

Not the quiet of anticipation, nor the absence of sound, but a void so complete it pressed in from all sides, suffocating and absolute. No music. No murmurs from the masquerade. Even the candlelight seemed subdued beneath the weight of it.

Corydon waited. Still as stone. He knew a reaction would come.

And come it did.

Without warning, Cypher's skin turned deathly white. White as a corpse. White as space in the inverted sky.

Cracks ran along the surface of his flesh and robes, jagged fractures from which seeped sickly wisps of yellow light. The glow stretched and warped, distorting the room itself. Shadows twisted unnaturally, unfurling across the walls—mocking silhouettes of a man, a shifting robe, a beak lying crooked and flat against the surface.

Cypher slowly opened his eyes.

His pupils had vanished into the void. Where his irises once were, now only hollow black remained—except for the slits of amber light, thin and sharp as a serpent's gaze.

"Who are you?" Corydon asked, his voice low, measured.

This was not the same boy he had condemned moments ago. This was something else.

"Freedom."

The voice did not come from Cypher's lips, but from the very walls, from the air itself. It bounced across the ballroom, warping and shifting, muffled as if spoken behind a pane of glass.

And yet, to Corydon, it was unmistakably clear.

"I am freedom."

Cypher's form shifted.

Before Corydon could respond, he watched as the boy's sorrounding space grew unstable.

If one could see through Corydon's eyes, they would understand why he hesitated.

He did not see as others did. He saw beyond the three dimensions that anchored men to their reality. He saw the fourth.

And beneath Cypher, the fabric of space-time twisted, fraying at the edges. It reacted to him. As though, at any moment, the boy - or the thing within him - could simply step through it, slipping between the cracks between worlds without much effort.

Corydon felt a strange satisfaction. And a deeper barely contained irritation that he forcefully suppressed.

Could it be?

Now he understood. This was why the boy had fallen into the Well. Why he had slipped through the cracks of reality so easily. The Soul Fragment of the Betrayer had merely been a conduit. A trigger to awaken what was already there.

He exhaled.

"I'll admit," Corydon said, his voice shifting into something lighter, something resembling amusement. "I had intended to strip this vessel of its Soul Core for it's secrets... but I see now that this cannot be."

Whatever this power was, it was similar to Corydons but not yet matured to his level. It was a power that did not even need a soul core, drawing it's power from something far more uncontrollable and abstract.

If he were to take Cyphers soul core now, what a waste it would be. He would merely get the sand teqnique that could not be brought to its full greatness under alchemy.

So, the jester changed his mindset.

He snapped his fingers.

Instantly, the ballroom transformed. The blood, the severed limbs, the grotesque remnants of the masquerade - gone.

In their place remained only a single table, draped in silk, untouched by the carnage that had existed moments before. Two chairs of gold, intricately carved, sat on either end, already pulled out. Ready and Waiting to be used.

Corydon turned away from Cypher, his focus shifting to the shadow on the wall - the one that had been watching.

With a flourish, he outstretched his hands and bowed, a gesture exaggerated and theatrical, his fingers splayed wide.

"Come, friend," he said, voice laced with intrigue. "I have much to discuss."