An Eye For The Next Era

Inside the men's washroom, Ryan leaned against the sink, gripping its edges as he stared at his reflection.

His heart was pounding.

"What the fuck is going on?" he muttered under his breath, his voice barely above a whisper.

First, the unsettling dream. Then, his suddenly greying hair. And now this eerie, stomach-churning déjà vu.

Ryan turned the faucet on, the sound of running water grounding him for a moment. He exhaled heavily and looked up at himself in the mirror—

His left eye flickered.

A faint yellow glow pulsed in the mirror.

Ryan's breath hitched. His reflection wavered, the glass rippling like water, distorting his features into something unnatural. For a split second, his own face looked unfamiliar—his skin paler, his pupils sharp like slits, his expression twisted into something that wasn't his own.

Then—

Darkness.

A void swallowed him whole.

The cold hit first.

A deep, bone-chilling cold that didn't touch his skin but sank into him, wrapping around his very essence like unseen hands. It was a stillness too vast to comprehend, too absolute to resist.

Ryan's body was gone.

No hands to grasp. No feet to move. No weight, no warmth, no air.

Just existence—adrift in nothingness.

His heart pounded, though he had no chest to feel it in. His mind reeled, though he had no head to steady.

Wasn't I just… in the washroom?

The thought barely took form before a sound cut through the abyss.

"OPEN."

Ryan flinched.

The word didn't just echo—it crashed into him, a vibration that trembled through the void itself. It was a voice, yet it wasn't. It was countless voices, speaking as one. Each syllable carried weight, heavy as a commandment, undeniable as fate.

"Who's there?!" he tried to say.

Nothing came out. His voice—gone. His mouth—gone.

He could only think, and even that felt barely within his control.

"OPEN."

Again, the voice. Louder. Closer.

It wasn't asking. It wasn't requesting. It was demanding.

Ryan clenched his fists—if he even still had them. His form, his body, his self—none of it felt real anymore.

He fought against the pressure of the voice, his mind grasping for reason. "At least tell me where I am!"

No answer.

Only the growing chant.

"OPEN."

"OPEN."

"OPEN."

The sound layered upon itself, repeating, overlapping, multiplying. Each utterance stacked onto the last, until it became a storm of words, a spiral of sheer force drilling into his mind.

Ryan clenched his jaw—not that he had one to clench. His existence felt like it was unraveling, pulled apart thread by thread, dissolving into the void around him.

Then—

One final word.

"ALCURSUR."

BOOM.

Reality cracked.

The darkness split like a shattering mirror, fragments of shadow peeling away as a light—blinding, merciless—tore through the void.

Something was coming.

Something vast.

A deep rumbling spread through the void. The endless darkness trembled, like reality itself was being torn apart at the seams.

Then—

Something opened.

A slit of golden light carved through the blackness, growing wider, wider—until it wasn't just light, but an eye.

A colossal, godlike eye.

It hung in the void, vast beyond comprehension, stretching across the endless abyss. Its iris swirled like a living galaxy, shifting with an unnatural, cosmic fluidity. Wisps of golden and violet light twisted through its depths, like nebulae trapped within its gaze.

Then he saw it.

The pupil.

Or rather—what rested inside it.

A double-sided spear crest.

It pulsed, radiating a terrifying energy. Not just power, but authority—something ancient, something absolute.

Ryan felt like an insect before it. No—less than that. He was nothing. A speck. A whisper in the face of a roaring storm.

His mind screamed at him to run. But his body—if he even still had one—wouldn't move.

The voices returned.

"OPEN."

"OPEN."

"OPEN."

The endless chorus rang through the void, each repetition hammering into his skull like a divine decree. It wasn't just a sound anymore. It was a force, pressing against him, pushing into every fiber of his being.

Ryan gritted his teeth. His breath was ragged—if he was even breathing at all. His heart pounded, or maybe the entire space itself was pulsing.

"What the hell is this place?!" he wanted to scream.

Instead, the words clawed at his throat but never left his lips.

The voices continued.

A deafening, reality-breaking force shook everything.

Ryan's vision blurred as an unseen weight crashed onto his shoulders. He stumbled—or maybe he didn't. He had no ground to stand on, yet it felt like something was crushing him from above, pressing him down into the nothingness.

The golden eye widened.

A presence—overwhelming, incomprehensible—pressed against his very soul. It was staring at him. No, not staring. Peering. Peeling him apart layer by layer.

Ryan gasped, trying to resist. But how do you fight against something that exists beyond everything you understand?

Then, in the midst of it all, a single thought escaped his lips—soft, hollow, almost numb.

"So that's Alcursur."

His voice barely held any emotion.

Because what else was there to feel?

He had already given up.