Remembrance

Something was tearing apart the fabric of the world, and it was happening inside him.

Jacob sat on the edge of his bed, watching as his sister backed slowly out of his doorway. Her mouth moved, saying words that no longer made sense in the context of what was happening. The sound reached him as if through water, distorted and hollow.

"Mom?" Lily called, her voice trembling on that single syllable. "Something's wrong with Jacob."

The patterns under his skin weren't hiding anymore. Void-marks pulsed with ancient power, spreading in intricate spirals across his forearms, up his neck, claiming territory with each beat of his heart. Not aggressive, not invasive—simply returning to where they had always been.

His bedroom walls seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting with each surge of memory. The posters, the laptop, the backpack spilling homework onto the floor—they were props, he realized. Beautiful, elaborate props in a play that was reaching its final act.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, his mother's concerned voice calling his name. But the name itself was dissolving, losing meaning with each recovered fragment of who he truly was.

"Jacob! What's happening?"

She appeared in the doorway, face twisted with worry. The sight of her tore at him—this woman who had made breakfast every morning, who had bandaged his childhood wounds, who had created a normal life around him. A life that had never been real.

"It's okay," he said, though his voice didn't sound like Jacob's anymore. It carried harmonics that made the light fixtures flicker. "You were never in danger."

Her face went slack with confusion. "What are you talking about? Sweetie, you're scaring me."

The walls of the bedroom shimmered like a mirage in desert heat. Behind them, he could see glimpses of stone and shadow—the true reality pressing against this fabricated one.

"I remember now," he said, standing. The void-marks pulsed stronger, no longer content to remain hidden. "I remember everything."

With those words, the first real tear appeared—not in the walls, but in the air itself. A vertical slash of absolute darkness that widened to reveal glimpses of another place. A chamber of ancient stone. Figures moving urgently. A battle for his very essence.

His mother staggered back, clutching Lily to her. "Jacob, please, you're having some kind of episode. Let me call—"

"You can't call anyone," he said gently. "You were never real. But you were... kind. That matters."

The tear in reality widened. Through it, he could see a stone chamber where his true body lay, void-marks battling golden corruption that sought to rewrite his essence. He could see Lysara's concerned face, Thrain's vigilant stance, Valeria's corrupted armor absorbing ambient light.

He could see the truth.

"The gods made a mistake," he continued, more to himself than to the fading illusions before him. "They tried to rewrite me, but instead, they helped me remember why I broke free in the first place."

Another pulse of void energy, stronger than before. The bedroom fractured along its edges, suburban normalcy giving way to stone and shadow. His mother and sister stood frozen, their expressions caught between fear and disbelief. Not people anymore—just echoes of a story someone else had written.

A strange ache tightened in his chest as he looked at them. They hadn't been real, but the comfort they represented—the normalcy, the simple love of family, the safety of belonging—that had been genuine. For a brief time, he had been just Jacob Reed, with nothing more complicated than homework and crushes and family dinners to worry about. Part of him would miss that simplicity, that connection, even knowing it was fabricated.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the illusions as they began to dissolve. "You gave me something I lost centuries ago. Thank you for that."

"I am Kael," he said, the name no longer elusive but solid, real, his. "And I choose what I become."

The world shattered.