Chapter 20: The Hollow Dawn

Part 1:-

Aedric awoke to silence.

Not the silence of an empty room, nor the stillness of the dead city he had wandered through countless times before. This was different. It was the kind of silence that weighed on his skin, pressing down on his chest, stretching infinitely in all directions. A silence so vast it felt as if sound itself had been erased.

His body ached, every muscle stiff as if he had been asleep for an eternity. His vision swam, the world around him flickering like an unstable reflection in water. He exhaled slowly, steadying himself before taking in his surroundings.

The ground beneath him was smooth, like glass, yet dull—a colorless void of gray stretching endlessly. There was no sky, only an expanse of muted light above, casting no shadows, no warmth. The air smelled of nothing.

For a long moment, Aedric simply breathed, grounding himself, feeling the weight of existence settle onto him again. Was this death? Had he truly shattered the cycle, only to awaken in some void between existence and oblivion?

A sound—a small shift in the nothingness—made him turn sharply.

Elias.

His brother was lying a few feet away, still as stone. For one horrifying second, Aedric thought he was dead. He scrambled toward him, pressing two fingers to Elias's throat. A pulse. Slow. Faint. But there.

Elias stirred, eyes flickering open. Aedric had never seen his brother look so drained, so hollow. "Where... are we?"

Aedric swallowed, shaking his head. "I don't know."

Another rustling noise, this time behind them.

Rhea. She was sprawled on the ground as well, her breathing slow but steady. Aedric moved toward her, lightly shaking her shoulder. "Rhea, wake up."

She groaned, eyes fluttering open. For a moment, her expression was blank. Then her focus sharpened, and panic flashed across her face. "What—? Where are we?"

Aedric helped her sit up. "We're about to find out."

The three of them sat in silence, taking in their surroundings. There was nothing here. No ruins, no structures, no signs of life. It was as if the world itself had been erased, leaving only the three of them in its wake.

Elias flexed his fingers, then clenched them into fists. "This isn't right. This isn't how it was supposed to be."

Aedric exhaled sharply. "What did you expect? The cycle's gone. We broke it. We rewrote reality. This is... whatever's left."

Rhea shivered. "If we're even real."

Silence.

Aedric didn't answer, because he didn't know if she was wrong.

Part 2: The Fractured Remnant

Time had no meaning in this place. Minutes stretched into eternity, and yet there was no hunger, no thirst, no fatigue—only an aching awareness of emptiness.

They walked, hoping to find something. Anything. But the landscape remained the same—gray and lifeless, a world without history.

"This isn't a world," Elias muttered after an eternity of silence. "It's a grave."

Aedric stopped walking. "What do you mean?"

Elias gestured around them. "Look at this place. It's not broken ruins. It's not a shattered reality. It's nothing. No past, no future. Just... this. It's like everything that was supposed to come after the cycle just... never existed."

Aedric felt a cold weight settle in his chest. "Then where are we?"

Rhea exhaled sharply, scanning the horizon. "Maybe we're the only ones left. Maybe when we broke the cycle, we wiped everything else out."

The words hung between them, suffocating.

Then, the silence broke.

A sound—faint, distant, but unmistakable.

A whisper.

Aedric turned so fast his vision blurred. There was nothing. No movement. No shape. But the whisper had been there. It had spoken his name.

He took a step forward. "Did you hear that?"

Elias and Rhea exchanged uneasy glances. "Hear what?" Elias asked.

Aedric hesitated. "A voice. Someone said my name."

Rhea's expression darkened. "Are you sure? There's nothing here, Aedric."

He swallowed, glancing around again. The gray expanse stretched forever, endless and empty. But he had heard it.

He was sure of it.

Another whisper. This time, clearer.

"It is not over."

Aedric's breath hitched. His skin prickled. The whispers had vanished when the cycle broke. But now, they were here again, in a place where nothing should have existed.

Elias caught his arm. "Aedric. What did it say?"

He exhaled, his fingers clenching.

"It said, 'It is not over.'"

A heavy silence fell.

Rhea's jaw tightened. "Then what the hell did we do?"

Aedric didn't have an answer.

But as the wind picked up—a wind that should not exist in a dead world—he felt something deep in his bones.

Something had survived.

And it was waiting.