Chapter 9: Falling Through the Void

Darkness.

Endless, suffocating darkness.

He was falling—not through air, not through space, but through something deeper. A void without light, without time, without direction.

His body felt weightless, yet the pressure around him crushed his senses. He tried to move, but it was like his limbs didn't belong to him anymore.

Then—whispers.

Countless voices, layered over one another, speaking in languages he didn't understand. Some were soft, almost comforting. Others were hungry, ancient, and wrong.

"You do not belong."

"The fire is not yours."

"You are an anomaly."

The whispers grew louder.

A pulling force gripped his chest, dragging him deeper into the abyss. His golden fire—his power—flickered, struggling against the crushing weight of the void.

He refused to let it go.

With every ounce of willpower, he clenched his fists, trying to force the energy back into existence.

Nothing.

The void was draining him.

Then, through the endless black, a shape emerged.

A colossal eye.

It dwarfed him, stretching across the abyss, its pupil swirling with galaxies and stars. The moment it focused on him, a tremor ran through his soul.

It was watching.

Not just watching—studying.

A voice, deep and unfathomable, echoed through the void.

"Traveler."

His breath caught.

"You walk a path that was never meant to be."

He gritted his teeth. "Who—what are you?"

The eye blinked, and the stars inside it shattered.

"A witness."

The darkness rippled.

Pain lanced through his skull as flashes of distant worlds and unfathomable beings flooded his mind. Cities built atop dying stars. Armies marching through endless time-loops. Beasts that fed on reality itself.

And then—a vision of himself.

But not him.

A version of him standing atop a mountain of corpses, golden flames consuming everything. A version of him without emotion, without restraint.

A destroyer.

His stomach twisted. "No. That's not me."

The voice rumbled.

"Not yet."

The darkness closed in. The eye vanished.

And suddenly—

Light.

A blinding, overwhelming light pulled him forward

—And he woke up.

Gasping.

Panting.

Back in reality.

But something had changed.

His golden fire still flickered around his hands, but deeper, within his chest, he could feel it.

The void had left something inside him.

A seed. A curse. A warning.

Elya was there, watching him with an unreadable expression. "You're awake," she said.

He swallowed. "Where… am I?"

She sighed. "Somewhere safe. For now."

Then, after a pause—

"What did you see?"

He clenched his fists. He could still hear the whispers, faint but lingering. The vision of himself burning everything refused to leave his mind.

But he shook his head.

"Nothing," he said.

Elya's eyes narrowed, but she didn't press further.

Outside, the twin suns were rising again. A new day had begun.

And so had a new fear.

The question that gnawed at his soul.

What am I becoming?