The Door Beyond the Abyss
A Void That Shouldn't Exist
Darkness.
Complete and utter darkness.
Not just the absence of light—but the absence of existence itself.
Kalen felt weightless, like he had been stripped away from reality. His body wasn't here. His thoughts weren't here. Even time itself felt like it had stopped.
> Where am I?
His voice didn't echo.
Because there was nothing for it to echo against.
He wasn't falling. He wasn't floating. He simply was.
Or perhaps—
> I never was.
The Whispers of the Forgotten
Then, they spoke.
Not one voice.
Not two.
Thousands.
Whispers from all directions, speaking words that his mind struggled to grasp.
> You have been here before.
You will be here again.
You are here now.
The voices didn't sound human.
They weren't echoes of memories.
They weren't illusions.
They were something else.
Something that had always existed beyond the Abyss.
And for the first time—Kalen could hear them.
A Question That Shouldn't Be Answered
"What is this place?" Kalen asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Silence.
Then—
> The space between.
The words didn't come from a mouth.
They came from everywhere.
From nowhere.
From inside him.
> Between what?
> What am I between?
A faint pulse of energy rippled through the void.
Like an answer that wasn't meant to be spoken.
Like a truth he wasn't ready to understand.
> I have to focus.
Kalen reached out—not with his hands, but with his mind.
The Abyss had always been a place of deception. A place of shadows and illusions.
But this?
This was something older.
Something deeper.
Something true.
And then—
The Door That Shouldn't Open
A crack formed in the darkness.
Not light.
Not shadow.
Something in between.
It wasn't a door in the physical sense.
It was a concept.
A fracture in reality itself.
Kalen felt himself being pulled toward it.
Not against his will—but as if he had been meant to step through it all along.
> Is this the way out?
> Or is this the way in?
His younger self's words echoed in his mind.
> The Abyss isn't a prison, Kalen. It's a door.
This was it.
The choice.
The moment.
> Do I step through?
Or—
> Do I turn back?
His heart pounded.
His mind screamed for an answer.
And then—
He took a step.
A Reality That Shouldn't Exist
The moment Kalen passed through the crack, everything shifted.
Not like stepping into another world.
Not like waking from a dream.
It was both.
And neither.
His surroundings flickered—shifting between past, present, and future all at once.
The battlefield.
The Abyss.
The moment he first arrived.
The moment he thought he had won.
All existing at the same time.
As if time wasn't moving forward—but collapsing inward.
And in the center of it all—
Himself.
The Truth That Breaks the Mind
Kalen saw himself standing in the battlefield.
He saw himself dying.
He saw himself winning.
He saw himself never entering the Abyss at all.
Every possible version of his existence—happening at once.
And then he understood.
> I was never trapped in a loop.
> I was never reliving the same moment.
> I was experiencing every possibility—simultaneously.
> The Abyss didn't trap me.
> It showed me what always existed.
His head spun. His body trembled.
How was this possible?
How had he not seen it before?
> Or had I?
Had he known the truth all along, but simply been unable to comprehend it?
And more importantly—
> If every possibility exists at once…
> Then which one is real?
Kalen looked up.
There, standing before him, was himself.
Not his younger self.
Not a reflection.
Not an illusion.
But the version of him that had already figured it all out.
His own voice whispered—
> "Are you ready to understand?"
And before Kalen could answer—
Everything shattered.
End of Chapter 22