"The Awakening"

Saaransh caught his breath as he gazed at the crimson and black text written on the wall. The letters glowed with a spooky light before they vanished into thin air, as if they never were. He felt a chill run down his spine.

"Awake, or be lost forever."

The words stuck in his head, filled with significance. Who had written this note? And that person what was he? An illusion? Or something worse?

His little fists tightened. He was yet to fully accept the madness of being reborn in this timeline, into the Stoneheart clan. The world had changed. His own identity had changed. His past? Echoes in the distance.

This, though?

As soon as he started anchoring himself to this reality, someone or something was already attempting to dislodge him from it.

"Should I raise my mana?"

He bit his lip. No. If he carelessly awakened his mana now, he could be putting himself at risk in front of the awakening ceremony. That would be a disaster.

But. there was something in the warning that resonated too well to be ignored. Was this a genuine threat? Or a hallucination created by the betrayal of his previous life?

Just as he was going to send it away, the air condensed. A quiet hum slid around the room. The mana swirled climbing, throbbing, breathing.

This wasn't his work.

A wave of movement flashed on the periphery of his eye.

The darkness jerked oddly, reaching toward him like grabbing fingers.

A breath crept into his head cold, bereft, strange.

"You are not safe here."

Then stillness.

A chill fear settled in his belly. His instincts howled that this was wrong. This. this wasn't right. Someone something was spying on him.

Two options presented themselves.

First, he could do nothing. Act as if nothing had occurred. Keep playing the part of a stupid child until the awakening ceremony, like any other Stoneheart heir.

Or second, he could take action. Risk it. Confront whatever lurked in the darkness.

His hands curled.

"I won't be ambushed again."

His jaw tightened. His eyes blazed with determination. He reached for the power within him slowly, an unknown force, dark and untested.

Something stirred.

A burst of ancient, stifling mana flared from within raw and wild.

"No… I didn't mean to wake it up!"

Pain.

Searing, burning agony coursed through his circuits, firing them up like wildfire. His youthful body shuddered, reeling under the sheer intensity of the power. It was alien. It didn't belong to him.

"What is this mana? It's… not normal."

It was dark. Foreboding.

The kind of mana that left ruin in its path. The kind that smelled of blood and ancient ill will.

"If I cut off the flow now, I'll definitely die."

Halting in mid-process would shatter his mana circuits, leaving him disabled. If anyone caught him like that, they'd believe he was possessed. Or worse, a demon in human form.

"I can't get caught. Not now."

He gasped for air. There was only one thing to do.

He let the mana in.

A keen gasp ripped from his mouth as the power surged through his circuits, searing him with its dark power. It writhed through his veins, etching in deep patterns upon his body—runes inscribed in a tongue forgotten to the ages.

His eyes flew open.

For the first time, he saw it.

The mana was alive.

It crawled through his body like a living force, whispering secrets he couldn't yet decipher. His previously dormant circuits throbbed with dark energy.

"What manner of mana is this…?"

The light of the mana illuminated eerie shadows on the walls, distorting the space around him.

Then

A voice emerged from the depths.

"I have finally found you."

His blood froze.

A crack formed in the air itself.

Reality warped as the darkness seeped through the cracks, rich and choking. The presence from beyond the rift was immense old, hungry.

He had feared before.

He had known horror.

But this…

This was different.

A cold, unhuman hand plunged through the gap, its fingers impossibly elongated.

His body acted quicker than his brain. Mana bulged wildly rough, untried. A weak shield rose around him. But the being in front of him hardly batted an eyelid.

It had waited. Watched.

And now, it had come for him.

"You are not merely a reincarnated warrior."

The voice crept through the room, seeping into his bones.

"You are something else. Something far more deadly."

Saaransh clenched his teeth. His wiry frame shook under the burden of discovery.

He had been born again into the Stoneheart clan.

But his memories of past lives his hero status none of that had prepared him for this.

Whatever was occurring to him was past reincarnation.

Outside reason.

And in that moment, as the void stared back through the broken air, he knew

His life… never really belonged to him.

It had always been someone else's.

Something which had come to reclaim it at last.