The Price of Silence

The air had grown cold—colder than before. It wasn't the kind of cold that made you shiver. It was the kind of cold that made you question if you could ever feel warmth again. Sunny stood up slowly, his body betraying him with each movement. Sweat clung to his skin, mixing with the frost that had formed on his clothing.

Lysander's words echoed in his mind. "You will forget who you are." The weight of his own memories, now tangled with another's, pressed on him like a heavy shroud. The cost of his gift—the power to peer into the past—was more than just physical exhaustion. It was taking pieces of him, fracturing what little remained of his own identity.

"I didn't ask for this," Sunny muttered, more to himself than to Lysander. "I never wanted to see the past of others. I just… I just wanted to protect."

Lysander's gaze softened, but only for a moment. "Everyone wants to protect. But you know what they say—the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Sunny's chest tightened. He had heard those words before. But now, they felt different. What if Lysander was right? What if all the pain in the world wasn't just a result of bad decisions, but of people trying to shield themselves from it? Would he, too, become a monster in his own eyes if he kept using his power?

The silence stretched on, and in that silence, a decision began to form. It was no longer about what he could see. It was about what he was willing to lose.

"You never did understand, did you?" Lysander's voice broke through his thoughts again. "The world doesn't need a savior, Sunny. It needs someone to understand its pain. And the only way to understand it fully… is to make it yours."

Sunny's eyes narrowed. "I'm not going to let you do this to anyone else."

Lysander's lips twitched. "It's not about letting or not letting. It's about whether you're strong enough to stop it."

Sunny felt the ground beneath his feet shift, the weight of Lysander's words sinking in deeper than he cared to admit. He had come here to stop him, to fight him, but now he realized it wasn't just Lysander he was battling. It was everything he had ever believed in—his past, his purpose, and what it meant to fight for someone else's future.

"You think you can change the world?" Sunny's voice trembled, his hands now shaking with frustration. "You can't. You'll just create more pain. More victims. And when you're done, there will be nothing left but the echoes of all the suffering you caused."

A shadow flickered across Lysander's face. "You can't stop it. No one can. Because the world is suffering. And the only way to stop it is to make sure no one is ever allowed to escape it."

Sunny's vision blurred again. He saw faces—so many faces. His mother. His father. People he had lost. And then… he saw Lysander's face, once soft and full of hope, now hardened by grief and hatred.

The memories of others twisted in his mind, clouding his judgment. He could feel the weight of their pain pulling at him, drowning him.

"Enough!" Sunny shouted, summoning the last of his strength. A surge of power erupted from him, but it wasn't enough. The pain from his own exhaustion crashed against him like a tidal wave, and he fell to his knees once again.

Lysander stood over him, watching with cold eyes. "You're not ready, Sunny. You're not strong enough to fight me. Not yet."

With that, he turned, disappearing into the shadowed ruins. Sunny remained on the ground, breathing heavily. His chest heaved, and the silence of the world around him seemed louder than ever.

He wasn't ready. But he would be. One day, he would be strong enough to fight back.