The Pale Truth

The descent felt endless.

The spiral staircase wound deeper into the earth, its walls lined with inscriptions in a dead language. Sunny could feel them vibrating—alive, almost breathing. With each step, the air grew colder, heavier, and soaked with something… ancient. Not evil. Not good. Just true.

His hand grazed the wall, and for a flicker of a second, memories not his own surged into him.

A child screaming.

Chains rattling.

And a boy—eyes pure and wild—smiling while watching the world burn.

Sunny staggered.

That wasn't me… was it?

The voice didn't return, but something else did. A pulse. Like a heartbeat echoing through the stone. Calling.

At the bottom of the stairwell was a chamber—circular, vast, and silent. A pedestal stood at its center, on it lay a mask. Pale white. Featureless.

Sunny stepped closer. The moment he did, the walls shimmered… and changed.

Now they showed visions—painted in light and memory.

He saw a world on fire.

He saw cities drowned in silence.

And he saw a boy—Lysander—kneeling beside someone's grave. Not crying. Just staring. In that stillness, a monstrous decision bloomed.

"I will never let anyone suffer alone again," the boy said.

Sunny's breath caught.

So that's it…

Lysander didn't want to destroy the world.

He wanted to change it.

Even if it meant breaking it.

The mask on the pedestal pulsed faintly. Without knowing why, Sunny picked it up. The moment his fingers touched it, pain exploded in his mind.

He saw his mother.

His father.

And the moment he was marked with a scar—after taking a life for the first time.

"You're a prodigy," the man had said, right before Sunny screamed and—

Blank.

Sunny collapsed, gasping.

He wasn't sure what was real anymore. And the chamber offered no answers.

Only a warning.

The truth is not a gift. It's a curse. And every curse carries a price.