Neo stood on the edge of the dream world. There was no ground beneath him, but a white void, warm and still. Without limits. Without directions.
Before him appeared a familiar figure, but... alien. It had white hair, eyes as black as night, and a silence that weighed as much as a galaxy.
"Who are you?" Neo asked.
"I am what you could become. I am what you would have been if you had given up searching," the figure said. His voice was low, like an echo from within the mind.
Neo felt a pressure in his chest. It wasn't fear, it was recognition.
"You are... me?"
"I am Kael."
The silence stretched between them. Neo felt that any movement, any word could break the balance of that space.
"Why did you give up?"
Kael lowered his gaze.
"I didn't give up. I saw everything. And after you see everything, there's nothing left but to destroy what repeats. Without end. Without beginning. Just circles of fire and ash."
Neo clenched his fists. He wanted to understand, but he didn't want to accept.
"And what if in the repetition itself lies something we haven't understood yet?"
Kael smiled bitterly. A smile that seemed to know more than it could say.
"Then you are more naive than I was."
A flash of light erupted between them, and Kael's silhouette began to dissolve.
"When you understand, we will meet again," he said, then vanished.
Neo woke up suddenly, his heart pounding in his chest like the drum of an invisible army. The sky was red at dawn. A new beginning, but not a peaceful one. It was the beginning of the question that would haunt him for a long time:
How close am I to becoming Kael ?
End of Chapter 4