Kael tumbled through the shimmering strands of fractured time, each step pulling him deeper into a world that felt both alien and painfully familiar. The air around him shimmered with cold blue light, the remnants of a forgotten past echoing faintly like distant thunder.
He landed softly on cracked stone beneath an endless twilight sky. Around him stretched a barren landscape—a childhood stripped of warmth, painted in shades of loneliness and shadow.
The scent of damp earth, the hollow creak of rusted playground swings swaying in a ghostly breeze—it all hit Kael's senses like a cruel reminder: this was Aeris Omega's past. The one she never wanted him to see.
His footsteps echoed as he moved forward, heart heavy. The world here was frozen in a moment long ago, a memory suspended between hope and despair.
And then, from the shadows, a small figure emerged.
A young Aeris—barefoot, cheeks streaked with tears, eyes wide with fear yet burning with fierce defiance.
She looked up at Kael, confusion flickering in her gaze, as if sensing a stranger in a place she thought only she inhabited.
Before he could speak, a voice whispered—soft, elusive, like silk sliding through the air.
"You are not broken. You are reborn."
The words wrapped around Kael's mind, pulling him toward the edge of the memory.
He followed the sound to a hidden glade bathed in eerie silver light, where a mysterious figure cloaked in shadows waited. The presence was neither fully there nor gone—a ripple in the fabric of time itself.
The figure reached out, and the world around them twisted.
Visions flooded Kael's mind:
—Aeris, alone and abandoned, betrayed by those she trusted most.—A silent scream echoing through empty halls.—A choice made in desperation, a pact sealed with the void.—A spark of power awakening—raw, dangerous, and beautiful.
Kael staggered back, gasping for breath.
"Who are you?" he demanded, eyes blazing.
The shadowed figure smiled—a smile both kind and cruel.
"I am the Whisper," the voice said, "the echo of all things lost. The keeper of forgotten futures. The one who showed her the way when hope was gone."
Kael's fists clenched.
"You turned her. You made her what she is."
The Whisper's eyes glowed with impossible light.
"I did not make her. I revealed what was already inside. The part she buried deep to survive."
The air grew thick with tension as Kael felt the weight of truth crushing down on him.
If Aeris Omega's darkness was born from survival… what chance did the Aeris he loved have left?
"Tell me," Kael said, voice raw, "how do I save her?"
The Whisper's gaze pierced through him.
"By facing your own shadows. By unraveling the lies you built around love and sacrifice. Only then can the true Aeris emerge—free, whole, and ready to rewrite the Rift."
Lightning flashed across the twilight sky.
Kael swallowed hard, knowing the path ahead would not just test his strength, but his very soul.
Because to save her, he must first save himself.