Everything exploded into light.
Lucan couldn't see. Couldn't hear. Couldn't breathe.
The world had been ripped away—torn apart at the seams—and now he was hurtling through a kaleidoscope of colors, stars and void. Around him, fragments of light and matter twisted in impossible shapes, bending and folding in on themselves like reflections on shattered glass.
He reached for something—anything—but there was no ground, no sky, no sense of up or down. Only movement. Unstoppable, violent movement.
Lyra was ahead of him, cocooned in a strange barrier of soft golden light. It wrapped around her like a second skin, protecting her from the chaos outside. Her eyes were wide, terrified, but she looked unharmed.
Lucan, however, had no such protection.
Sharp fragments of dust sliced past him, some catching his skin, searing across his arms and legs. Each one left trails of pain, hot and seething. Then came the stones—tiny, ragged rocks spinning through the stream of time and space like bullets. One struck his shoulder with a force that shattered bone, tearing through flesh. Another slammed into his side, knocking the wind out of him. He screamed, but no sound left his lips. The pain was unbearable—blinding and electric. Everything went blurry—he was about to pass out.
One shard of stone pierced his eye. The pain was white-hot, a scream that ripped through his skull as the sharp rock bored into the socket, punching through the fragile tissue behind it. Vision vanished, replaced by searing agony. Then strangely—the stone began to move—pushed back, inch by inch, until it was expelled from the same path it had entered. The ruined eye reconstructed itself as a miracle of regeneration. Lucan convulsed, gasping, blood mixing with tears.
Another fragment slammed into the side of his head, cracking the skull open. A glimpse of exposed brain matter followed before it, too, was drawn back inside, sealed by tendrils of living tissue. Blood streamed down his face only to be reabsorbed moments later.
His clothes shredded in strips—torn apart by the relentless bombardment. His shirt hung in tatters, revealing raw, bleeding wounds on his skin. His pants were ripped, soaked with blood that seemed to vanish with each passing breath. He looked like a corpse being stitched together by unseen hands.
Despite the severe injuries, his body refused to give in. Deep within, a hidden energy stirred—one that would soon begin to close the shattered bones, stitch torn flesh, and seal his wounds. But that healing had yet to start.
He didn't die.
The wounds closed almost immediately. Tendons stitched themselves back together, bone cracked and shifted, then fused. The skin sealed, leaving behind nothing but fresh blood and a pulsing throb. It was like watching time rewind on his own body.
A strange energy spiraled around him—soft and radiant, with a color he couldn't describe. It danced along his limbs, circled his torso, and sank into his chest like air slipping into his lungs. He felt it as a warmth and a chill at the same time, a hum that vibrated in his bones. It didn't ask permission. It just entered.
Lyra stared at him, her eyes wide with shock. Her mouth moved in a silent call—his name—but the rushing force between them swallowed her voice. She couldn't reach him, just as he couldn't reach her.
The light deepened.
Lucan was trembling now, his muscles twitching with every jolt of matter against his body. The pain was beyond human comprehension. His nerves were fire, his chest felt crushed, yet he remained conscious. It felt as if his skin was being stripped away, layer by layer, only to mend itself again. Over and over. The dust didn't stop, nor did the rocks. The deeper they fell, the more brutal the passage became.
Yet, even in the chaos, it was beautiful.
Planets shimmered in the distance like pearls on an infinite string. Galaxies spun slowly, their arms stretching out like dancers. Nebulae burst in colors too wild and vivid to name—violet, turquoise, and gold all fused into one. Time bent in slow waves, stretching memories and moments into stardust.
He saw stars dying and being born. Worlds forming and collapsing. A sea of creation and destruction all around him.
But within that beauty, he felt like he was being peeled apart.
His skin burned with each new layer of ash and fire. His nerves screamed as strange energy forced its way through his cells, knitting something new inside him. It was as if he were being rewritten from the inside out. He wanted to cry out—to beg for it to stop—but he couldn't even form the words. Every breath felt like razors in his lungs.
It wasn't just pain. It was violation. As if something was touching him, reading him, marking him. A silent force that saw every thought, every memory, every weakness. It didn't speak, but it watched. Like a thousand invisible eyes beneath the spiraling currents.
The energy didn't merely enter his body—it merged with it, slow and deliberate. As if claiming him.
Lucan's heart pounded. His vision blurred again. He wanted to let go, to surrender to the darkness edging into his mind. But every time it started to take him, the energy pulsed, pulling him back, not letting him pass out. It wanted him awake. It wanted him to feel every moment.
"Please... stop." he whispered. But the words were eaten by the storm.
He turned his head to Lyra.
She was crying now—silent tears moving in zero gravity, suspended in the golden glow around her. She couldn't reach him, but she saw what was happening. She saw him breaking. And she couldn't stop it.
Just when it felt like he couldn't survive another second, the tearing slowed. The screaming wind of light and matter began to settle, shaping into a ring of white.
The pressure eased.
Lucan gasped as his body stopped convulsing. The energy that had spiraled around him thinned and began to fade—but not entirely. A trace of it remained, nestled deep inside him, like a whisper curled around his soul.
Then, with a final pull, the rift spat them out.
They landed hard.
Lucan collapsed onto cracked, ashen ground. His hands scraped against ragged stone as he coughed and choked on air that felt too thick. Every inch of his body screamed. Even healed, he felt raw. His skin twitched with phantom pain, his shoulder throbbed where bone had once broken. He blinked against the sudden light.
Above them stretched a sky of swirling ash-gray clouds, thick and restless, pulsing faintly with an eerie, dim light. Two suns hung low—one a pale flicker, the other a dull ember—casting a cold, uneven glow over the cracked, obsidian-black ground. Ragged crystal formations jutted from the earth like frozen lightning, humming softly with strange energy. Sparse, spindly trees with glass-like leaves swayed silently in a wind that stirred no dust. Beneath it all, faint veins of glowing blue light traced patterns beneath the surface, as if the planet itself held a secret pulse.
Lyra stumbled toward him, her barrier finally dissolving. She dropped to her knees beside him.
"Lucan!" she cried, voice trembling. "You're—are you okay? Can you hear me?"
He nodded slowly. His throat felt scorched. "I think... I'm still here."
She helped him sit up, her hands gentle, almost scared to touch him.
She was crying. "It's my fault," she choked. "All of this—it happened because of me. If I hadn't taken you there—if I hadn't—"
Lucan shook his head, still gasping. "You didn't know. Neither did I."
She hugged him suddenly, tightly, her breath shaking. "I thought I lost you. I thought—"
They both turned their eyes to the strange new world.
Behind them, the rift sealed itself with a hiss of energy, vanishing into nothing.
The silence that followed was vast.
Lucan shivered.
Whatever this place was, they were no longer home.
And something had changed in him forever.
[End of Chapter 4]