The sky cracked—not just fissuring, but shattering like a vast dome of black velvet struck by an invisible hammer. Light surged through the jagged breaks, blinding rivers of pure energy, revealing a world Allan did not recognize, yet one his very bones cried out to remember.
He floated, weightless and still, suspended somewhere between time and flesh, a mere consciousness.
Before him, the girl—her—stood with a serene, knowing smile. Lulu. No longer the fleeting, shadowed figure of his dreams, she now glowed with an ethereal warmth. Her eyes, a swirling tempest of gold and flame, shimmered with an unbearable joy at his presence.
"Allan," she whispered, her voice a haunting melody woven with threads of ancient sorrow and enduring promise. "You've come so far."
He stepped towards her, drawn by an invisible thread, something ancient and unbreakable. "Why do I know you?"
"Because you always did," she replied, her smile deepening. "Even before you were Allan."
Then, without warning, the world trembled. Lulu's radiant outline began to flicker, her form wavering like a candle flame caught in a sudden draft. Allan gasped, reaching instinctively, but she raised her hand.
"You must choose now."
The words echoed, dissolving into the vastness—and then the dream split into two distinct realities.
To his left, a furious storm surged, an unending torrent of wind and rain. Thunder cracked like the drums of war, rattling his very being. From within its chaotic heart, he saw Canya—drenched, staggering forward, clutching a small, pulsating orb against her chest. Her eyes were wide, dilated with terror. She stumbled again and again, the thick mud at her ankles pulling like hungry, grasping mouths.
"Help me," she cried, but it wasn't just her voice. It was a chorus, the collective wail of Thomas, of the children, of every soul in the town, all crying out for Allan.
"You were meant for us!" they wailed, their voices distorted by the storm. "You can stop this! We will give you power! We will honor you! You will save her!"
And Canya turned her face upward, her eyes locking with Allan's through the driving rain. "Please… if you don't help me, I will drown."
He took a step towards her—and the storm, surprisingly, wrapped itself around him, not with cold fury but with an insidious warmth. Thomas's voice echoed now, smooth and commanding, almost a caress.
"Think clearly, Allan. Prophecy is not dream-stuff. It is destiny. You were brought here to restore balance. Choose me, and you'll have a name—protection. You'll save her… and yourself."
And Allan felt the potent pull of it—the desperate desire to belong, to have a defined place, to be someone significant in a world that had always left him adrift and confused.
But then,
From his right, a profound silence unfurled. A gentle, light-filled silence.
He turned.
And there stood Lulu, again—but now bathed in a field of pure, golden light. She was barefoot, standing on grass that sparkled as if it had just remembered the morning dew. Her hands were outstretched, an open invitation. No words were needed; her mere presence made the raging storm around Canya feel like a suffocating cage of iron.
She wasn't crying. She wasn't begging.
She was waiting.
Waiting for him to remember.
He hesitated, the two worlds pressing in.
"If I choose her," he asked aloud, his voice barely a whisper against the dual realities, "Canya suffers?"
The storm surged again, a furious retort. "If you choose Lulu, you lose us all!"
But Lulu's image flickered, and then her voice, clear as a bell, broke through the cacophony like a song piercing the din of war.
"Canya's path is her own. But if you lie to yourself, if you stay where you were not meant to stay… you both fall."
The world shifted once more.
Canya was now kneeling in the mud, her body ensnared by vines of both light and shadow, pulled in agonizing directions. Lulu, still smiling, stood a little farther back—but something in her smile had subtly changed. It was softer. Sadder.
He saw it clearly now, the truth a searing brand.
Thomas wasn't asking him to save Canya.
He was asking him to sacrifice himself to a system that consumed people like tools. He would become a vessel, yes—but for a prophecy twisted and interpreted by a man too afraid to admit his own fear.
And yet… saving Canya still meant something.
The storm whispered, a seductive hiss, "Be her hero."
The light whispered, a gentle truth, "Be true."
Then, Debora's voice rang like a bell: "You will have to make a choice. Forces stronger than you can imagine will pull you in every direction."
Allan closed his eyes, the competing visions burning behind his lids.
He saw Lulu…
He saw Canya…
And then he saw himself.
A boy looking for a place to belong. A boy who had suffered quietly, his pain a constant companion. A boy marked by dreams he never asked for. A boy in love with a woman who was probably lost to someone else, forever out of reach.
He opened his eyes.
"I choose…"
The words snagged in his throat, half-formed, fragile. The storm howled louder now, growing frantic, desperate. Canya's voice broke through the din, strained and desperate, "Allan! Please! I need you—only you can do this!"
And in that moment, Allan felt the pressure in his skull—the crushing weight of prophecy, of expectation, of every single voice shouting over the others, demanding his allegiance.
But beneath it all… he remembered. Fragments of the dream he had of Lulu yesterday, coalescing into undeniable clarity:
"You're not where you think you are, Allan." "You're inside something… A design. A web." "Do not be quick to choose, for what you choose will be the road you walk."
Allan opened his eyes, the last fragment clicking into place.
The vision split before him again—Canya, still struggling against the storm, eyes pleading. Thomas' voice, low and warm, a serpent's promise in his ear: "Come now, son. You can save her. You can save all of us."
And then Lulu—still waiting, still knowing, her presence a silent, unwavering beacon.
Allan's heart ached. Not because he wanted to abandon Canya, but because he finally understood:
The storm was probably hers.
The weight was definitely not his.
And love—real, true love—does not shackle; it frees.
He turned fully toward the golden field. Lulu smiled. Not triumphant. Not victorious. Just… right.
"I choose her," Allan said quietly, the words feeling both small and monumentally significant. Then louder, firmer, resonating through the shifting realities, "I choose Lulu."
The storm screamed, a sound of pure agony, then shrivelled into nothing. Canya's image twisted in protest, vanishing like smoke pulled into the boundless sky.
Thomas's voice cracked through the veil, furious, enraged. "You fool! You've doomed everything!"
But Allan didn't listen. He took a single step forward, and the ground beneath him shifted, no longer mud or starlight, but something else entirely. Light burst from the golden field as Lulu stepped back, her arms wide, welcoming him home.
As he crossed the final, invisible threshold, a warmth unlike any he had ever known filled him—not merely relief, but a profound, undeniable clarity.
This wasn't an escape.
It was a return.
To himself.
To her.
To the truth.
As the light consumed everything, the furious, desperate voices from the other side faded into dust, mere echoes of a path left behind.
And Lulu's hand reached for his.
He took it.