When I finally managed to get up, I noticed that my body was covered in glowing cracks — unstable wounds that pulsed, bleeding both light and darkness at the same time, as if my very essence was fracturing between two opposing extremes.
It was the first time I'd been hurt in such a strange and deep way, and even though it seemed terribly serious, my regeneration kicked in almost immediately. Slowly, the cracks started closing up, as if time itself was being reversed only on my skin, until there was no trace left of what had happened.
Besides that, even though it hurt, somehow it was bearable. Strangely acceptable. My way of thinking was no longer that of an ordinary human — maybe because my pain tolerance had reached unimaginable levels? I felt, with an unsettling certainty, that even if my head was cut off, I would still be alive, aware, as if nothing had happened.
And honestly, I can't imagine that the pain of having my head chopped off is worse than being mutilated, piece by piece, while still breathing. But the truth was that I was struggling — even if it didn't seem like it. These wounds weren't normal. I could feel them slowly creeping through my body, as if they were seeping between my bones and organs, eating me away from the inside with a dull, constant pain.
It was an insane, chaotic, uncontrollable force — as if chaos itself had taken form and was now trying to twist me, break me apart from within, bit by bit. Every step I took required immense effort not to give in to the distortion that was slowly eating away at my form, as if trying to undo me from the inside out.
Meanwhile, she hovered at the center of the vortex she'd summoned, suspended in the air like the world around her had stopped mattering. Her silhouette pulsed at an irregular, unsettling rhythm, alive and threatening, as if directly connected to the heart of the anomaly — a beacon of chaos ready to burst.
(You're part of the puzzle, but you don't own the pieces) whispered the voice, wrapped in a dense, misty murmur — an invisible web slowly and suffocatingly wrapping around my mind, squeezing my chest with cold, silent claws: (I rewrite reality. And you... you're just a mistake that needs fixing)
I listened carefully to her words while looking down. Silently, I raised my hand in front of my eyes and stared at the cracks cutting through my palm. My whole body throbbed with pain — and the strangest part was that, even though I was anomalous, without muscles or bones, I could swear every nonexistent fiber was screaming.
It was like the pain wasn't in the body, but in the mind — yet every part of me felt it with frightening clarity. A strange, confusing sensation, like my own body was just mimicking the suffering of something no longer human.
The cracks spreading over my skin seemed to drain every drop of my life energy. The pain was constant, almost pulsing, like something inside me was breaking along with the flesh.
However, whenever I thought I was about to reach my limit, a stubborn spark — like a flame refusing to go out — reignited inside me, holding me up for just a little longer.
Still, even as my body gradually gave way, sinking into inevitable collapse, my eyes couldn't look away from the figure before me. More precisely, from the eyes of the entity standing there.
Even as she wounded me, cracks began spreading across my body — tearing the skin with sharp pain, slowly twisting my essence from within. Tears ran endlessly down her face, sliding silently, as if trying to erase the anguish consuming me. It was as if, somehow impossibly, she shared my deep pain, like every blow she struck left an invisible scar on her own heart as well.
Even though I was the one hurt, even though my body was marked by cracks that bled silently, it was as if with each new wound opening on my skin, something inside me — an invisible, aching soul — was tearing apart inside, ripped to pieces. Yet that same soul persisted, not out of hatred for me, not out of a desire for my death, nor out of malice.
It persisted simply out of despair. A deep, despairing despair that didn't come from hate, but from emptiness — from the terror of not understanding, of knowing nothing. A despair of existing, of being aware of your own presence yet trapped in the anguish of not knowing the reason, the purpose, the essence behind that existence.
As I kept my gaze fixed on her, on the delicate contours of her face, the distortions around me began to speed up, as if time itself was unraveling into thinner and thinner threads.
With every second, the false reality grew more unstable — that field, which had once seemed infinite and serene, now revealed itself as a trembling glass surface, about to shatter into a thousand pieces.
The sky above trembled in silent waves, as if struggling to stay whole, resisting an invisible force that threatened to tear it apart. And she… she remained there, floating, immersed in unsettling stillness, but something had changed in her — a subtle shadow crossing her eyes.
She no longer seemed to be fighting the instability — on the contrary, she seemed to be feeding it, almost as if welcoming it. Her form flickered with increasing intensity, pulsing like a living flame consuming the very ruin of the world around her.
Fragments of light and shadow danced across her skin, reflecting the latent chaos. Her eyes, deep and enigmatic, shone with contradictory hues — gold and violet, like fire and night intertwined, symbolizing at once light and darkness, hope and despair, locked in a silent battle within her.
And when she spoke, her voice echoed like a silent thunder, reverberating directly inside me, penetrating every corner of my mind: (I will destroy you...) And in the silence that followed, her words continued, sharp as invisible blades: (And so, finally, I will… reclaim what is missing inside me)
The field around us shook violently at the resonance of her words, as if the dimension itself had become aware and filled with deep fear. The air grew thick, heavy with an almost tangible tension.
She descended slowly, with an almost supernatural grace, until she touched the fake ground beneath her feet, which seemed to crack under her weight. Then she reached out her right hand toward me — not a gesture of peace, but a deliberate choice, loaded with meaning. There was something solemn, almost ceremonial, about that movement.
(Even if I have to destroy everything for it) she said with frightening calm, her eyes shining with fierce determination: (This ridiculous prison... this fake space… I will destroy them completely)
Then she closed her hand. The world responded without delay. A dull, oppressive roar reverberated through the air, as if the very earth had whispered a fatal warning. Shortly after, a dark crack opened in the sky, snaking like a black lightning bolt tearing through the clouds and swallowing the light around it.
At that very moment, gravity jolted with brutal force. My feet left the ground, and my body was ripped upward, thrown into the void that opened beyond — not as if I were falling, but as if I were being expelled, cast out from the illusion.
(I'll do whatever it takes) she said, her voice steady, almost a whisper filled with pain. Her eyes locked onto mine, glowing with a fierce mix of determination and deep hurt, as if every word was a silent vow: (I'm going to take back everything you took from me)
There was no time to question. The reality around us shattered like glass smashed by a hammer. Shards of blue sky — a fake, almost unreal blue — exploded in all directions, like fragments of a fragile dream evaporating into the air.
The ground beneath our feet cracked, breaking into thousands of pieces that floated slowly around us, as if pieces of a nightmare were being torn forcefully from my subconscious, leaving a cold emptiness in my chest.
For a brief moment, everything dissolved into liquid darkness — an ethereal void between worlds, cold and shapeless, where time seemed to melt away. I saw her in the distance, floating like a fragile flickering flame, her body trembling under the pressure of an invisible, almost tangible force squeezing her being.
There was no sound there, no echo, no whisper — only absolute silence, an absence that crushed all points of reference. It was the threshold, the thin in-between, the suspended moment between universes. And then, with sudden violence, came the impact.
Light returned, slicing through space like a sharp blade. My body was violently thrown through icy layers of air that burned my skin on contact. Soon after, a new gravity grabbed me tightly, pulling me down as if I had no control.
I opened my eyes, feeling the real world — or something eerily close to it — slowly materialize around me, shapes and colors becoming clear through the haze. We fell, together and inevitably.
The biting wind slammed against my skin with brutality, piercing down to my bones. Around me, snow fell — real snow, dense and wet, muffling the sounds of the world beneath its silent blanket. The air, sharp as a knife's edge, carried the pungent scent of pine and ice, a living blend of winter.
White branches, heavy with frost, brushed close to my body as we plummeted through the tall, twisted limbs of that frozen forest, where the silence felt as deep as the snow itself.
And then I saw it: a lake. But it wasn't like the one from the other dimension. This one was real. Frozen to the core, ancient as time, wrapped in a darkness so thick it seemed to swallow every bit of light around it. The surface reflected nothing — it was as if the lake were a hungry abyss, sucking the very brightness out of the world.
I didn't know exactly how I had arrived at the place where the entity slept, but I felt that somehow, it had brought me back to base 17. And there, beneath the black, still surface, my eyes caught something: my Alter Ego. He was there, motionless, eyes glowing bright red like embers, fixed directly on me.
My body plummeted from above, like a stone thrown at high speed into the void. The wind cut across my face; the feeling of falling seemed endless. But just before I collided with the lake's black waters, shadows emerged from every direction, wrapping me in invisible, firm arms.
They held me with surprising strength, slowing my fall until my feet gently touched the muddy surface of the lake, creating small circles that spread slowly outward. I didn't care about the grime covering me; my eyes stayed locked, intense, on the entity that appeared right before me, its presence dominating the scene with a threatening silence.
It landed softly soon after, floating gracefully over the water's surface. Its feet didn't touch the mirrored liquid, but with every slight movement, the surface rippled and distorted as if reacting to its presence. Around it, waves moved slowly, forming concentric circles that expanded even in the complete absence of wind.
(I... don't know this place, I don't remember) it murmured, eyes slowly scanning the surroundings. Its tone carried no surprise, only a deep, almost unsettling confusion: (It seems familiar... but at the same time, strange. Like I know... and yet I don't know) it said, furrowing its brow slightly, trying to grasp a memory slipping through its fingers.
The forest around us seemed to hold its breath, as if it dared not make even a whisper. I slowly stood up, chest still heavy, my breath broken by the persistent pain. The cracks that ran across my body had stopped glowing, but the deep discomfort remained.
There, in that place, my regeneration happened at an accelerated pace — almost miraculous. I could feel, within seconds, the fissures closing, as if nature itself wanted to heal me. Maybe something in that dimension, or space, had completely blocked my healing, preventing me from fully recovering. But now, far from there, regeneration returned to its natural rhythm.
Still, none of that mattered. I didn't care at all. All my vision could focus on was the girl in front of me — her face heavy with sadness and confusion, as if she carried the weight of the world in her eyes.
(Nyara) I called, my voice strangely melancholy, almost a whisper filled with a feeling I barely understood myself.