Rael didn't stop running until the oppressive red glow of the coffin chamber faded behind him and the air finally thinned enough for him to breathe again. His lungs burned, not from exhaustion, but from something else fear. A rare, foreign sensation he hadn't felt since he'd stepped into this warped realm.
He stopped beside a half-collapsed archway, leaning a hand against cold stone. His heart hammered violently, mirroring the tremor he'd felt within the coffin. The voice… that mournful whisper, as soft as breath he couldn't erase it.
"Why did you abandon me…?"
Rael clenched his teeth. He had no memory of any woman, no vow, no connection like the one that voice evoked. Yet the ache in his chest told him otherwise something deep within him remembered her even if his mind didn't.
He closed his eyes briefly.What am I missing? What haven't I remembered yet?
Before he could sink deeper into thought, the ground rumbled beneath him soft at first, then growing into a violent tremor that shook the entire ruin.
A second heartbeat.
Not from the coffin this time.
From the land itself.
Rael pushed away from the wall, blade ready. Dust cascaded from the ceiling. Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone floor. The ruins around him moaned like the dying breaths of a beast too old to rise again.
Then a jagged tear split open across the sky.
Rael's eyes widened as the clouds tore apart like thin fabric. Behind the rift, a world of pitch-black void churned. Figures shadowy, monstrous, half-formed pressed against the tear as though desperately clawing their way into this realm.
Not shadows.Not illusions.
Hunters.
And they had found their prey.
Rael tightened his grip on the silver blade, the metal vibrating with sharp tension as if eager for battle. "So… you've come faster than I expected."
One of the creatures pushed through the rift. Its shape twisted into existence, limbs bending at impossible angles. It had no mouth, no eyes only a hollow, gaping void where a face should have been.
Rael didn't hesitate.
He moved like lightning, blade flashing in a silver arc. The creature lunged at him, screeching without a mouth, but Rael's blade cut through it cleanly except the slash didn't kill it. Instead, the shadow rippled, shuddered, then re-formed as though the strike had never happened.
His eyes narrowed. So that's how it is…
A second creature emerged. A third. Soon the archway behind him was filled with them, their silent steps echoing unnaturally across the broken temple floor.
The voice from the coffin chamber suddenly whispered in his mind again quieter, strained.
"Rael… run…"
He didn't.
Instead, he sank into a stance that felt both new… and familiar. As if he had trained all his life in a place he couldn't remember.
The silver blade pulsed.
The creatures lunged.
He met them head-on.
A sweeping strike of silver light tore through the first creature this time splitting the shadow in two. The halves rippled violently, then evaporated into smoke. Rael smirked. So they can be killed… if I strike with intent.
Another creature lunged at him from the side, claws screaming against stone. Rael ducked beneath it, driving his blade upward. A harsh hum rippled from the weapon, slicing the beast cleanly in half.
Two down. Three more emerged.
Rael pivoted, unleashing a barrage of strikes. The blade moved as if guiding him, pulling his body into perfect rhythm. The ground beneath him cracked under the force of each step. The glow in his eyes brightened a silver fire.
He wasn't the prey here.
He was the storm.
Within moments, the shadows dissolved into nothing. Silence returned but not peace. The rift above still pulsed faintly, like an eye that hadn't blinked yet.
And then From the other side of the rift, a massive arm reached out. Not shadowy. Not hollow.
Flesh.
Covered in dark, ancient runes.
A humanoid figure leaned into the tear, too large to cross entirely. Its glowing amber eyes locked onto Rael from the other side of the sky. It didn't step through. It didn't roar. It only watched him with a predator's patience.
A low rumble echoed through Rael's mind.
"Found you."
Rael's breath caught. He felt it some unseen chain tightening around him, pulling at something buried deeper than memory. He staggered slightly, clutching his chest.
"Who… are you?" he growled.
The figure didn't answer.
Instead, it lifted a hand and tapped the air beside the rift. The fabric of the world trembled again.
And suddenly
A searing pain shot through Rael's skull. Images flashed violently behind his eyes A woman smiling through tears.Blood on his hands.A burning throne.Chains.A promise whispered under dying stars.
Rael fell to one knee.
"Stop…" he gasped.
But the figure only watched.
It wanted him to remember.
The rift began closing, tearing the creature back into the void. But before it vanished, it whispered one final sentence one that froze Rael's heartbeat.
"You cannot outrun the past you abandoned."
The tear sealed itself with a thunderous crack, leaving Rael alone beneath the shaking sky.
He stayed frozen for a long moment, his mind lingering on that one word
Abandoned…
Just like the voice in the coffin.
Just like the woman in his memory.
He stood up slowly, blade trembling in his hand.
Whatever was inside that chained coffin…Whatever hunted him from beyond the sky…Whatever past he had forgotten…
It was all coming for him.
And this time, he wouldn't run.