A deep, silent darkness pressed against Adrian from every side. When his eyes snapped open, he saw nothing—no light, no shape, no hint of the world outside. He blinked a few times, but the darkness didn't change. His throat felt dry, and when he tried to make a sound, only a faint breath escaped. Even his mind felt stiff and empty, like his thoughts were coated in dust.
He tried to move his hand.
Nothing.
His entire body refused to respond, as if it belonged to someone else. Panic flared in his chest. What is happening to me? Where am I? He tried to remember… wasn't he supposed to be in his parents' house? How did he end up here?
More frightening was the sensation that this wasn't his small, young body—the body he remembered last. This… this was the body of an adult. A form he hadn't worn in what felt like lifetimes.
Minutes—or hours—passed in suffocating silence.
Then slowly… very slowly… his senses began returning. He could feel cold metal beneath him, like he was lying on a steel sheet. The space around him felt tight, boxed in. He was contained—sealed inside something.
A coffin?
A chamber?
He didn't know.
For three days, he drifted between consciousness and darkness. Only on the third day did he finally manage to twitch a finger… then curl his hand… then move his arm. Strength crawled back into his limbs like a reluctant visitor.
And when he could finally move enough, a thought rose inside him:
Is it possible to break out of here…?
The idea was insane. But he remembered something—no, someone—from his dreams or memories. A princess… or perhaps a general… a being of immense power commanding thousands of mystical beasts. He saw her again in his mind, her hands weaving ancient sigils, words of forgotten power rolling from her tongue. Her violet aura had torn apart armies.
His body didn't understand those powers, but his soul remembered enough to mimic a spark.
A faint violet mist coiled around his fingertips.
A spark of destruction.
He pressed it against the metal above him.
BOOM.
The chamber cracked open, a small hole forming. Cold, stale air rushed inside. Adrian pushed again, forcing more power through his trembling arms. At last, the opening broke wide enough for his head to rise through it.
He crawled out slowly.
And then the smell hit him.
A heavy, decaying stench—like a graveyard left untouched for centuries.
"What… is this smell…?" he whispered, though his voice barely formed. "Where am I?"
No answer came. The room around him was pitch dark, silent except for his own weak breathing.
But something else lingered in the air.
A feeling.
A presence.
A power.
It brushed against his skin like cold smoke. Mist—faint but familiar. The energy of mystical beasts. The very power from the world he thought was only a dream.
"Why… why is this mist here?" he murmured. "Did I come back to my real world? Was everything I saw… just a dream?"
Yet if it were only a dream, why could he still wield this power?
He tried to make sense of it. Tried to recall everything. He had already died twice—maybe more. Maybe this was his return… or something else entirely.
Then another memory surfaced.
The last words of the ancient being who protected him:
"Be aware of the boundary."And then—"I leave you with two gifts."
He hadn't understood it then. He barely understood it now. But as he focused on the memory, something shimmered before him.
A shield-like aura materialized around his body—soft, warm, protective. It condensed, forming into a cloak-like garment with a hood, draping over his bare shoulders like armor woven from moonlight.
Adrian stared at it, stunned.
"So… this is one of the gifts?"
It looked simple—almost like an ordinary hoodie or cloak—but it radiated a quiet power, one he could feel deep in his bones.
A laugh escaped him—weak but genuine.
"What a cool gift," he whispered, running his hand over the fabric. "Thank you… whoever you were."
Alone in the darkness, surrounded by the scent of death and mystery, Adrian felt—for the first time since waking up—a small spark of hope.
The gift was real.
The mist was real.
And whatever world he had returned to…
It was only the beginning.