The sand vibrated beneath his feet again.
Ikai walked along a barely perceptible dip in the ground, a line that stretched toward something disturbingly alien.
The air inside the tunnel was oppressive, like viscous, murky water. There was no light, but he felt a direction, as if an invisible hand was gently but relentlessly guiding him forward, or as if the very space was drawing him deeper.
The fragments of pseudo-glass crunched beneath his feet, not naturally occurring but artificially created.
The molten layers of quartz, dazzlingly bright, resembled scars on the ravaged skin of the desert.
The walls were covered with elongated patterns, as if the tunnel was part of a giant organism that had long forgotten its own life and essence.
Ikai sighed in frustration.
"I have to go through another tunnel! When will I finally reach the local city... do they even exist here?"
Suddenly, a worm emerged from the sand and glass dust, as if it had been spawned from an unknown world. Its transparency was almost ghostly, as if it were made of air and light itself.
He was impossibly tall, twice the height of any human, and his body shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, like a mosaic made up of countless other people's memories.
Inside the translucent shell, fragments of lives flashed by: faces contorted with pain or joy, screams of terror or ecstasy, flowers wilting and blooming, graves losing their shape under the weight of time, the first uncertain steps of infants, voices that sounded both clear and muffled, like echoes from a distant past.
"I can safely assume that this creature was responsible for the tremors on the surface, and perhaps it has the ability to take away other people's lives or memories?"
"I need to be careful…it's strange that I can no longer sense the stalker who was following me…did he get scared?"
His presence felt like a threat, like something foreign and dangerous. He radiated a hunger—not the usual hunger of the flesh, but a hunger for the soul, a desire to consume memories, emotions, and lives.
Ikai felt a chill of disgust run down his back. But this disgust wasn't directed at the worm - it was directed at himself. Because he knew that he couldn't resist.
Curiosity, like a venomous snake, was already wrapping itself around his heart, corrupting his resolve and caution. He wanted to know what lay within this creature, what secrets it held.
Suddenly, the star within him spoke.
"To move forward and not die, agree to give up one of your past memories…"
"If he takes away my memory…"
Ikai whispered to himself.
"I wish it were something insignificant."
He reached out his hand.
And then something came out of him, like a breath, like a warmth.
Ikai felt that he had lost – not immediately, but with a certainty that settled deep in his soul.
The realization crept up on him like a shadow, stealing his breath and leaving him empty. He could no longer remember his mother's face from his previous life. It was as if she had been erased from the canvas of his mind, leaving only an empty space where her image once stood.
There were no details left. Not the color of her eyes, which once held so much warmth and wisdom. Not the tone of her voice, which had lulled him to sleep when he was a child.
He wasn't even sure if she had ever existed, if she was a real person or just a figment of his imagination.
Now all he could see was emptiness, vast and unyielding. And in that emptiness, something foreign stirred.
It was a presence he couldn't quite name, a whisper on the edge of his consciousness that sent chills down his spine.
A flash of light blinded him for a moment, sharp and sudden. He shivered, not from cold, but from a terror that didn't belong to him.
It was a fear that took root in his flesh, penetrating deep into his very being, like a parasite feeding on his soul.
"The first memory is lost. And the first is taken…"
He felt disgusted. He felt robbed. Raped on a level of consciousness.
"Who are you, creature?"
He hissed, looking at the worm.
"Or… who am I now?"
The worm retracted back into the sand, leaving only glass dust and a trail of fear.
Ikai stood up, swaying.
He felt that he was still being watched.
And he felt that this was not the last loss. He exited from the other side of the cave.
"Again with the sand, you'd get depressed here soon"
Ikai moved through the desert silently, almost like a ghost, his steps leaving no marks on the shifting sands beneath him.
The wind carried no sound of his footsteps, and the dunes seemed to part before him in silent reverence. But then, without warning, he slowed down, sensing something amiss.
Something had changed, not in the world around him, but deep within himself. It was a subtle shift, almost imperceptible, but undeniable. The air had become heavy, filled with an invisible tension.
He took another step, but the silence that enveloped him refused to yield. It clung to him like a second skin, suffocating and relentless.
He took another step, and his own voice echoed in his head before he could formulate a thought.
Time itself seemed to have distorted, blurring the boundaries between the past, present, and future.
Ikai stopped, holding his breath. He stood completely still, his senses tuned to the slightest disturbance in the silence around him. The entire world held its breath with him, waiting... observing.
And then he heard it, not with his ears, but deep within his mind. It was his own voice, but not from the present.
It came from somewhere... from the past. A whisper of memories, a fragment of a future yet to be revealed.
"You've already said that. But not here."
The words hung in the air, full of deep meaning. Ikai's lips parted slightly, then closed again as he tried to make sense of what he had just heard.
His pulse, usually steady and strong, now beat in his throat in a frantic rhythm that seemed to pulse in time with the sand beneath his feet.
Slowly, without haste, he опустился на колени, reaching out to touch the cool surface of the sand. His fingers sank into the grains of sand, feeling their weight and texture, as if reconnecting with the real world.
Then, with a practiced motion, he pulled the Sandglass from his chest, a small object that shimmered faintly in the dim light.
The glass was filled not with sand, but with something much more elusive, something that seemed to move and have a life of its own.
The star within his chest reacted instantly, the shard darkening as if sensing a threat, but still responding, allowing energy to flow. The glass in his hands lit up, a pale reflection of someone else, not him.
Ikai looked and did not recognize.
A figure that looked like him. But there was strength in the movements, a cold determination, not a drop of fear in the eyes.
That Ikai didn't walk on the sands, he commanded them. The desert bent under his steps, as if breathing in unison with him. He wasn't alone.
Others walked alongside him.
Ikai shuddered. He wanted to throw away the glass, but he couldn't.
"This... isn't me"
He whispered.
"It's… the one I didn't become."
And the glass cracked.
From afar, as if in response, the pursuer, that faceless silhouette, suddenly stopped. Until then, he had simply been walking, as if outside of time. But now his head (or whatever it was) turned.
He heard.
Something he shouldn't have heard.
Ikai didn't move. He didn't blink. He wasn't even breathing.
The figure in the crimson mirage light froze, then changed direction. Her feet left a trail of glass that melted into the sand like a burn.
She was leaving, but not just like that. She was going where that Ikai was going.
"You've taken the wrong direction."
"He's going after the other one... For now"
Ikai straightened up. For the first time in days, he felt a chill inside. Not around him, in the night. But somewhere under his chest, where the star's pulse was faltering in a rhythm of error.
"Who will come after me then?"
The sand didn't answer.
The Sand Glass cracked a second time and activated something in the sands. Ikai Liu raised his head and saw something new besides the sand.
He stood among the dead flowers, each of which had once been a hope. Or an attempt to be one. The world did not move, but it rang. It was quiet, glassy. It was as if even the silence itself was fragile.
Ikai ran his fingers over the fragile petal, which didn't crumble but trembled beneath his skin, as if it remembered how to be alive.
"Don't bring dreams. They always die, like us."
The petal moved like lips. The voice was thin and brittle, as if it was remembering how to sound. He didn't know which was more terrifying – hearing it or realizing that his dreams would become the same: frozen, dead, and unwanted.
He pulled his hand away. Nothing changed. And then everything disappeared.
The garden began to crack at the seams.
Instead of collapsing, the glass lost its shape, like water that refused to become ice.
Everything that was began to crumble into transparent dust, flying up. Not even down, not a bit of meaning. Not a farewell.
He was left alone, standing in the void where someone's eternal attempt to live had recently been.
"It was a mirage after all"
Ikai felt something inside him becoming glass, too.
"Dreams... not for people like me. I'd ruin them anyway."
He knew that from the start, just wanted to see, if only for a moment, how it was for others.
He breathed in. The air heavy, as if it were breaking through the cracks of reality. He knew: what he had just seen was the remnant of a shadow.
And now he, too, is part of this emptiness, this place that was once someone else's attempt to become alive.
In the distance, it rang. Thin, as if it were not he who took a step on the glass.
He turned.
Ikai saw Him again.
The one who follows him...
"Damn, who are you, and what do you want from me?"
Only now the figure was a little closer. And every step it took left a trail. Not in the sand, but in reality. It was as if it were being reassembled.
He froze, feeling his heart contract not out of fear, but out of anger at himself.
At the one who was watching. At this world, where even memory dies before it can be reborn.
"Keep walking. You won't turn back anyway."
Somewhere in the depths of his chest, a star responded subtly, glowing yellow, and then went out again.
He walked without faith, but with a clear understanding:
Someone wants him to get there... or die. The difference is getting smaller.