The night air was thick with tension. The stars above shimmered dimly, veiled by the ever-present haze that had begun seeping through the cracks of the realms. Elara stood at the cliff's edge, her cloak rustling in the wind like the wings of some ancient spirit. Below her, the jagged ravines glowed with faint crimson light, pulsing like a heartbeat—ominous and rhythmic.
"They're coming," she whispered.
Beside her, Darius adjusted his gauntlet, the metal fingers clicking softly. "I felt it too. The energy shifted. Whatever's out there… it's not of this world anymore."
Elara didn't reply immediately. Her thoughts were racing—fragmented visions from her dreams continued to haunt her. A mirror cracked in a field of silence. A child crying beneath a tree that bled. The sound of something old… something forgotten… whispering her name from across dimensions.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out the broken sigil they'd retrieved from the Vault of Echoes. It pulsed faintly in her palm, and when she closed her eyes, the world around her seemed to bend.
"Elara!" Darius snapped, grabbing her shoulder. "Don't slip into it again."
She blinked, and the world righted itself. But for a second, she had seen through reality—a glimpse of something colossal stirring beneath the fabric of their realm.
"I wasn't trying to," she murmured. "It's getting stronger."
Darius didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Behind them, footsteps approached. Mira, the rogue from the Umbral Spire, emerged from the shadows. She was covered in soot and blood, though her smirk remained unfazed.
"They've breached the third seal," she announced. "The Enclave's wards barely held them back. One more push, and that rift opens wide."
Elara's heart sank. "We were supposed to have more time."
"Well," Mira said, flipping her dagger in a lazy arc, "guess the universe didn't get the memo."
Darius turned toward Elara. "We need a plan. We can't just wait for them to spill through. If we go now—if we cut through the Rift Path ourselves—we might be able to destroy the anchor point before it fully materializes."
Elara hesitated. The Rift Path was unstable. A corridor of fractured reality, where time looped and minds broke. Only those with immense willpower—or sheer recklessness—dared to walk it.
But what choice did they have?
"I'll do it," she said finally. "I'm the one it's calling. I can feel it."
"You're not going alone," Darius said firmly.
Mira shrugged. "Figures. I steal a relic, cheat death, and I still end up babysitting a Chosen."
Elara tried to smile, but the weight in her chest was too heavy. She looked back toward the horizon, where the rift was beginning to tear through the sky like a wound.
❖❖❖
The portal opened with a shriek.
Not a mechanical hum, not even the deep rumble of ancient magic—but a scream. Raw. Agonizing. Alive.
Stepping into the Rift Path was like falling into a kaleidoscope built from memories and nightmares. The world around them twisted into spirals of light and color, where nothing held form for more than a second.
Elara gritted her teeth, gripping the sigil tightly. It burned against her skin, reacting violently to the unstable environment.
Darius grunted. "I hate this place."
"You and me both," Mira muttered.
Shapes formed and dissolved. A tower they once climbed together flickered in the corner of Elara's vision, only to shatter like glass. A moment later, she saw her mother's face in the sky—then it warped into a thousand screaming mouths.
"We need to focus," Elara said, her voice trembling.
They pressed forward. Time bled here—seconds stretched into hours or collapsed into moments. At one point, they walked over their own footsteps. In another, they found the charred corpses of themselves, twisted and blackened. Mira stared too long at one and began to weep silently. She never explained why.
Eventually, they reached the anchor point.
It hovered above a black lake of liquid silence, rippling with inverted reflections. A massive crystalline shard, like a frozen scream, suspended mid-air. Veins of red energy snaked out from it, latching onto the folds of reality.
"That's it," Elara whispered.
As they stepped closer, the ground cracked. From the lake emerged a figure. Or rather… a mirror.
It was Elara.
But not her.
This version wore a twisted crown of bone and her eyes were voids. Her voice echoed from a hundred directions.
"You are not ready," the doppelgänger said. "You think power means purpose. You think sacrifice has meaning. But I am what you become when the world stops pretending."
Darius raised his blade, but Elara held up a hand. "No. This is my fight."
She stepped forward.
The clash was not physical. Not entirely.
Memories shattered. Her own doubts turned into chains, dragging her down. The voice of her father, disappointed. The screams of those she couldn't save. The nights she begged for this power, only to find it hollow.
The mirror-Elara struck with words that bled. "You can't save them all. You never could. You never will."
Elara trembled… but then smiled.
"You're right," she said softly. "But I don't have to save everyone… just the ones I love. And I don't need to be perfect. I just need to be true."
She slammed the sigil into the anchor.
A blinding light erupted. The mirror-Elara shrieked, dissolving into ash. The lake boiled, reality mending as the Rift Path began to collapse.
"RUN!" Elara shouted.
They ran.
As the world folded in on itself, they leaped through the unraveling corridor, tumbling through timelines, memories, raw emotion—
—and then—
Silence.
They landed on grass. Real, green, solid grass. The sky above was blue again. The rift… gone.
Elara gasped, rolling onto her back. Darius landed beside her, groaning.
Mira lay a few feet away, laughing hysterically.
"Next time," she gasped, "let's take the scenic route."
But Elara wasn't laughing. She felt… emptier. Like something had been left behind in that mirror.
She reached into her pocket. The sigil was gone.
But so were the whispers.
For now.
❖❖❖
That night, as they camped beneath the stars, Elara sat alone, staring into the fire. Darius eventually joined her, tossing a piece of wood into the flames.
"You did it," he said.
"For now," she replied. "But you saw what I saw, didn't you?"
Darius nodded. "That wasn't just a vision. That was a warning."
Elara didn't speak again. She watched the flames dance, knowing that even though they'd won a battle…
…the war beyond the realms had only just begun.