The camp was alive with whispers, but Macon felt none of it.
The cursed sword's hum still lingered inside him, echoing through his bones with every breath. Each step away from the crimson armory made the scar beneath his ribs flare hotter, as though molten fire chewed him from within.
Soldiers bowed their heads as he passed, muttering the name he loathed—Merciless Dawn. Their reverence clung to him like smoke, suffocating, unwanted. He pushed forward, his second-in-command trailing silently behind. No questions. No doubts. Only loyalty Macon felt unworthy of.
By the time he reached his tent, his vision was already unraveling. His hands shook as he lowered himself onto the cot, pressing his palm hard against his scar. The heat pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, with the sword's dreadful song still echoing in his head.
The scar wasn't just burning.
It was pulling.
Macon gritted his teeth, sweat rolling down his brow. His body swayed, darkness tightening its grip. He barely had time to breathe before his world cracked in two.
---
A scream tore from his chest. His back arched violently, as though lightning had split him down the middle.
The tent, the cot, the firelit camp—gone.
In an instant, he stood barefoot on cold tiles. White light glared overhead, sharp as a blade. The sterile tang of antiseptic stabbed his nose.
"Macon!"
The voice hit him like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.
Vivian.
Her voice trembled, desperate, alive.
He turned toward her—and froze.
Horror clawed through him. His reflection in the glass pane flickered like a broken mirror. One moment, he was himself—bare-chested, pale, trembling. The next, he was clad in blood-slick armor, dented and torn. His hands still gripped an invisible sword, its phantom weight burning through his palms.
Two worlds. One body.
"Macon—your chest—" Vivian's words cracked into a sob.
He followed her gaze.
The scar glowed brighter than ever, no longer just a wound. It split open, not with blood, but with searing white-gold light. Radiance poured out of him like fire escaping a prison, each pulse scorching the air.
His knees buckled. He tried to press against the wound, but his fingers met only heat—alive, violent, unstoppable.
And then—
The worlds collided.
---
He staggered across tiled floors that echoed like mud under his boots. Vivian's desperate cry cut through sterile air, but beneath it thundered the soldiers' chants.
"MERCILESS DAWN!"
His body shook with every syllable, the weight of an army pressing into his veins.
At the same time, Vivian screamed his name. "Macon, stop! Please!"
He wanted to answer her. He wanted to silence them. But the scar yanked him forward, binding the two realities into one impossible storm.
His lungs drew in both smoke and disinfectant. His heart thundered in two rhythms. His vision fractured—Vivian's pale face overlapping with soldiers drenched in gore. Her trembling hands reached for him, layered over a thousand salutes.
The cursed sword's hum roared back into life inside his chest, demanding, claiming, binding. His body could not hold it.
Light burst from him in jagged waves, splitting through both worlds. His scream echoed across the battlefield and hospital alike, tearing the night and the sterile walls apart.
---
The battlefield wavered like smoke. Soldiers blurred, their chants crumbling into whispers. Vivian's outstretched hands passed through him like mist.
The worlds folded inward, pressing him between them.
He saw everything at once:
– A dawn sky bled crimson.
– Vivian's tear-streaked face.
– A sword raised against the rising sun.
– A hospital lamp flickering above.
And then—blackness.
---
When his eyes opened again, he was back on Earth.
The cot had been replaced by a bed, damp sheets clinging to his body. His chest was bound in clumsy bandages, the white stained through with red. Vivian slumped in a chair beside him, her head heavy in her hands. Dried blood streaked her fingers. Her eyes, swollen from crying, widened when she saw him stir.
"Macon—don't move," she whispered, voice breaking.
His throat was raw, but he forced her name. "Vivian…"
"Don't," she snapped through trembling lips. "You were screaming. The light—it was tearing you apart. I thought you were dying."
Her hands pressed against his chest as though she could hold him together, stop the scar from splitting again.
Macon closed his eyes. The wound still throbbed beneath the bandages, steady, relentless. Its pulse echoed the cursed sword's hum.
A soul torn in two.
He thought of the soldiers kneeling before him, of the blade that had recognized him, of Vivian's horror as she watched him unravel.
And for the first time, he feared the truth.
Feared that he would not survive the next pull.