When consciousness returned, it came as light.
Not the harsh, sterile glow of the laboratory something gentler, like sunlight filtered through water.
Eryndor breathed in, and the air itself seemed to respond, folding around his lungs in rhythm.
It took him a moment to realize he wasn't alone in that breath.
Luca?
The name echoed, not aloud but within. A second pulse inside his thoughts, warm and steady.
He opened his eyes.
The world looked rewritten.
The sky above him shimmered between hues of silver and amber. The ground was soft, glassy, alive with faint veins of light that pulsed beneath the surface.
Each beat sent ripples outward, like the heartbeat of the world itself.
He stood or tried to but the sensation of movement felt divided.
Every motion carried two intentions: his and another's.
Careful.
The voice came not through his ears but his veins. Familiar. Close.
"Luca?"
A figure emerged from the haze ahead, half-shadow, half-radiance.
Luca looked the same and yet utterly different edges of light outlining his form, his eyes reflecting constellations that didn't belong to any sky.
"You're here," Eryndor whispered.
"So are you."
They stared at one another. The distance between them felt fragile, as if one step might collapse the fragile boundary holding this realm together.
"I thought we"
"were gone?" Luca finished. "Maybe we are. Or maybe this is what's left."
The space shifted with their words.
The air vibrated gently, forming patterns of soundless chords that resonated against their skin.
Eryndor reached out instinctively. His hand hovered inches from Luca's.
The moment his fingertips brushed light, warmth spilled through him a rush of shared memory and feeling.
Not pain. Not fear. Just recognition.
He saw flashes Luca's laughter under rain, the taste of bitter coffee, the weight of sleepless nights.
And beneath it, something quieter: loneliness.
He pulled back, trembling. "I felt that."
Luca nodded slowly. "We're overlapping again. It's not just thought it's sensation."
Eryndor swallowed hard. "If we keep touching, we'll lose distinction."
"Maybe," Luca said softly, "or maybe we'll finally understand what the resonance wants."
The words hung between them, alive.
Time passed strangely in this place.
Light dimmed and brightened without source; the ground sometimes became water, sometimes glass.
They walked side by side, silent except for the low hum that followed each step.
Sometimes Eryndor could sense Luca's thoughts brushing against his own unfinished phrases, half-formed feelings. It wasn't invasive; it felt like sharing a language too deep for words.
At one point, Eryndor stopped near a ripple of light that resembled a mirror.
Within it, reflections fractured: his face splitting into two, merging again.
"Do you think we'll ever separate?" he asked.
Luca stood behind him. "Do you want to?"
Eryndor turned, meeting his gaze. The question lingered in the charged silence.
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. The hum around them deepened, as if the world itself exhaled.
They found a fragment of the academy here an echo of the observation deck, floating adrift within the endless glow.
Rain fell upward; thunder rolled without sound.
Eryndor leaned against the railing, eyes distant. "Do you remember the first time we calibrated the Core?"
Luca smiled faintly. "You almost overloaded the circuits."
"You caught me before I hit the floor."
"And you called me reckless for trying."
A pause. The rain shimmered in mid-air, frozen like glass droplets.
Eryndor said quietly, "I was afraid of you then."
"Why?"
"Because you never seemed afraid of anything."
Luca's gaze softened. "I was. I just didn't know how to show it."
He stepped closer, close enough that the edges of their light touched again just a shimmer, no more than breath.
The air thickened, alive with resonance.
Eryndor could hear both of their hearts beating in the same rhythm.
It wasn't desire in the human sense it was something purer, like the meeting of two frequencies that had searched too long for harmony.
The world began to flicker.
A tremor passed through the luminous floor, scattering fragments of their reflection.
Eryndor's pulse quickened. "Something's changing."
Luca pressed a hand to his temple. "I can feel it too. Soren he's trying to pull us back."
The white horizon cracked, revealing faint outlines of machines beyond the real world bleeding in.
Eryndor grabbed Luca's arm. "If we return like this, what happens to the link?"
"We keep it," Luca said, eyes blazing. "We have to. Otherwise all of this everything we felt disappears."
The light surged around them, pulling, unraveling.
Eryndor clung tighter, his voice barely audible through the storm of sound.
"Then hold on."
Their forms blurred light folding over light, two outlines drawn into one rising flare.
When the brilliance faded, the hum was gone.
Only the echo of breath remained.
Darkness. Then the faint, mechanical whir of the infirmary.
Eryndor gasped awake, lungs burning.
He felt weight his body, the sheets beneath him, the rhythm of a pulse steady against his palm.
Luca sat beside him, pale but alive. Their marks still glowed faintly, threads of blue tracing their veins.
"You came back," Eryndor whispered.
Luca smiled, exhaustion in his eyes. "So did you."
The silence that followed wasn't empty it was full. Full of what they'd carried back: the resonance, the shared heartbeat, the memory of light.
Outside, dawn was rising again over the academy.
But in that quiet room, the world still hummed between them.
Morning arrived slowly, like the world had forgotten how to move.
Sunlight crawled through the infirmary windows in thin strands, pale and cold against the sterile floor.
Eryndor sat up, every breath grounding him further into reality.
The walls were familiar the Academy's medical wing, lined with silent machines and floating monitors.
But the air still shimmered faintly, like a dream that refused to end.
Beside him, Luca stirred. His hand rested over his chest where faint silver lines pulsed beneath his skin, echoing the rhythm of Eryndor's own mark.
"Don't move too fast," Eryndor murmured. "Your body's still adjusting."
Luca chuckled softly. "That's funny. You're the one who almost tore yourself apart yesterday."
Eryndor glanced away, pretending to study the monitors. "We both did."
Silence settled between them comfortable, but heavy with unspoken memories of the light.
Every time Eryndor blinked, he could still see it: that endless horizon, their voices merging into one.
He pressed a hand to his temple. "Do you hear it? The hum?"
Luca nodded. "Always. It's quieter now, but it's there like background noise to everything."
They shared a look half fear, half wonder.
Later that day, the infirmary doors hissed open.
Professor Soren entered, his expression composed yet edged with concern. His sharp eyes scanned the room, lingering on the faint glow beneath their skin.
"You stabilized faster than expected," he said, voice clipped. "But something in your readings isn't normal."
Luca leaned back lazily, trying to mask his tension. "Define normal."
"The energy signature." Soren gestured to the display hovering near their beds. "It's synchronized. Perfectly. Two frequencies, overlapping without distortion."
Eryndor frowned. "That's impossible."
"Exactly," Soren said. "And yet, here you are."
He stepped closer, his gaze narrowing. "Whatever happened inside that Core, it linked you. The resonance isn't fading it's amplifying."
Eryndor's pulse quickened. "What does that mean for us?"
Soren hesitated, then spoke carefully. "It means you may not be entirely separate entities anymore."
The room went still.
Luca smirked, though the edge of his voice trembled. "So what, we're a scientific anomaly now?"
Soren ignored the sarcasm. "You're both to remain under observation. No experiments, no field work, no unsupervised sessions. Understood?"
Eryndor nodded mutely, but his mind was already spiraling elsewhere.
Hours passed.
By evening, the academy was washed in violet dusk.
Students whispered about the explosion in the lab the mysterious flash, the sudden power outage. No one knew the truth, but rumors spread fast.
Eryndor walked along the outer corridors, the chill of twilight clinging to his uniform.
He needed air. Space.
Anything that wasn't white walls and questions.
He reached the observation deck again the same one that had once been a quiet place for study.
Now, every time he looked out at the sprawling towers below, he saw echoes of that other realm: the light, the merging, the fragile unity.
The sound of footsteps approached behind him.
"I knew you'd come here," Luca said softly.
Eryndor didn't turn. "Couldn't sleep either?"
Luca joined him at the railing, leaning casually beside him.
For a while, neither spoke. The wind carried the faint scent of rain.
"I've been thinking," Luca began. "What if Soren's wrong?"
Eryndor glanced sideways. "About what?"
"About us being a danger." Luca's voice lowered. "What if this link isn't a curse? What if it's the next step?"
Eryndor's brows furrowed. "You don't even know what it is."
"I don't have to," Luca said simply. "I feel it. You do too, don't you?"
He turned fully, and their eyes met.
The same pulse flickered between them unseen but undeniable.
It wasn't physical, but something beneath the surface of thought, like two notes resonating in perfect harmony.
Eryndor's breath hitched. "Every time I'm near you it's like standing in a current I can't escape."
"Maybe you're not supposed to," Luca murmured.
The words lodged deep inside him.
He wanted to argue, to retreat back into logic but the hum beneath his skin grew stronger, whispering truths he wasn't ready to face.
A sudden thunderclap split the air.
Dark clouds rolled in, and rain began to fall first softly, then harder, drumming against the glass ceiling.
Students ran for cover below, their laughter echoing faintly across the courtyard.
Eryndor stayed where he was, rain tracing cold lines down his hair and collar.
Luca watched him quietly, then stepped closer. "You're going to catch a fever."
"I'm fine," Eryndor said, though his voice shook.
"Liar."
Luca extended his hand, palm up. Raindrops pooled in it like fragments of starlight. "Come on. You don't have to keep pretending you're made of steel."
Eryndor stared at that hand.
Something fragile in him cracked open an ache he'd been carrying long before the resonance ever began.
He took Luca's hand.
The contact was simple.
And yet the world shifted.
Sound dulled. Light deepened.
The rain froze midair for half a heartbeat before continuing its fall.
Eryndor felt warmth thread through his veins the same warmth that had filled the in-between realm.
But now it was grounded, tethered to heartbeat and breath. To this world.
Luca squeezed his hand once. "See? You're still here."
Eryndor met his gaze, voice barely audible. "And so are you."
From afar, behind the tinted glass of the upper observation lab, Professor Soren watched.
His expression was unreadable.
The readings on his monitor spiked again synchronization rates climbing past theoretical limits.
"Impossible," he whispered to himself. "They're stabilizing together."
Outside, the rain intensified, thunder rolling like a warning.
Two silhouettes stood side by side on the deck, unmoving amid the storm.
And somewhere deep beneath the Academy, the Core began to hum again softly at first, then louder, responding to a frequency that now existed only between two hearts.