The next dawn split the horizon in shards of red.
Crimson Eye Academy felt… wrong. The lights flickered in uneven rhythm, and the data panels that usually pulsed with steady blue now flickered between colors—red, white, and static gray. Students whispered about "system glitches." Kael knew better.
Something had changed since the man in the circle looked at him.
He walked the main courtyard with Aria, who scanned the area like a soldier on alert. "The network's unstable," she said, eyes narrowed at the sky. "The Academy Core is flickering across sectors. Whatever happened yesterday—your connection—it's bleeding into the system grid."
Kael's stomach knotted. "You mean… me?"
She glanced at him. "I mean the thing inside you."
A sudden pulse rippled through the ground. Every holo-light around them froze midair, flickered once, and then—silence.
Then the sound began.
A low hum, deep and vibrating, spreading through their bones. The symbol of the Threshold—the circle Kael saw in his vision—began to shimmer faintly beneath his feet.
"Aria—" he started.
"I see it too," she cut in, voice tense.
That was new.
---
The air fractured.
Reality folded inward, sound collapsing into a bright ringing pitch. Kael's surroundings dissolved into the same endless field from his earlier vision—the red plain under stormlight, the circles of light blazing across the ground.
But this time, Aria stood beside him. She wasn't supposed to be there.
"This isn't a simulation," she said quietly. "I can feel the heat."
A figure appeared ahead of them—the man from the circle. His body was composed of crimson light, his face unreadable under the shadow of energy swirling around him.
> "The line between worlds weakens," the man said. "And you, child of the Sight, have broken it."
Kael stepped forward, voice trembling. "What are you? Why me?"
The man's eyes—if they were eyes—flared.
> "Because you carry what they sealed away. The Resonance. The last echo of the Origin."
Aria moved slightly in front of Kael, her weapon drawn. "You're not real. You're just a projection."
The man tilted his head.
> "If I were unreal, would your pulse answer mine?"
Kael's heartbeat synced with the hum in the air. The world itself seemed to vibrate in rhythm with it.
He felt the energy flow through him—through them—and suddenly Aria's weapon began to glow faint red too.
She gasped. "Kael… what is this?"
Kael's voice cracked. "I think… we're connected."
---
A deafening sound tore through the air. The world shattered again—light exploding around them—and they were thrown back into the academy training ground. The sky flickered between colors, alarms blaring. Dozens of instructors rushed in, their holo-suits activating containment fields around them.
One of the panels screamed warnings:
> "Reality fluctuation detected — Source: Pair Twenty-Seven."
Headmaster Valen's voice cut through the chaos, projected from the observation deck.
> "Lock them down. Now!"
Kael tried to stand, but the ground was shifting beneath him—rippling like water. His body flickered, part of his form briefly transparent. Aria grabbed his arm, eyes wide, fear breaking through her composure. "You're phasing—Kael, you're not stable!"
He looked down. The crimson light within his veins pulsed in rhythm with the world's hum.
"Valen," Kael shouted, voice echoing across the field, "you said it was memory—this doesn't feel like memory!"
The Headmaster's voice came through static.
> "It's not. It's awakening."
---
The containment field burst with light.
Kael's Crimson Sight flared, and for the first time, he didn't resist it.
He embraced it.
In that moment, he saw everything—students frozen mid-run, data fragments unraveling from the sky, and deep beneath the academy, a vast circular structure pulsing like a heart.
The Threshold wasn't a door.
It was alive.
And now it was waking up.
---