The forest did not move.
Not the leaves. Not the branches. Not even the insects that usually hummed in the undergrowth. Everything had frozen around Tomora's body, sprawled half-buried in dirt and crushed grass where he had fallen. His face was streaked with blood and mud, one eye swollen shut, lips split. His chest rose and fell unevenly, shallow breaths scraping out of him like air dragged through broken wood.
Then even that stopped.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
At first, it felt like sinking into cold water—pressure wrapping around him, sound warping, his thoughts stretching thin. But there was no splash, no resistance. The world simply cut out, as if someone had snuffed a candle.
When sensation returned, it came wrong.
The floor beneath him was solid, yet numb. Cold seeped through his skin, biting deep into bone. His wrists burned—metal digging into flesh. He tried to move and felt chains bite tighter, holding him upright.
Tomora groaned.
The sound echoed back at him, distorted, metallic.
His eyes opened.
He sat bound to a single iron chair in the center of a room that looked more like a box than a place. Walls of dull steel rose around him, unmarked and endless, their surfaces reflecting warped fragments of his own image. No doors. No windows. Just him—and the quiet hum of something unseen.
His breath came faster. He pulled against the restraints, muscles screaming in protest. The chains did not yield. Instead, they rattled softly, mocking him with how little effort it took to keep him trapped.
A shadow shifted at the edge of the room.
Tomora froze.
Footsteps followed—slow, deliberate. Each step rang hollow against the metal floor, too measured to belong to someone in a hurry. The shadow stretched longer, sharper, until a figure peeled itself away from the darkness.
Tall. Slender. Too still.
The man's face was calm, almost bored, lips curled into something that resembled a smile but carried none of the warmth. His eyes were sharp and knowing, as if he were looking at something already dissected.
Tomora's blood went cold.
"You," he snarled, straining against the chains. "You're—"
"Dave," the man said lightly, as if correcting a child. "You can call me Dave."
The name didn't fit. That was the first thing Tomora noticed. Something about it scraped against the wrong part of his mind, like a lie told too casually.
Dave circled him, boots tapping softly. He reached out and tapped the back of the chair with one finger. Clink.
The sound echoed far longer than it should have.
"You are dumber than I thought," Dave said, smiling faintly.
Heat surged up Tomora's spine. He lunged forward as much as the chains allowed, teeth bared. "Say that again and I'll kill you."
Dave stopped in front of him.
For a moment, the room seemed to bend inward.
"I don't doubt you'd try," Dave said. "That's the problem."
Tomora spat blood onto the floor. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from rage, from confusion. "You dragged me here just to insult me?"
Dave crouched, bringing his face level with Tomora's. Up close, his eyes were wrong—too deep, reflecting more than they should.
"No," Dave said softly. "I brought you here because you're running around wearing borrowed masks and calling them your face."
Tomora's breath hitched.
"You call yourself a thunder elemental," Dave continued. "You cling to water like it belongs to you. Yet every time you use lightning, your head splits open. Your vision blurs. Your body rebels."
The walls shuddered faintly, as if reacting to his words.
"And water?" Dave tilted his head. "You've felt it, haven't you? The lag. The drag. Like something pushing back."
Tomora's eyes widened despite himself.
The room warped. Metal groaned. Voices whispered at the edges of hearing—fragments of pain, of memories he hadn't realized were stitched together.
"What are you saying?" Tomora whispered.
Dave reached out and flicked Tomora's forehead.
The contact was light. Gentle.
The world fractured.
Images slammed into Tomora's mind—lightning tearing through his nerves, water crawling under his skin, the sickening sense of something copying, adjusting, reshaping. His head throbbed violently. He screamed, the sound swallowed by the steel walls.
"You were supposed to figure it out on your own," Dave's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "But you keep mistaking power for understanding."
The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had come.
Tomora slumped forward, panting.
Dave straightened, stepping back into the shadows. "You are not a thunder elemental," he said. "And you were never a water one."
Silence stretched.
Tomora lifted his head slowly. "Then what am I?"
Dave's smile returned—sharp this time.
"A Mimic."
The word landed heavier than any blow.
"You adapt," Dave continued. "You copy. You become. Not cleanly. Not perfectly. That's why it hurts. That's why there are consequences."
The room began to crack, fractures racing across the metal walls like lightning frozen in steel.
"I was the first," Dave said. "The original."
He stepped backward, fading into darkness as the fractures widened.
"And now," his voice echoed, "you're hearing it from me."
The room shattered.
Tomora woke with a violent gasp, lungs burning as if he'd been underwater too long. He rolled onto his side, coughing, fingers clawing at the dirt beneath him. Cold night air filled his chest, sharp and real.
Firelight flickered nearby.
He lifted his head slowly. A small campfire crackled a few steps away, its flames licking at a skewered fish suspended over the heat. The smell of smoke and cooked flesh grounded him more than anything else could have.
The hooded figure sat beside the fire, posture relaxed. He didn't look over.
"You're awake," he said. "Good."
Tomora pushed himself up, pain screaming through every muscle. His vision swam, but the world stayed solid this time.
"You were having a nightmare," the figure continued, turning the fish slowly. "Sounded rough."
Tomora stared at his hands.
They were shaking.
He clenched them into fists, nails biting into his palms. The tremors eased, but the echo of Dave's voice lingered, coiled tight around his thoughts.
"What was it about?" the hooded figure asked.
Tomora swallowed.
"…I don't remember," he said.
The lie tasted bitter.
The fire popped. Sparks drifted upward into the dark canopy. Tomora exhaled slowly, steadying himself, while inside his mind a quiet voice whispered, patient and amused.
You are a Mimic.
Tomora's eyes flicked up, staring into the night as if expecting the shadows to answer back.
They didn't.
But the truth stayed.