The world had fallen silent. Not the kind of silence born of peace — but the suffocating stillness that comes before ruin.
Kael stood at the edge of the drained lake, his breath forming clouds in the frigid air. Beneath his feet, the pit pulsed faintly with veins of shadowlight, as though the world itself had grown a heartbeat that wasn't its own.
He knew this was the point of no return. The moment he stepped into that abyss, there would be no going back — no sunrise, no redemption. But the thought of Lyria, her voice threaded with sorrow, pushed him forward. She was the ghost tethering him to both damnation and purpose.
He took the first step. The earth gave way beneath him, and darkness swallowed everything.
There was no falling — only being consumed.
Light fractured into shards. Voices screamed, whispered, laughed. Each sound tore through his mind like claws. The abyss wasn't empty — it was alive. And it remembered him.
