The light faded slowly, like dawn dragging itself through molten glass.
Lucas lay on the stone floor, every muscle trembling. His skin burned — not with pain, but with a steady, radiant warmth.
Faint golden lines pulsed beneath the surface, tracing his veins like living threads.
The Heart hovered above him — a massive crystalline core suspended by vein threads that thrummed with life.
Its voice, once distant and fragmented, now spoke clearly. It wasn't sound. It was presence — like being addressed by the air, the light, and the ground all at once.
"You are the bridge."
Lucas blinked up at the glow. "Yeah," he croaked. "Bridge between what, exactly? Sanity and heatstroke?"
The Heart pulsed — calm, patient, almost amused.
"The flow is mended. The chains loosen. But others fade still."
Golden motes drifted from the Heart, sinking into his skin. The glow in his arms flared brighter, then steadied. The warmth spread through his chest.
"What do you mean others fade?" he asked. "There are more like you?"
The cavern hummed, the words rippling through the stone.
"Many."
"Once, the Hearts sang together. The Hearts beat as one — across mountain, sky, sea, flame, and shadow.
Their voices carried through the veins of the world, binding all life in rhythm. But silence grows. One by one, they dim. One by one, the song falters."
Five Hearts. Five forces. The Mountain, steady and patient. The Sky, distant and untamed. The Sea, deep and endless. The Flame, fierce and restless. The Shadow, quiet and unseen.
Lucas took it in — the immensity of it all — and still found breath for sarcasm.
"So what am I now? Your bridge repairman with glowing veins?"
"You are the bridge between what was and what can be. The flow will follow you now, as it once followed us."
"Right. No pressure," he muttered. "Just fix a planet's bloodstream. Easy."
The Heart pulsed — slow, steady, like a heartbeat. Then images flooded his mind: a ruined temple glowing faint red beneath a cracked dome; a vast lake shivering silver under a storm-lit sky; a tower of black stone pulsing violet like a dying ember; wind-carved spires where clouds moved as if obeying a conductor; a coastline where darkness pooled like ink in the salt.
"Others like me… broken, waiting."
The images fused into a golden map that burned behind his eyelids, connecting each distant place like constellations.
"You want me to fix them?" he whispered. "All of them?"
"The current flows through you. Only you can restore the song."
"Why me?"
"Because you are outside the flow. Not born of Spheria, yet bound by its heart. The silence cannot claim what does not belong to it."
Lucas froze. "…You know I'm not from here."
"The moment your soul touched this current, the veins stirred. They remembered a rhythm long forgotten."
He looked away. "So was it you? Did you bring me here?"
"I did not summon you. I reached for life — and you fell into the flow."
He gave a short, hollow laugh. "Great. Cosmic accident. Figures."
"A dying current seeks a spark. The world answered. Perhaps by chance. Perhaps by design."
"Guess that makes me your bad-luck electrician."
"The world does not need heroes. It needs menders."
That line stuck. Lucas went quiet for a while, staring up at the massive crystalline core. Then, quietly:
"Menders, huh. Guess I can live with that."
The Heart pulsed — approving, almost kind.
"You will mend what we cannot reach. And in doing so, you will find your way home."
He swallowed. "Home…"
It felt almost dangerous to say the word out loud.
The chamber fell still, and for a heartbeat, all that remained was the faint, rhythmic glow of gold in his veins.
But then another question rose — one he'd been avoiding since the moment he walked into the tunnels.
"There's someone else," he said. "Jeff. He was with me before all this started. Helped me. Then he just… disappeared."
The light dimmed, as though the Heart were listening carefully.
"This name does not echo through the flow."
Lucas frowned. "You don't know him?"
"No such current touches me."
The words were simple — but the tone made his stomach twist. The Heart wasn't lying. It truly didn't know.
He nodded slowly. "Alright," he said softly. "Let's add Jeff to the list of things I don't know about."
"All light leaves reflection," the Heart replied gently. "Even those that walk apart from the song."
He didn't answer. The golden glow seemed to bend toward him, warm and quiet, as if offering comfort it couldn't explain.
After a while, he whispered, "I'll remember him."
"Remembering is enough sometimes."
The Heart's glow dimmed, and the chamber eased back into stillness.
Lucas stood, taking a slow breath. The air felt different — thinner, cleaner. Every inhale tasted like sunlight through rain.
He flexed his fingers. The light beneath his skin pulsed gently, perfectly synchronized with the Heart above.
The connection between them was still there — quiet, but undeniable.
It wasn't control. It was harmony.
He'd been terrified of vein energy before. Now it felt like breathing — natural, balanced, alive.
And for the first time since waking in this world, he didn't feel like an intruder.
He felt like part of it.
A faint chime echoed in his vision — warm and resonant, like a bell deep underwater.
[Quest Completed: The Heart Below]
Status: Restored
Reward: Experience Gained +500 | Vein Synchronization +15%
The flow beneath Holdfast has been stabilized. The silence retreats… for now.
Another chime followed — softer, then sharper, each one like a heartbeat catching rhythm.
[Level Up: 5 → 6]
[Level Up: 6 → 7]
Strength, Endurance, and Vein Energy increased.
Lucas exhaled sharply as the wave of warmth rolled through him.
It wasn't like a rush of adrenaline — more like slipping into a rhythm he didn't realize he'd been hearing all along.
Every nerve hummed in quiet agreement, like the world itself had nodded back.
He touched the side of his neck — his pulse matched the faint glow around him.
No pain. No drain. Just flow.
"I guess that's what a promotion feels like," he muttered. "Minus the paperwork."
Then the silence broke again, the System's golden text appearing across his vision:
[Main Quest Unlocked: The Five Hearts]
Objective: Restore the broken Hearts of Spheria — Mountain, Sky, Sea, Flame, and Shadow.
Reward: ???
Status: Ongoing.
Note: "The bridge lives where you walk."
He stared at the glowing text, then gave a faint, crooked smile.
"Perfect. A fetch quest. Just what I needed."
The veins along the walls pulsed faintly in rhythm with his heartbeat — warm, welcoming.
He glanced once more at the Heart's immense golden light before turning toward the tunnel.
"Guess I've got work to do," he said quietly.
The light responded with a single, deep pulse — almost like a farewell.
As Lucas stepped through the arched opening and back into the tunnels, the golden radiance faded behind him, swallowed by shadow.
The path ahead glimmered faintly with the last of the Heart's glow, marking his way back up through the stone.
His mind churned with the words that refused to leave him — "And in doing so, you will find your way home."
Home.
For the first time since waking in Spheria, the thought didn't feel like relief — it felt heavy.
What would he even go back to? A small apartment, a dead phone, a world that had never asked for him, an estranged family, a dead end job?
Here, at least, the world needed him — even if it didn't know it yet.
And that, somehow, felt more terrifying.
He glanced down at the faint gold veins glowing beneath his skin, flexing his fingers slowly.
The warmth pulsed like a heartbeat that wasn't entirely his own.
"Don't screw this up," he whispered to himself. "The last thing this world needs is an idiot holding it together."
The golden veins shimmered faintly, as if laughing with him.
Lucas sighed, tightened his grip on the Reaper's Hook, and started the long walk back toward the Holdfast —
the faint pulse of the Heart still echoing behind him, steady and patient, like it was waiting to see what kind of bridge he would become.