The days passed like raindrops down a cracked window — each one slightly different, but all vanishing into the same gray blur.
Aurelius Kael didn't remember when he'd last slept properly. Every night brought fragments of fire, voices in the dark, and the faint sound of metal bending — like the world itself was groaning under some invisible weight. And every morning, he woke with the same dull ache behind his eyes and that unshakable sense that something was missing.
Something he should have remembered.
Classes blurred together. The university hallways were always too bright, too loud, too normal for the chaos in his head. Jace walked beside him most mornings, always trying to fill the silence with jokes or complaints about assignments.
"You ever gonna tell me what's going on with you, man?" Jace said one morning, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets. "You've been zoning out like a damn ghost lately."
Aurelius managed a faint smirk. "Maybe I am."
Jace snorted. "Nah, ghosts get more sleep than you."
They walked across the wet quad, the smell of rain and cheap coffee in the air. Students passed by — headphones in, eyes down — every one of them trapped in their own world. Aurelius wondered if they ever felt it too — that strange pull beneath the surface, that whisper that reality wasn't as stable as it pretended to be.
He tried not to think about it. But the whispers were getting louder.
---
In the evenings, he sat alone in his dorm, staring at the same notebook he'd been trying to fill for weeks. He'd started sketching after the blackouts began, hoping it would help him remember — but now the pages were full of things he didn't understand. Sigils. Patterns. Eyes. Thrones.
And a mark — always the same — a circle with three jagged lines through it, drawn over and over again until the paper had nearly torn.
He didn't remember drawing it.
Sometimes, when the lights flickered, the ink shimmered faintly, as if something beneath the page was alive.
---
The headaches came next.
They started small — a twinge behind the eyes, a pulse at the base of the skull — but soon, they hit like waves. When they came, the world twisted. He'd blink and find himself standing somewhere else entirely — an empty hallway, a rooftop, the subway. Once, he woke in the library basement, hands covered in black dust.
He never told Jace. He didn't want to sound insane.
But Jace noticed.
One afternoon, Aurelius stumbled into the cafeteria late, pale and shaking. Jace looked up from his tray immediately. "You good?"
"Yeah," Aurelius muttered. "Just— migraine."
"Bullshit." Jace lowered his voice. "You blacked out again, didn't you?"
Aurelius froze.
Jace sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, man. I don't know what's happening, but you gotta see someone. I mean it. You can't keep waking up in random places. It's not normal."
Normal.
The word hit harder than it should have.
He wanted to tell Jace that he had seen someone — the campus therapist, twice — but the moment he'd tried explaining the dreams, the voice, the throne… she'd given him that look. The one people give when they're already deciding which medication you need.
So he stopped trying.
Instead, he just nodded and changed the subject. But Jace didn't look convinced.
---
That night, the rain returned.
Aurelius lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The shadows were restless. The air hummed with the faint electric buzz of the city, but beneath it — something deeper. A rhythm. A heartbeat.
Find me, my emperor. Before the world burns again.
He sat up, heart pounding. The words weren't from the dream — they were here, now, echoing softly in the room.
He turned on the light. Nothing.
Then he noticed his notebook lying open on the desk. The ink was still wet — even though he hadn't touched it in hours. New words had appeared between his sketches.
> Do you remember what you were before the name Aurelius Kael?
He froze. The pen beside the notebook was still moving slightly, as if something unseen had just dropped it.
The air grew cold.
He backed away, his pulse quickening. He told himself it was a trick — sleep deprivation, stress, something. But when he blinked, the room flickered — just for a moment — and the walls weren't walls anymore. They were made of black stone, carved with the same sigils that burned beneath his skin in that other place.
And at the center of them all was that symbol — the circle with three jagged lines — glowing faintly like a heartbeat.
He blinked again, and it was gone.
Just the dorm room. Just the rain.
But when he looked down, the same symbol was faintly burned into the palm of his hand.
---
The next morning, Jace was waiting for him outside class.
"You look like hell," Jace said. "Seriously. What's going on?"
Aurelius hesitated. "You ever feel like you're living two lives at once?"
Jace frowned. "What kind of question is that?"
"Like… when you dream, you're someone else. Somewhere else. But it's not just a dream — it's memory. And when you wake up, it feels like this life is the fake one."
Jace gave him a long look. "You're scaring me, dude."
Aurelius laughed weakly, rubbing his hand. The skin there was smooth again — no mark, no scar. Maybe he was losing it.
Still, Jace didn't leave his side the rest of the day. He cracked jokes during lectures, shared his notes, even dragged Aurelius out for food after class. For a while, it almost felt normal again — the world loud and alive, the sun burning gold against the glass buildings of New Seraphis.
But then came sunset.
And the reflection in the windows wasn't his.
---
He saw it first in the glass doors of the campus library. He'd looked up absently — and froze.
The reflection staring back wasn't Aurelius Kael, the tired college student.
It was a man in dark armor, eyes glowing faint gold, a faint crown of flame hovering above his head like a halo made of ash. The mark was etched across his chest, pulsing in rhythm with his heart.
He stumbled back, heart racing — and in that instant, the reflection smiled at him.
The glass cracked.
Aurelius gasped and fell backward, hitting the pavement hard. The world blurred; he heard Jace shouting his name. Then darkness swallowed everything.
---
When he woke, he was in the infirmary. The air smelled like antiseptic and rain. A faint hum filled the silence — machines, steady and patient. He turned his head; Jace was slumped in a chair nearby, asleep.
The nurse said he'd collapsed from exhaustion. "You're pushing yourself too hard," she said gently. "Your friend's been worried sick."
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
When she left, he stared at his hand again.
The mark was back — faint, glowing softly under the skin. Not a hallucination. Not a dream.
He flexed his fingers and felt warmth — power — pulse through them, steady and alive. It scared him. But it also felt right.
Like remembering your own heartbeat after years of silence.
---
That night, Jace insisted on walking him back to the dorm. The air was colder than usual. The city skyline loomed sharp and bright, every window glowing like an eye.
"You really should go home for a bit," Jace said quietly. "Get some rest. Get away from all this."
"Maybe," Aurelius said.
But his mind was elsewhere — on the mark, the reflections, the notebook that seemed to write on its own.
They reached his door. Jace gave a half-smile. "Try not to pass out again, yeah?"
Aurelius smirked. "No promises."
They said goodnight.
He closed the door, exhaled — and turned toward his desk.
The notebook was open again.
This time, there were no words. Just a single drawing — detailed, deliberate — of a woman's face.
She had silver eyes and a crown of flame.
And beneath her portrait, written in a language he didn't recognize, was one sentence glowing faintly in gold:
> You are waking up, my emperor.
---
Aurelius touched the page, and the world around him shuddered — like reality itself had inhaled.
The lights flickered. The air thickened. Somewhere far off, thunder rumbled — deep, ancient, and alive. His reflection in the window twisted again, the same armored figure watching him with quiet intensity.
And this time, when the reflection spoke, it wasn't in his mind.
It came from the glass itself.
> "Remember, Aurelius Kael. Remember what you were before this world forgot your name."
The glass splintered.
He staggered back, breath shaking. His hand burned with light. The mark flared bright — too bright — and suddenly, the air filled with falling ash.
Then everything went black.