The rain came down like shards of glass.
Aurelius stood beneath the cracked shelter outside his dorm building, hands buried deep in his pockets as the storm drenched the world around him. Lightning cut through the horizon, and for a second, the reflection in the puddle at his feet wasn't his own. It was the face from his dreams — eyes burning like dying stars, blood seeping down the corner of his mouth, whispering in a tongue older than time.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.
He blinked. Just water. Just rain. Just exhaustion.
"Bro, you coming or what?"
Jace's voice came from behind him — muffled, lazy, but familiar enough to ground him. Aurelius turned. His friend stood in the doorway, hoodie halfway zipped, a bottle of water in one hand and his phone lighting his face in pale blue.
Aurelius forced a smile. "Yeah. Coming."
He followed Jace back inside, water dripping from his hair, and for a brief second, he thought he heard the faint hum of something alive within the storm — like the air itself was breathing.
The dorm room was as messy as ever — a battlefield of clothes, notes, and empty soda cans. The smell of instant noodles lingered in the air like a stubborn ghost. Jace sat on the edge of his bed scrolling through something, probably another meme page.
"Dude," Jace said without looking up, "you zoned out again during the lecture today. You good?"
Aurelius rubbed his temples. "Yeah. Just tired."
"'Tired' doesn't make your eyes roll back in the middle of macroeconomics," Jace muttered. "You looked possessed."
That word — possessed — hit too close to home.
Aurelius laughed it off. "Maybe I am. Maybe the spirit of academic failure has taken me."
Jace snorted. "Then at least it's consistent. Dude, just… get some sleep or something."
Sleep. The one thing he dreaded more than anything. Because every time he closed his eyes, the dreams came. The burning city. The collapsing towers. The echo of screams. And always — the reflection. His reflection. But older. Angrier. Covered in blood and ash.
He turned away and stared out the rain-streaked window, lost in thought. Somewhere deep inside, something whispered.
"You're remembering wrong. You're not who you think you are."
He pressed his fingers to his temples again. "Shut up…" he whispered.
Jace looked up. "You say something?"
"No. Just… talking to myself."
Jace shrugged and went back to his phone.
The next morning came gray and heavy, the campus drenched in mist. The air smelled of wet grass and diesel fumes. Students moved like ghosts between lecture halls, their chatter blending into the dull rhythm of routine.
Aurelius tried to lose himself in the crowd, clutching his notebook like a lifeline. Every now and then, he caught flashes in his peripheral vision — people with burned faces, eyes hollow like tunnels. When he blinked, they vanished.
He bumped into someone — a girl with short black hair and sharp eyes.
"Watch where you're going," she snapped.
"Sorry," he muttered automatically.
But as she walked away, something about her struck him. Her voice. The way she moved. He didn't know her… yet she felt familiar. Like someone he'd known long before college, long before this life.
He stood frozen until Jace grabbed his arm. "Dude, what's wrong with you today?"
Aurelius blinked. "Did you see her?"
"Who?"
"The girl that just passed by."
Jace frowned. "No one passed by, man. You're tripping."
The chill that ran down Aurelius's spine was sharp enough to hurt.
By the time classes ended, his head felt like it was splitting open. He skipped lunch, went straight back to the dorm, and collapsed onto his bed. The second his eyes closed, the world tilted.
He was standing in a corridor made of black glass. The air shimmered, warped, and breathed like a living thing. His reflection appeared on every surface — hundreds of versions of himself, each one moving slightly out of sync.
One spoke. "You think this world is real?"
Aurelius stepped back. "What—"
Another reflection laughed. "You're still pretending, aren't you?"
Their eyes glowed faintly, the same golden hue that haunted his dreams.
"Stop it," Aurelius whispered.
They all smiled in perfect unison. "You can't stop what's already begun."
Then, the corridor cracked. A ripple of energy tore through the mirrored walls, and every reflection screamed as the world shattered around him.
He jolted awake. His chest was heaving, his sheets soaked in sweat.
The dorm was silent. Too silent.
Jace's bed was empty. The clock read 3:11 AM.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The air felt thicker — heavy, charged, unnatural. Then he noticed it: faint symbols burning across the dorm wall in crimson light. They pulsed, like veins of fire beneath the plaster.
His breath caught. "What the hell…"
He reached out instinctively. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, a surge of energy coursed through him. His vision blurred. The symbols flared brighter — and for a moment, he saw something through them.
A battlefield. A city in ruins. A woman with silver hair standing amidst the fire, calling his name.
"Aurelius…"
He staggered back, clutching his chest. The light vanished.
When he looked again, the wall was perfectly normal. No glow, no symbols. Just cracked white paint.
He didn't move for a long time. Just sat there in the dark, heart pounding, trying to convince himself he was still sane.
But deep down, he knew. Whatever was happening… it wasn't just dreams anymore. The veil between the world he lived in and the one he saw in his sleep was breaking.
And something — or someone — was trying to reach through.
The morning came quietly, though nothing about it felt real.
Aurelius hadn't slept. He sat on the edge of his bed as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the blinds, painting thin lines across the floor. His body was in the room, but his mind was elsewhere — replaying the night over and over.
The symbols.
The vision.
That voice.
He pressed his fingers against his temples again, trying to silence the hum in his head — a low, pulsing sound that grew louder whenever he tried to ignore it.
The world was whispering again.
By the time Jace returned, Aurelius had managed to mask the exhaustion. He sat at his desk pretending to study, though his notes were nothing but a page of scribbled nonsense.
Jace tossed his backpack down. "Yo, man, you didn't sleep?"
Aurelius forced a smile. "Couldn't. Just had… a weird night."
Jace raised a brow. "Weird like you saw a ghost again?"
"Something like that."
"Bro, you need to get out of that head of yours. Let's hit the courtyard later. There's a music thing going on — open mic, snacks, people who actually smile."
Aurelius almost laughed. "Since when do you care about people who smile?"
Jace shrugged. "Since my roommate started looking like he's living in a horror movie."
There was no arguing with that. Maybe being around people would help. Maybe pretending everything was fine would hold his sanity together for another day.
The courtyard buzzed with life. Students sprawled across the grass, laughter mixing with music from a cheap speaker. The late afternoon sun painted everything in warm gold, and for a fleeting moment, Aurelius almost felt normal again.
He leaned against a bench, sipping a soda while Jace flirted terribly with a girl who kept rolling her eyes but didn't walk away. It was all so ordinary, so painfully real, that it almost made him believe the night before had been a hallucination.
Then the laughter around him began to fade.
He blinked, looking around. The sunlight dimmed, the air thickened, and the sound warped — as though someone had dropped a curtain of static over reality.
People still moved, but slower. Faces blurred at the edges. He could hear his own heartbeat echoing like a drum.
And then he saw her again.
The girl from before — the one with short black hair and sharp eyes — standing across the courtyard, watching him. This time, there was no mistaking it. She was real. And yet… something about her shimmered, as though she didn't quite belong in the light.
He took a step toward her. The world distorted with each movement, the colors around him bending like liquid.
When he reached her, she spoke first. "You're starting to wake up."
Aurelius froze. "What did you just say?"
"You shouldn't be here," she said softly. "Not yet."
"What are you talking about?"
She looked at him, her expression filled with a strange mixture of pity and urgency. "The veil's breaking too soon. They'll notice you now."
"Who will?"
Before she could answer, a violent ringing filled the air — sharp and dissonant. The world split like glass. The students vanished. The grass turned black. The sky bled crimson.
He staggered back. "What's happening?!"
The girl reached out to him. "Remember what you are, Aurelius. Before it's too late."
Then she was gone.
And the courtyard was back. Music, laughter, sunlight — all exactly as before. Jace was beside him, looking concerned. "Dude? You okay? You zoned out again."
Aurelius turned to where the girl had been. Nothing. Just an empty stretch of grass.
He tried to answer, but his throat was dry. "Yeah. Just… dizzy."
Jace frowned. "Man, this isn't normal. You're seeing stuff. You need to see someone."
"Yeah," Aurelius muttered absently. "Maybe."
But deep inside, he knew no doctor could fix this. Because the problem wasn't in his mind — it was in the world itself.
That night, he sat at his desk again, unable to focus. Every light in the dorm flickered. The digital clock on Jace's nightstand froze at 11:11 PM and stayed there.
Outside, rain started to fall. But when he looked closer, he realized it wasn't rain. The droplets shimmered midair — glowing faintly before vanishing like dying embers.
He stood, drawn to the window, heart pounding.
And then he saw them.
Figures, dozens of them, standing across the courtyard below. Cloaked in darkness. Unmoving. Watching.
He blinked, and they were gone.
But their presence lingered — a weight in the air, pressing against his chest.
Aurelius stumbled back, clutching the edge of the desk. "No… no, no…"
The lights went out.
Total darkness.
Then — whispering. A thousand voices, all speaking at once. His name echoed within them, distorted and ancient.
Aurelius Kael. The forgotten heir. The one who slipped through time.
He fell to his knees. His vision blurred. The air around him rippled, and for a moment, he saw the world beneath the world — a burning plain, towers of obsidian, skies of fractured glass.
And standing in the center of it all was himself.
Older. Covered in scars. Eyes glowing gold.
"You can't run from what you are," the reflection said. "You can't live two lives forever."
Aurelius shook his head. "This isn't real!"
The other him smiled sadly. "Neither is this one."
The world cracked open. The sound was like thunder tearing through stone.
He screamed.
Then — silence.
He woke up in a hospital bed.
The ceiling was white, sterile, humming softly with the buzz of fluorescent lights. His head throbbed. An IV dripped beside him.
Jace sat in a chair nearby, eyes heavy with worry. "About time you woke up."
Aurelius blinked. "Where… am I?"
"Campus infirmary. You collapsed. They said you might've had a seizure."
A nurse walked in, clipboard in hand. "Mr. Kael, do you remember what happened?"
He hesitated. "Not… really."
She scribbled something down. "You should stay a few days for observation. Stress can cause blackouts."
Stress. Sure. Let's call collapsing reality stress.
When she left, Jace leaned closer. "You scared the hell out of me, man. You were talking in your sleep. Some weird language. The nurse said it sounded… ancient."
Aurelius froze. "What did I say?"
"No idea. But it didn't sound human."
A cold shiver crawled up his spine.
That night, while Jace slept in the chair beside him, Aurelius lay awake. The hospital lights dimmed, the steady beep of the heart monitor the only sound in the room.
Then, the monitor flickered. The screen flashed symbols — the same crimson ones from his dorm wall.
He sat up, staring. "No…"
The symbols pulsed, forming words this time. "The Veil Is Thinning."
The lights went out again.
And when they came back, he was no longer in the hospital.
He was standing in the same glass corridor from his dream. Only now, it wasn't a dream. The reflections of himself watched silently as he walked forward, barefoot, the floor cold beneath his feet.
In the distance, a figure waited — cloaked in shadow.
"You're close," the figure said. The voice echoed like a memory. "But you still don't remember."
Aurelius stepped closer. "Who are you?"
"I am what's left of you," the figure whispered. "The part you locked away."
The world trembled. The reflections started to shatter one by one, each crack reverberating like a heartbeat.
Aurelius clutched his head. "Make it stop!"
"You can't stop what's already begun," the voice said again — the same line from his dreams.
The corridor disintegrated. A blinding light filled everything.
He woke up screaming. Back in the hospital.
Doctors rushed in, alarms blaring, Jace shouting his name.
But all Aurelius could see was that light — still burning behind his eyelids, still searing its way into his memory.
And beneath it, one truth echoed endlessly:
He was remembering.
The veil was gone.
When the morning came, he was quieter. The doctors said his vitals were fine. The nurses said he was lucky.
But Aurelius knew luck had nothing to do with it. Something had awakened inside him. Something that didn't belong to this world.
As Jace helped him pack to leave, Aurelius glanced at his reflection in the window.
For a heartbeat, his eyes glowed gold.
And somewhere far away — beyond the reach of his reality — the city of glass burned again, waiting for his return.
[End of Chapter 8 – "The Shattered Veil"