A sharp pain pierced his skull like an axe.
Not the simple pain of a blow but the feeling as if someone had opened his head and stirred his thoughts with electric hands.
His eyes burned even before they opened; when he finally managed to open them, a reddish light nearly blinded him.
The ceiling above him was not an ordinary one
black stone, patterned with grooves that held within them thin rivers of molten gold light.
The lines shifted, crawled, pulsing as if the ceiling itself was breathing.
He tried to move black metal straps gripped his arms.
The metal was cold as ice, but when he tried to pull… it trembled, as if it were alive.
It reacted to him. As if it didn't prevent movement but chose to hold him.
His breathing was heavy.
The air was thick, too warm, with a taste of smoke and sulfur… but also something sweet, like an ancient perfume hidden between the flames.
"I… where…?"
He closed his eyes for a second, tried to remember.
Light… a silent scream… the gate… then blackness.
A door made of black bricks opened swiftly, and a vast echo filled the room.
A figure entered.
A man.
Or something that looked like a man only too perfect.
Tall, muscular in a delicate way, clad in silver-black armor that looked more like a second skin than metal.
His hair flowed down his back like a river of silver, and his eyes God his eyes glowed with dim gold, like two sunsets trapped inside a skull.
He stood before Ilan, expressionless.
His silence was heavier than his armor.
"Who are you, human?"
His voice was like a knife drawn across velvet smooth, deep, dangerous.
Ilan tried to speak, but his throat burned.
"I… I don't know how I got here."
The golden eyes narrowed.
"It does not matter how. Only that you were never meant to arrive," he said with absolute coldness.
"Your very existence here breaks the order."
The words hit him like stone.
Breaks the order.
Not "stranger." Not "intruder."
Someone who was never supposed to exist here.
A shiver ran down his back.
"W… who are you?" Elias asked, barely catching his breath.
The figure paused.
He did not hesitate he weighed whether to tell.
"My name is Lian."
And then it happened.
Ilan's heart pounded too hard.
His throat tightened.
Breath caught.
L-i-a-n.
The world spun.
The same weight, the same breath, the same sound
identical to Lian.
He inhaled sharply through his nose, trying to keep control.
He must not say a word.
He must not show.
He only stared.
Lian looked at him for another moment, as if searching for something in his face.
Not pity certainly not.
Cold curiosity. Danger.
And something else… a faint shadow of confusion in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came.
"You will stay here," said the prince.
"Under watch. Until I decide whether you are a threat or a mistake."
He turned, started to leave, then stopped at the door without looking back:
"Do not try to escape.
Here… escape is an illusion."
The door closed, and the silence returned.
But not truly for now Ilan began to hear.
Whispers.
The murmur of flames.
Deep pulses from the ground, like a heart beneath his feet.
And he saw a window.
Not of glass
a large opening in the wall, framed by black stone, through which burned a red light.
He stepped to it, placed his hand on the edge.
The heat seared but he did not move.
The sight beyond widened his eyes.
The world of demons.
Bridges of black stone twisted through the air above a vast abyss, beneath them rivers of lava flowed like ancient blood.
Towering spires gleamed with gold and fire, sharp as teeth, carved from a blend of metal and living stone.
The buildings themselves seemed to move to breathe.
And upon the bridges… creatures.
Not all looked like demons.
Some were humanoid, but with glowing eyes of different colors blue, red, green.
Some bore small horns, some black, pointed tails.
One tall, his hands covered in silver scales pulled a carriage drawn not by horses but by wolf-shaped beings made of flame and condensed smoke.
Their manner was not wild they were orderly, silent, composed.
A world of darkness… perfected.
And the skies…
Two moons.
One milky white, the other deep violet.
Like divine eyes watching over all.
The view was terrifyingly beautiful.
A world full of danger and full of truth.
Ilan breathed, the exhale turning into a tremor.
"Where am I?" he whispered.
"Where the hell am I?"
But in his heart, deep inside…
something else whispered:
You know.
And the name would not leave his mind:
Lian.
The echo between them sounded like the heartbeat of fate
something he was never meant to find, yet could never escape.