When the light finally broke, it didn't feel like dawn.
It felt like something pretending to be it.
The sky had no color — just a smooth, pale surface stretching endlessly, like someone erased the blue and forgot to replace it. The ground shimmered faintly, soft and reflective, as though water ran just beneath a thin layer of glass. My squad stood scattered across that emptiness, their figures small, trembling silhouettes against the false light.
I should have felt relief. Survival. Triumph, even. But the silence pressed too tightly against my chest, like the air itself was waiting for us to say something — anything — to make it real again.
Aya was the first to speak.
"Captain… where are we?"
Her voice cracked. She tried to sound calm, but her eyes were wide, reflecting that impossible horizon. The rest of the squad turned toward me — Yuki clutching her rifle, Rin brushing dust from her uniform, and Mina holding her side where blood had dried hours ago.
I wanted to answer. But my throat was dry, as if something inside me refused to speak.
Then I heard it.
A hum — soft, low, familiar.
It vibrated just beneath my ribs, like a memory breathing through me.
"You called for light, didn't you?"
Lunaris's voice.
Not echoing from the sky, not whispering from afar — but inside me, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.
I froze.
My mind told me it was impossible. She was gone. She had sacrificed herself. The shards had dissolved. I'd seen her face fade in the last flare of the false dawn.
Yet here she was.
Aya stepped closer. "Haruto?"
I blinked. "What?"
"You… spaced out. Again."
Her tone was softer now, but her eyes didn't relax. She knew that look in me — she'd seen it too often during the war. The thousand-yard stare.
"I'm fine," I lied, rubbing my temples. "Just… trying to figure out which way is north."
Yuki pointed ahead, uncertain. "That way?"
The compass on her wrist flickered between readings — east, then west, then blank. It was useless. Even the sun wasn't there to guide us; the light came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
We started walking. Because that's all soldiers ever do — we move forward, even when the ground isn't real.
---
Hours might have passed. Or minutes. Time here didn't seem to obey itself. The landscape was flat, smooth, yet always subtly shifting — hills appearing and vanishing like mirages. Shadows didn't move; they bent. I counted steps just to hold on to something concrete.
Then came the whisper again.
"You shouldn't have followed the light."
It wasn't accusation — more like regret. A sigh disguised as words.
I clenched my fists.
"You're not real," I murmured under my breath.
"You keep saying that. Does it help?"
I almost laughed. "I don't know."
Aya glanced back at me. "Did you say something?"
"Just thinking aloud."
She didn't push. Aya never did. She'd seen me talking to ghosts before — soldiers who never made it home, commanders who bled out under fire. Maybe this wasn't new to her.
Still, the voice lingered. Every time I blinked, I caught faint outlines in the air — fragments of Lunaris's shape, a shimmer of silver hair, a glint of her eyes like starlight caught in glass.
When we reached a ridge — if it could be called that — the light dimmed, faintly tinted gray for the first time. We could see outlines of structures far in the distance. The Citadel ruins. Or what remained of them.
Mina exhaled sharply. "Finally… something that looks real."
Yuki frowned. "Or something pretending to be."
She wasn't wrong. The Citadel looked wrong — too clean, too perfect, as if it had been redrawn from memory rather than rebuilt. The cracks and scorch marks from the last battle were there, but faint, like pencil sketches under an erased surface.
We entered the city slowly.
Each step echoed too loudly. The air smelled sterile — no dust, no ash, no decay. The sound of our boots didn't fade naturally but cut off abruptly, like the world itself didn't know how to continue it.
Aya leaned close to me. "Captain, does this feel like…"
"Like we're walking through a memory?" I finished. "Yeah."
She nodded, uneasy.
We passed through an archway where our insignia used to hang — the emblem of the Aether Legion, now a faint outline burned into stone. As I touched it, warmth shot through my palm.
And a vision.
The day Lunaris descended. Her silver robes fluttering as the sky fractured above. The light in her eyes when she looked at me — not divine, not distant, but… curious. Almost human.
The warmth turned to cold. My fingers trembled.
"Do you remember what you asked me, Haruto?"
Her voice came clearer now, resonating through the mark on the wall.
"No," I said. But the truth was, I did.
"You said you wanted to understand eternity."
The words hit harder than gunfire. I staggered back. Aya reached for me, but I waved her off.
"I'm fine," I said again — the lie was automatic by now.
The others watched me carefully. They knew something was wrong, but none of them wanted to be the first to say it. Soldiers don't question miracles when they're still alive.
---
We found temporary shelter in what used to be the Citadel barracks. The place was untouched — beds made, lamps unlit, even rations stacked neatly. It was as though we'd never left.
Rin ran her fingers along a desk. "No dust."
"Maybe the wind—" Mina started.
"There is no wind," Rin interrupted.
She was right. Not a single breeze had moved since we woke.
I sat on a bunk and exhaled slowly. The silence between us was heavier than any battlefield.
"You can't rest here," Lunaris whispered.
"Why not?" I muttered.
"Because this is where you died."
My blood froze.
I looked around. The others were talking among themselves — faint chatter about supplies, direction, fuel cells. They didn't hear her.
"You don't believe me," she said, her voice softer, almost kind. "But part of you remembers."
I did.
Flashes of a moment — the explosion, the heat, the scream that wasn't mine. The blinding light that swallowed the battlefield whole.
And then… nothing.
Maybe we didn't survive that day. Maybe none of us did.
I pressed my hands to my head, trying to shake the thought loose.
Aya knelt beside me. "Haruto, hey. Breathe. You're shaking."
"I'm fine."
She frowned. "You keep saying that."
I looked at her. Her face was tired, bruised, dirt smudged beneath her eyes. She was real — warm, breathing, scared. She couldn't be part of whatever illusion this was.
Right?
But even as I reached out, her form shimmered faintly — just for a second — like a reflection disturbed by ripples.
She didn't notice.
None of them did.
---
That night, or whatever passed for night, I couldn't sleep.
The sky outside had darkened, but not naturally. The whiteness dimmed as though a veil had been pulled down. The stars above blinked irregularly — flickering on and off, rearranging themselves into constellations I didn't recognize.
Lunaris's presence grew stronger.
Every thought I had, she echoed faintly — not as a voice now, but as emotion, like she was learning how to feel through me.
I stood by the window, staring out at the horizon. It curved slightly, unnaturally smooth.
"Are you doing this?" I whispered.
"Doing what?"
"This world. This light. The others still being alive."
Silence. Then — "Would you rather they weren't?"
I didn't answer.
Because the truth was cruel: I didn't care if this was real or not, as long as I didn't have to lose them again.
She sensed it. I could feel her smile through the back of my mind.
"Then keep walking forward," she said. "Even if the path isn't yours anymore."
I turned from the window, pulse racing.
Her reflection was in the glass.
Not behind me. In it.
Her silver eyes watched through mine, her lips moving in sync with my breath.
"Lunaris…"
"You wanted to understand eternity, Haruto."
The reflection smiled wider. "Now you are part of it."
To be continued in Chapter 21 — "Reflection and Solitude"