The silence after the chaos was deafening.
Sunny stood amidst the ruins of the ancient shrine—its broken pillars still humming with fading echoes of a song no one remembered. The air smelled of ash, wet stone, and something older… something buried.
Blood dripped from his knuckles. Not his.
His breathing slowed, but the voices didn't stop.
"Why do you hesitate?"
That voice again.
It wasn't just in his head—he could feel it now. It curled beneath his skin like static, a whisper riding the vibrations of the earth. It spoke from the stone, from the shadows, from the cracks in his memories.
And it sounded eerily like him.
"You already know what you are."
Sunny clenched his jaw. The new ability—the one that let him dive into others' memories—was becoming unstable. It wasn't just showing him fragments anymore. It was… bleeding into him.
Earlier that day, he'd accidentally touched the elder's hand and saw a glimpse of a forgotten war. But this time—this time, there was no contact. And yet, the memories came flooding in.
Not someone else's.
His.
But wrong.
Twisted.
He saw Ren again—only this time, her face was distorted. Her voice echoed in reverse. "Find me," she said. But then she was falling into a pit of eyes and chains. Screaming.
And behind her stood Lysander.
Except it wasn't the real Lysander. It was a memory crafted like a lie—a puppet in the shape of a boy who had once believed in kindness.
Sunny gritted his teeth. "Get out of my head."
The voice laughed, distant and deep.
"You think this is your head?"
The ground shifted.
From beneath the shrine, an ancient mechanism groaned, unlocking.
A staircase revealed itself—spiraling down into darkness where no light dared exist. It wasn't just a dungeon. It was something older.
Kanah had more secrets to spill.
And the voice beneath wanted him to listen.
Sunny stared down into the abyss. Something about it called to him. Like a piece of him had been buried there long before he was born.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Behind him, the world remained still—but within, the storm had already begun.