Aeron's eyes fluttered open to a world that felt both foreign and achingly familiar. The sky above was a dull gray, thick with clouds heavy enough to swallow the sun whole. Cold wind bit through tattered robes wrapped tightly around his thin frame.
He lay on cracked earth, surrounded by ruins half-swallowed by creeping vines and shadow. The scent of damp stone and decay filled his nostrils. Somewhere distant, thunder rumbled like a fading echo of a long-forgotten war.
Aeron tried to move, but his limbs felt weak, as if bound by chains forged from silence itself. His mind was a fractured mirror — shards of thoughts, images, and emotions collided without form or reason.
Who was he?
His fingertips brushed the ground, sensing faint pulses beneath the soil — the distant heartbeat of a world both broken and alive. Flickers of light danced behind his closed eyelids, fleeting glimpses of stars and celestial flames.
Then, a sharp pain stabbed through his skull, and with it came a whisper — a voice not his own, laced with ancient sorrow and wrath.
"Remember..."
The word burned into his soul.
Aeron gasped and bolted upright, eyes wide with a strange violet glow that flickered like dying embers. Around him, the ruins seemed to shift in shadow, alive with secrets he no longer understood.
His breath came ragged, memories rushing in like tidal waves — a crown of stars, a throne forged from galaxies, and faces both kind and cruel. Betrayal. Power. Loss.
But just as quickly as the visions came, they scattered like smoke in the wind.
He was no god now. Only a man, naked and lost in a world that did not welcome the fallen.
From the forest's edge, a figure approached — a woman clad in worn armor, eyes sharp as blades and gaze unflinching.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, voice steady but curious.
Aeron's voice was hoarse, raw from disuse. "I... don't know who I am."
She knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Then maybe we both have questions to answer."
As the first drops of rain began to fall, Aeron looked to the storm-dark horizon and made a silent vow:
I will rise again.