The sky cracked open—not with thunder, but like a mirror shattering from within.
A silent, ruptured void spread across the heavens, forming a spiraling rift that defied logic, as if reality itself had forgotten its laws.
Riven gasped. His eye snapped open.He was falling—not through air, but through memory, through sensation. A chill wind passed clean through his body, leaving no weight behind. Around him: twisted silhouettes of skyscrapers, airships, carriages, and lamps, all suspended mid-motion. Time and space floated like shards around him. The world was broken… or reborn.
What is this place...?
Then—
Splash.
The surface shattered beneath him like crystal. He struck a river not of water, but of glass and refracted color. It clinked like chimes as he sank, drifting into a sea of kaleidoscopic shards.
Riven rose slowly, standing amid the fluid glass that danced like rainbow smoke around his legs. Above, the sky groaned.
Then came the wave.
A massive, wall-like surge of liquified prism crashed over him. He didn't resist. The weight carried him back under—and down.
Below the surface, time seemed to pause. He opened his eyes.
There, suspended beside him, another figure fell. A youth, clad in layered robes etched with runes that pulsed dimly in the lightless water. His mouth moved, though the sound was not of this plane—it vibrated directly in Riven's bones.
"Realms of life... as day is to night… grant me what is mine… and I shall offer it to thee."
Then—he opened his eyes.Jet black, twin voids that flickered with specks of white like dying stars. He looked upon Riven—not in recognition, but reverence. As if Riven were a symbol, not a man.
Suddenly—
The world contracted.Pulled tight like a cord wrapped around his ribs.
Then—
Blackness.
Not empty, but full. Full of memories that weren't his, faces he'd never seen, wars he'd never fought, and names that screamed in languages he had never spoken.
Light and shadow flipped—day spiraled into night, then into day again. A thousand times. A million. Worlds ended. Others began. He was nowhere—and then—
A single blue light appeared in the nothingness.Like a star that remembered it had to shine.
Without understanding why, Riven raised his hand.Toward the light.
Snap.
It vanished.Everything vanished.
Silence. Stillness. Then—
A breath.
Colors returned. Smell. Heat. Wind.
He opened his eyes.
"Am I… alive?"
The world came back in pieces.And amidst it, a voice—trembling, broken, real.
A woman knelt beside him. Her black hair was soaked, clinging to her face as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"You're alive…"
She clutched him as if afraid he would vanish again.
Riven didn't speak. He didn't move.Because somewhere deep inside,