(Opening sequence – silent snowfall turning to ash mid-air. The world folds in on itself like paper. A heartbeat echoes in the dark.)
"Dreams remember what waking minds refuse." – Umbra Proverb.
Scene 1
Ren's eyes snapped open to a sky that wasn't a sky at all. Above him drifted slow currents of ink and starlight, rippling like an ocean seen from beneath.Ignis lay nearby, half-buried in silver dust. Glacielle knelt beside her, pale aura dimmed, gaze fixed upward.
They were weightless. The ground pulsed with a rhythm that matched Ren's heartbeat.
"Is this… the dream?" he asked.
Glacielle nodded once. "Or its memory of us."
Ignis pushed herself upright, eyes scanning the endless plain. "Everything's too quiet. I hate quiet."
Ren almost agreed—until the silence broke. Distant chimes drifted through the dark, notes that bent instead of fading. The air thickened; shapes began to form—arches, stairways, fragments of their past woven into a city of mirrors.
They were standing in the reflection of Aetherion itself.
(Camera tilt: the mirrored city glows beneath them, upside-down, alive.)
Scene 2
A figure approached along the inverted street: tall, draped in silk darker than night. Her hair moved as if underwater; her eyes, shifting galaxies.
"Welcome, Resonant," she said. Her voice came from everywhere. "You've brought warmth, cold, and doubt into my domain."
Ren steadied himself. "Umbra."
She smiled faintly. "Names have power. But yes, that was mine once—before I traded it for silence."
Ignis stepped forward, flame glinting along her sword. "We're not here to trade. We need your fragment."
Umbra raised a hand. The sword dissolved into motes of light. "Weapons break meaning here. Only memory cuts."
Ren felt the world lean closer. The mirrored ground rippled, reflecting not his current self but a boy with blank eyes, chained to a glowing sphere.
He flinched. "That's not—"
"—you?" Umbra finished. "Every dream tells the truth, Ren Arclight. Even the ones you never had."
The chain clinked once, echoing far too loud. Around them, the city mirrors began to tremble.
Scene 3
Glacielle whispered, "This place reads thoughts. Don't let it dig too deep."
But it was already too late.
The ground split, revealing layers beneath: laboratories, towers of light, the hum of machinery. Ren saw faceless figures in white coats surrounding a stasis pod. Inside it—a child suspended in pale liquid, hair drifting, an orb pulsing in his chest.
"Subject AR-CLIGHT. Nullborn prototype. Fusion capacity: undefined."
Ren staggered backward. "No…"
Umbra watched impassively. "The Heartbearer sought to seal emotion in fragments, but he required a vessel able to contain them all. So he made you."
"I'm—what? A container?"
"A possibility," she said. "Neither god nor man. The space between."
Ignis grabbed his arm. "Don't listen—she's twisting it."
But the images kept forming: his childhood memories rewriting themselves, gaps filling with cold data instead of warmth. His first breath—the chamber lights flickering—voices arguing whether he would survive.
Ren fell to his knees. The sound of his heartbeat no longer matched the world's rhythm; it led it.
Scene 4
Umbra's eyes gleamed. "He remembers. Then let the trial begin."
The city shattered. Every mirror became a blade of light spinning toward them. Glacielle raised a wall of ice; Ignis countered with flame; the two energies intertwined, holding off the storm.
Ren rose, half-blinded by reflections of himself—hundreds of Rens, each bearing a different expression. Some furious, others hollow.
One stepped out of the line and spoke. "You stole existence from the real one. You're the copy."
Ren clenched his fists. "If I'm the copy, then who's remembering this?"
He swung his arm; flame erupted—but blue instead of red, flickering with icy edges. The false reflection screamed and burst into shards.
Umbra watched, approving. "Good. Only by destroying illusions can you shape truth."
"Then what about you?" Ren shouted. "Are you illusion too?"
She smiled sadly. "I was the Heartbearer's last feeling—guilt. When he shattered, I became Shadow."
The mirrors around her bent inward, forming a sphere that enclosed her like a cocoon. Darkness leaked through the cracks, coiling toward Ren.
Glacielle shouted, "She's drawing him in—Ren, resist!"
He tried, but the black tendrils touched his aura, turning flame to glass. His mind flooded with foreign thoughts: the Heartbearer's voice, echoing across centuries.
"Emotion is the virus of reason. Erase it."
Ren screamed, forcing light outward. The dreamscape inverted again; sky became ground, ground became sky. Everything froze mid-motion.
(Camera slow zoom—Ren floats between shards of memory, suspended.)
Scene 5
He found himself standing in a single corridor stretching forever, lined with mirrors showing moments he never lived: a family at dinner, laughter under sunlight, friends calling his name—scenes of an ordinary life that could have been.
Umbra's voice whispered beside his ear though she wasn't visible. "I offer you peace. Step through any of those and sleep forever as who you wish you were."
Ren touched the nearest mirror. Warm air wafted through it; he smelled fresh bread, heard gentle music. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to stay.
Then he noticed: in the reflection, Ignis and Glacielle were gone.
He withdrew his hand. "Nice try."
The mirrors cracked simultaneously. "Then face the truth," Umbra said, appearing ahead of him. "You are not a hero. You are a reset key."
Light flared from her palms, coalescing into an hourglass made of shadow. Inside it swirled fragments of flame and ice—his memories, compressed.
"When it empties," she said, "you cease to be. The fragments will seek new vessels, and the world will forget this cycle."
Ren stared at the hourglass. Each grain that fell was a heartbeat, his heartbeat.
He stepped forward. "You think I'm afraid to disappear?"
"No," Umbra said softly. "You're afraid to matter."
Scene 6 – Rebellion
Something in those words struck deep. The flames along Ren's arm reignited, brighter, steadier.
He raised his head. "Maybe I was built empty—but that means I get to choose what fills me."
The mirrors behind him flared; every reflection turned its head to look at Umbra. For the first time, she hesitated.
Ignis's voice cut through the dark: "Ren! Burn the dream!"
He thrust his hand toward the hourglass. Fire and frost merged again, a spiral of white-blue radiance that pierced the gloom. The glass exploded, scattering shards that became stars.
Umbra staggered, shadows peeling off her like smoke. Beneath them was a faint light—the same blue as Glacielle's aura, the same warmth as Ignis's flame.
For a heartbeat she looked almost human.
"Heartbearer…" she whispered, reaching for him.
Ren caught her wrist. "Tell me what I am. All of it."
Her eyes glimmered with sorrow. "You are the fragment he could never break—the heart he tried to erase."
Before he could respond, the dream convulsed. The stars above shattered into letters, raining symbols that burned through reality.
Scene 7
The world twisted violently; gravity lost meaning. Ignis and Glacielle appeared beside him again, dragged by invisible tides. Umbra's form fractured, scattering into seven streams of light that converged on Ren's chest.
He felt them enter—the third fragment joining the others—and with it, unbearable weight.
Glacielle screamed his name; her voice warped, distant.
Ignis reached out, her hand almost touching his before everything turned white.
(Camera flash—silence—heartbeat.)
Then a whisper, not Umbra's but ancient, filled the void:
"Awaken, Heartbearer."
Scene 8
Ren opened his eyes to darkness again—but this time it was solid, like stone. He was lying on cold metal, no sign of the others. Symbols glowed faintly beneath his skin, moving like living veins.
From above, mechanical humming echoed—familiar. The laboratory from his vision, rebuilt.
A shadow moved in the doorway. Not Umbra, not Ignis, not Glacielle.
A tall figure in white stepped forward, face hidden by light.
"Subject AR-CLIGHT," the voice said, identical to the one from the vision. "Welcome home."
Ren tried to speak, but no sound came. The figure extended a hand.
The world flickered between dream and reality, the boundary gone.
(Screen cuts to black. Single piano note rings out.)
[Next on I Can Upgrade My Status by Kissing the Seven Princesses of the World — Chapter 11: "The Third Kiss"]