The Spire was alive. Kaelen felt it in his every nerve, every fiber of his being. The walls themselves seemed to hum with a strange energy, vibrating softly beneath his fingertips as though they were a living organism-something far older, far more complex than he could possibly comprehend. This was no mere structure, no mere monument of stone. A place of power, a nexus between worlds, a remnant of a time when the Rift was not a tear in the fabric of existence but the pulse. And now, it called to him.
"Do you feel it, Kaelen?" Erynn's voice came to him, quiet but charged with an emotion he couldn't quite place. "It's as if the very heart of this place is beckoning us."
He nodded, but the answer was not so easily given. The energy of the Rift could be felt in the air, pushing against his skin, crushing his lungs. It was exhilarating and terrifying, a staring into the abyss and finding the abyss staring back.
"I feel it," he whispered. "But it's not just power. There's something else. something more."
They stood, feet together, staring down at the device inlaid into the wall. It pulsed with energy, every beat a soundless thrum, the heart of a giant sleeping beneath them. This was it-the artifact that could command the Rift, the artifact that could change everything.
"What do you think it's capable of?" Erynn asked, her voice soft, yet there was a burr in it-another indication of how badly her nerves betrayed her.
Kaelin said nothing. He could say nothing. He'd already seen and borne far too much: all those visions and shattered fragments of time and space that had accosted him from the instant he had touched the power of the Rift. It wasn't merely a device but rather a key to something so infinitely beyond his perception that he could not even speculate about what had slumbered there, beneath reality's crust, merely awaiting release.
"What if we do not know what we are dealing with?" Kaelen said, his eyes stuck to the artifact. "What if. the Rift is not merely a power to be harnessed, but rather a truth to be revealed?"
"Truth?" Erynn repeated, her tone thick with disbelief. "Do you honestly believe this thing holds the truth? What truth could there possibly be within something that bends reality, that tears apart worlds?"
He turned to her, his eyes dark, almost haunted. "The truth that reality is nothing but a construct-a fragile illusion that we cling to because we have no other choice. The truth that the Rift is the very foundation of everything. The universe we know, the one we suffer in, is just one layer of an infinite existence. What we see, what we feel, is a mere fraction. The Rift is the doorway. to everything."
Erynn stepped closer, her face etched with concern, but beneath it was something else-a flicker of curiosity, of fear. "And if we step through it? What happens if we find out what's truly on the other side?"
Kaelen paused. "I don't know," he said quietly. "But what if we do not? What if we stay here, stuck in the untruths which have kept us incarcerated in this eternal circle of torture and misery?
Erynn didn't say a word for the longest time. Her eyes delved into his, searching for an echo of anything in him that wasn't part of the shadows each had been lured into. "And what is it that we shall find behind the broken barrier, Kaelen? What shall we lose?"
Before he could answer, the air around them seemed to shift, warping and trembling as though a storm was coming. Kaelen's heart raced as he felt the presence of something—a being—looming in the room, its energy sickly and oppressive, cloying the air with an unseen weight.
"I've been waiting for this moment," a voice hissed, echoing through the chamber like the scratching of claws on glass.
It was the Overseer.
Kaelen's breath caught in his throat. He turned sharply to face it, the coldness of its presence seeping into his bones. Its form was not solid, but translucent, a shimmering silhouette that flickered between existence and oblivion. It was a creature of shadows, a thing born from the Rift, its very essence a contradiction-part of it, yet a force that sought to control it.
"You think to control the Rift?" The Overseer spat, voice low and burbling with whispers. "You think to bend reality to your whim? You are nothing but insects scurrying in the dark, Kaelen. You have no concept of the power you seek to wield."
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "And what would you know of power? Of truth? You are nothing but a puppet, a tool of the Rift. You can manipulate the fragments of reality, but you cannot create them. You cannot shape them as I can."
The Overseer's form danced wildly, seeming to fight its way to cohesion. "You know nothing, Kaelen. The Rift is not your plaything. It is the root of existence, the source of all things. What you seek to do will unravel the very fabric of the universe. You cannot-will not-comprehend the consequences of your actions."
"Then explain it to me," Kaelen spat back, voice rising, raw with frustration. "Tell me what the Rift truly is-or are you too afraid to face it yourself?"
The Overseer drew back; his ethereal form shifted violently. He hissed; the sound was like glass scraping across metal. "You will know soon enough. But by that time, it would be too late."
Kaelen turned back to the device, his hand shaking as he reached toward it. Erynn's voice suddenly cut through his thoughts. "Kaelen. don't do this. Whatever the Overseer says, we can control it. We can make the Rift ours. We can be free."
But Kaelen didn't hear her. His mind was a jumble of conflicting thoughts, his heart racing in his chest. He was so close. So close to the truth. But at what cost? Was this really the truth he sought, or was it a lie, a twisted reflection of everything he had ever believed?
As his fingers brushed the artifact, a violent pulse of energy shot through him, and the room shattered.
The world crumbled.
Now fully activated, the device hurled an avalanche of energy that burst outwards in an explosion, ripping across the very fabric of space. Reality itself seemed to writhe and twist, folding in on itself like a shattered mirror. Kaelen's body was hurled and pulled, as if even the very nature of existence refused to let him go.
Time came back with a vengeance and blended into the chaotic torrent of images. Visions raced through his brain-torrents that spoke of worlds unseen, civilizations to rise and set in an age-long cycle. There was the Rift, not rent, but door-and passage between numerous realities, where each was none more than portion of the greater thing that formed the whole of it.
And then, the light hit him.
A single, shining beam resplendent through the darkness. It was a light that seemed to call to him, a beacon of hope amidst the chaos. It was a light he could not ignore, no matter how hard he tried.
"Erynn!" he screamed, his voice echoing through the void. "We have to—"
But the words died in his throat as the light enveloped him.
The light which had swallowed up Kaelen was not a gentle thing-no warmth of enlightenment, no hope of revelation-but an all-engulfing, force-cold, suffocating, the last judgment upon anything he had ever known. Thoughts scrambled and disjointed as the light pulled him deeper and further from his body, from the world he thought he understood.
He no longer stood within the chamber of the Etheric Spire; he was lost in some sort of swirling vortex of sound and vision-a place where time had no meaning, where reality was without significance, just broken pieces of a shattered truth.
Voices whispered to him.
"Kaelen… Kaelen, do you hear us?"
The whispers grew louder, more insistent. The faces of people—faces he knew and faces he didn't—appeared before him, contorted in agony, their mouths open as if to scream, but the sound drowned out by the deafening hum of the Rift.
"You shouldn't have come here," one voice said. It was Erynn's, yet not, warped by the forces of the Rift. Her face, once so familiar and full of life, was now a twisted mask of despair. "You should have stayed in the darkness, Kaelen. You should have stayed where you were safe."
He tried to reach out, but his body felt heavy, his limbs no longer attached to him. The air was thick, like a weight across his skin, pressing down on him. The walls of the Spire were gone, replaced by a sea of nothing stretching off in every direction. Before him lay the Rift-an endless chasm, the gaping mouth of the very core of creation.
Kaelen's chest constricted. His breathing turned shallow and strained as finally, the realization came to him, like a blow to the head: this wasn't a path to salvation-this was the decent into oblivion. So blind to know, to control the power of the Rift, he hadn't stopped to think about the consequences of unlocking it.
There was no going back from here.
"There is no salvation in knowledge, Kaelen," the voice of the Overseer echoed now, part of the endless chorus of whispers. "You thought you could control the Rift, shape reality to your will, but it was never yours to command. You've only opened a door to madness. This place… this place changes you."
A cold, sickly feeling seeped into Kaelen's veins as the Overseer's words took hold in his mind. Was this the truth? Was the Rift not to be controlled but instead some kind of force that consumed any who would dare seek to understand it? He was too far gone now to turn back.
He stumbled forward, but the ground beneath him shifted, evaporating like smoke, leaving him floating in an abyss where his own body seemed to lose its form. His mind twisted in on itself, memories folding upon each other in an endless loop.
"Erynn…," he whispered, his voice cracking with the weight of his panic. But it wasn't Erynn who answered him. It was himself-the voice of the man he used to be, before all of this began.
"You wanted to save, didn't you? You wanted to save them all. But you've forgotten what saving means. What it costs."
The voice was not a kind one, cold and accusatory, as if his very existence had become a mockery of the ideal he once clung to.
"You sought the truth," it continued, "but the truth was always inside you. You were never going to find it in the Rift, Kaelen. You were always meant to destroy it-yourself."
A scream formed in his chest, but it was swallowed by the void.
Kaelen's consciousness fractured.
There was a sensation of falling. A feeling deeper than physical was overwhelming, as if he were falling not through space, but through time. Past, present, future-all fell into one crushing weight that was smothering him.
And then, in a second, he was standing.
Or was he? It was hard to say. His body felt. wrong. Not in the way that it had been before, when it was numb with pain. No, this was something deeper. Something fundamental had changed.
Before him stood the Spire-or rather, what was left of it. That which had once been a tower of towering, gleaming stone had become a ruin. The walls were charred, cracked as if the very energy which powered them had eaten into their structure. The vast, storm-choked sky hovered distant, swirling with unnatural force.
"Is this what you wanted, Kaelen?"
Erynn's voice again, but this time, it wasn't filled with fear. It was calm. Almost. detached.
He turned to find her standing behind him, her silhouette framed by the destruction of the Spire. Her face was expressionless, her eyes hollow.
"I never asked for this," Kaelen whispered, his voice shaking with a mix of disbelief and dread. "I never wanted this. But I had to know the truth. I had to.
Erynn's lips twisted into something that almost resembled a sad smile, but didn't touch her eyes. "You think you still can still change it, don't you? You think there's still some kind of way out of this. But you're wrong, Kaelen. You're wrong about everything."
A deep pain welled within him, a wrenching ache in his chest. He wanted to reach out to her, take her hand, and hang on to the last shred of humanity that connected him to the world he knew. But his fingers reached towards her, passing through her like smoke.
"You can't save me," she said, her voice distant now, as if she were already fading. "You can't save anyone. The Rift doesn't allow salvation. It only allows for decay."
Kaelen's heart thundered in his chest, but already his mind was unraveling. What had he done? What had he unleashed upon the world?
Sharp as any blade against the inside of his skull, the Overseer's words cut again.
"You wanted to be free from the prison of this world, Kaelen. But what you don't realize is that you've only chained yourself to the true prison-the one inside your mind."
The world shattered again, this time into smaller pieces, each piece showing a different version of himself: a man who had never been tested, a man who had never known the burden of choice, of responsibility. Each of them stared back at him, each one a fragment of who he might have been.
"You've given up everything, Kaelen. What's left of you now?"
He tried to speak-to answer-but no words came. In his mind, it was as if a cacophony of voices, memories, faces; all of those drowned him, stifled him, until he was only able to listen to the endless hum of the Rift: the eternal pulse which, no matter how much distance he runs, would never end.
He had thought that finding the truth would be freedom. Now he knew how wrong he had been. The truth was not freedom; the truth was a prison. It was insanity.
And now, there was nothing left to do but wait for the consequences.