Elrian stood at the edge, his heart a maelstrom of emotions in conflict. The rift behind him pulsed, casting long, dark shadows across the ravaged land in its ominous glow. The journey ahead promised nothing but torment, and the weight of the promise he made to Adria threatened to suffocate him. Yet, there was no turning back now.
His gaze stayed with her, Adria, who had formed him, filled the space of silent emptiness his father's absence had given way to. All around them, the battlefield was a world of shattered dreams and cracked facades; here, in this final moment, everything changed. His resolve hardened.
"Adria," Elrian's voice was a low murmur, as if to voice the truth out loud would somehow shatter him. "I swear to you, the Rift will fall. I will not fail you."
Before him, Adria stood tall and fragile, her face a topography of battles fought within the soul. An unreadable mask, her eyes-so bruised with the pain they had witnessed-softened. She nodded, her head bowing to the weight of his words, the storm brewing behind them. Yet in her gaze, there was more than mere sadness-a silent, last plea.
"You carry more than your own burden now, Elrian," she whispered, her voice barely audible lest the wind itself take the words. "Remember-your father did not die for this. He did not fight so that you might bow to a path without protest or struggle."
His jaw clamped down, yet his hands shook as he reached for hers. "I will not fail, mother. You have my word."
She grasped him a little closer for a moment, her eyes gleaming intensely, before releasing him. "The Rift holds tightly, its darkness. it'll consume you if you don't keep your footing. You have to decide what you fight for and against, and what victory you are prepared to pay for."
He stepped back; his gaze hardened. "I'd give up all.
The wind howled around them, and with the turn of his back upon her, each step pressed him further away from the only home he knew.
Hours later, El'rian was facing the Rift-the air full of despair. He stood before churning darkness promising a release of unfathomable energies-not through whispered words, as such, but promises themselves-calling him to give in, to release within himself, giving into the chaos.
Yet the fogginess had not taken Elrian's thoughts captive. For he knew by then that he was never seeking to grasp that power of the Rift, but his will to break it.
Shallow breathing and erratic pulse, he proceeded into the darkness. It felt like with every step in the limitless surroundings echoed tones without an end, while thoughts of Adria's last words just swirled around in his head.
What will I choose?
The influence of the Rift pulled on his soul, screaming into his heart the deepest and most terrifying truths of it. Images flickered through his mind-visions of Adria, the war his father fought, the brutal choices they all were forced to make. Then the vision shifted: He was standing over the crumpled body of Adria, his hands covered in her blood.
"Is this what I have to become?" The question fell from his lips in a raw, guttural whisper.
Suddenly, the Rift itself seemed to respond. A figure emerged from the darkness-not quite human, not quite monstrous. The creature's form shifted ever-changing; its eyes were cold and calculating.
"You are at the crossroads, Elrian," it spoke in a voice that was a discordant harmony of tones, each carrying the weight of eternity. "You stand before the greatest decision of your life. Will you choose to break the Rift, or will you become its master?"
Elrian's breath hitched. The words seemed to crawl under his skin, poisoning his thoughts. It was as if the Rift had tapped into his deepest fears, forcing him to confront everything he had tried to ignore. He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms as if the pain would ground him.
"I will destroy the Rift," Elrian spat, his words sharp with defiance.
The creature laughed, its voice like the shattering of glass. "Ah, but what if the Rift has already claimed you, Elrian? What if you are already part of it?"
The earth shook beneath him. His mind was a battlefield, the Rift's pull so strong he could feel himself slipping. For a moment, Elrian wondered if it had already begun to devour him. He staggered, the world spinning, his vision clouded by flashes of red, of death.
No.
He pushed the darkness away, refocusing on the truth that had driven him here in the first place.
"Enough!" Elrian shouted, the sudden break in silence making him gasp. "I will not be used as a puppet of the Rift. I will put an end to this."
The creature simply smiled. "Then you must face the greatest choice of all-what will you sacrifice for that victory? Your soul? Your humanity? Or perhaps. someone else's?"
And with that, the Rift began to twist, warping even the course of time itself. Shadows seemed to reach for him, tendrils of dark power trying to ensnare him, drag him into the depths.
A sharp, searing pain exploded in Elrian's chest. He gasped for air, his vision blurring as a voice, cold and distant, echoed within his head.
"You are not alone, Elrian. You never were."
The shadows grew louder, consuming him, and Elrian felt himself faltering.
"Mother," he whispered, his mind falling back to her final words. "What do I choose?"
But there was no answer. The Rift's grip was tightening, and Elrian knew in that moment that the choice was his alone to make.
It called to him, that darkness, and with it came a promise of a power he had never known. He could feel it clawing at the edges of his soul, but something else stirred in the center of his heart: a flicker of hope, a spark of defiance.
He had no choice but to continue the fight.
To honor his mother, and defeat the Rift.
El'rian's knees buckled, and he went down, wrapping the power of the Rift around him like a squeezer, forcing the breath from his lungs. The world blurred around him-twisted unnatural. His mind scattered, a thousand shards of glass, each slicing through his mind with agonizing clarity. His chest was on fire, not from the pain of the Rift's influence, but from realization: it was too late. He was already consumed.
It's not the Rift that breaks you; it's your own choices.
It came like a sledgehammer blow, shallow desperate breaths the only way to hang onto the few tenuous strands of sanity remaining. The creature's voice-that which had so mocked him-filtered into his brain, as if venom was seeping in.
You think you can resist? You're already mine, Elrian. Your will is broken, just like your father's.
"No," he gasped, shaking his head violently, as though the action could tear the Rift's words from his mind. "I won't let you-I won't let it win.
El'rian forced himself to his feet, using every last ounce of willpower. The shadows swarmed around him, trying to drag him back into the abyss, but inch by painful inch he pushed onward. His body shrieked in protest, and his vision swam, but he refused to fall.
He couldn't afford to.
"You think you're stronger than the Rift? You can't escape your destiny. The choice has already been made."
Its voice was a whisper in the dark, a chiseled knife in his mind. The Rift is a part of you, Elrian, it said. It was born from your pain, your fear. It is you.
"No!" he screamed, punching his fists with such force that his nails pierced his palms. "I choose to fight. I will break the chains you've placed on me!"
His heart thundered in his chest, the rhythm of his pulse a constant reminder that he was alive, still breathing, still capable of defying whatever the Rift tried to impose on him.
But the shadows were closing in.
His father's voice echoed in the back of his mind. You must choose your battles carefully, Elrian. The path to victory is not always clear. but in the end, it's your choice.
Elrian stumbled, his mind flickering between visions of his father's face-strong, resolute features-and the haunting image of Adria's smile, a smile that held in its curves the weight of every promise left unsaid between them.
"Adria…" His voice cracked, and for a moment, he faltered. What was it she had said? What had she meant by sacrifice? Was he already too far gone to save himself?
No.
The darkness surged forward, and Elrian felt himself falling, his body pulled to the ground. And in the midst of that abyss, a new feeling arose: rage, not just at the Rift, not just at the creature, but at the world that put him in this very position.
It was not fate that had brought him here; it was his choice.
A single thought broke through the smothering embrace of the Rift: an incandescent burning within the haze.
"I will break this cycle," Elrian whispered-low and laced with an iron-like unyielding conviction-"I will choose."
Calling on a depth he had never tapped into, Elrian reached deep within himself, clutching for the very core of his being. At his touch, the power of the Rift shook and recoiled before his defiance. For one instant, he saw the flicker of doubt in the shadows.
This was his choice.
The Rift no longer could keep him captive. Not now that he knew the truth. His father's sacrifice, the words of Adria-it was all to lead up to this very moment. He was not the pawn of destiny; he was Elrian, his soul belonging to none but himself.
The creature shrieked in a wail of rage that seemed to ring across the Rift, yet Elrian did not even flinch. He stood tall, his heart ablaze with the fierce fire of determination.
He was not going to become another victim. Not this time.
The Rift shattered, its tendrils splintering as the darkness that once consumed him finally began to dissipate. Yet, even as the Rift collapsed around him, another threat emerged, a choice that was now laid bare before him.
From the collapsing Rift stepped a figure of pure ether, neither human nor understandable, its form that of a twisting silhouette, an ever-shifting mass of light and shadow.
"You have shattered the Rift," the voice of the figure boomed within his mind, not in words but in some primordial pulse of energy. "But now you must choose what follows. Will you restore the balance, or will you be the one to decide what fate shall pour?"
Elrian's eyes locked with the figure, and his mind raced. The Rift had fallen, yes. But this. this was far from over.
There had been more to this world than the war between light and darkness, between order and chaos. And Elrian now grasped that this battle was not in the defeat of the Rift but within those very choices to be made which would forge the future.
"I will choose," he whispered, a new clarity settling over him.
As the Rift crumbled into nothingness, Elrian knew that whatever came next, this battle had been his to fight, and it was his choice to make.
For the first time in his life, Elrian felt a sense of true freedom.
The question now was not how he would fight, but what he would choose to become.