Darkness dissolved slowly, giving way to a dim, blood-red sky. The world unfolded around Asher Kael in fragments: cracked earth that seemed to weep with steam, the faint smell of ash and iron, and far in the distance, a towering structure that seemed to pulse like a beating heart. Yet it was neither the air nor the ominous structure that unnerved him the most—it was the silence. It was deafening.
He lay there, motionless, his mind grappling with a void deeper than the darkness he had just left behind. Thoughts flickered, faint and disjointed, as though trying to connect memories that simply didn't exist.
"Who... am I?" Asher muttered under his breath.
He clenched his fists reflexively, feeling the texture of something rough in his palm. Slowly, his gaze dropped to his hand. A book—ancient, bound in charred leather—lay cradled in his fingers as if it had always been there. It bore no title, no author, only an unsettling stillness that mirrored his own.
"This book..." Asher thought, his brow furrowing.
His thumb traced its cracked spine, and for a moment, he hesitated to open it. There was an inexplicable weight to it, not physical, but mental. The kind that made his chest tighten and his breath shallow. He swallowed hard, flipping it open, only to find its pages... blank.
"How fitting," Asher thought bitterly, his lips curling into a faint, humorless smile. "A book with no words for a man with no past."
But as he held it longer, something shifted. The pages seemed to ripple, though there was no wind. Shadows slithered along its edges, whispering just beneath his threshold of understanding. He slammed it shut, a shiver running down his spine.
"No," Asher thought, the word reverberating like a command to himself. "Not yet."
He rose to his feet, unsteady but determined. Around him stretched a land he could not name, filled with a foreboding emptiness that only deepened his unease. In the distance, the towering structure—black and jagged—loomed over everything. It exuded malice, an aura of power so thick it was almost suffocating.
"That place... why does it feel like it's watching me?" Asher whispered, the words hanging in the air like a forbidden truth.
His fingers tightened around the book as he began walking, his body moving before his mind could object. Step by step, he felt as though invisible strings were pulling him forward.
---
As he approached the structure, a voice echoed faintly in his head—his own voice, yet distorted, unfamiliar:
"Do you believe in fate, or are you simply its prisoner?"
He froze, the question reverberating like a bell tolling in an empty cathedral. Was it his thought? Or something the book had planted? He looked down at it, his expression darkening.
"This... thing. What is it really? A tool? A curse? Or a doorway?"
For the first time, doubt crept into his resolve. He had no memories, no purpose, but something deep within him whispered that this book—this object of unexplainable origin—was the key. Yet, keys could open doors, but they could also lock them.
Asher Kael felt the weight of this unknown world press in on him. Every step he took brought him closer to the structure, and with each step, the feeling of being watched intensified. It was as if the land itself was aware of his presence—waiting. He could almost hear it, the faintest murmur in the wind, calling to him.
"Whatever it is... it's not just this land. It's... it's me too. It's all connected."