As Elias took that fateful step forward, the world around him trembled. The sky rippled like a disturbed pond, and the great tree above them groaned, as if the weight of its existence had suddenly become unbearable.
His older self remained still, watching.
Then, the ground beneath Elias gave way.
He fell—not into darkness, but into light. Blinding, endless light. His mind fractured, his memories unraveling and reforming all at once. Every dream he had ever had, every moment of his life that felt like déjà vu, crashed into him with unbearable clarity.
He wasn't just Elias.
He had lived this before.
He had been here before.
Memories that did not belong to him—or perhaps had always belonged to him—unfolded like pages of a forgotten book.
A war fought in the shadows of reality.
A promise made beneath the very tree where he had stood.
A sacrifice.
Elias gasped, his body twisting as he landed—not on solid ground, but on a reflection of himself. The surface beneath him rippled, as if he were floating atop a mirror that stretched endlessly in every direction.
And across from him, his older self remained, standing upon the same mirrored plane.
"Now you see," the older Elias said, his voice heavy. "Now you understand."
Elias clutched his head. The weight of the knowledge threatened to crush him. He saw himself again and again, in different moments, in different choices. Each path branching infinitely, yet always leading back to this place.
This moment.
"This is the cycle," his older self continued. "The dream that never ends. The paradox you have lived a thousand times before."
Elias's breath came in short gasps. He staggered back, but there was nowhere to run. The reflection beneath him simply stretched on, showing him the endless versions of himself.
"No," Elias whispered. "This isn't real."
His older self tilted his head. "Isn't it?"
The mirrored world rippled again, and suddenly, Elias was drowning. The surface swallowed him whole, dragging him down into an abyss of memories, of possibilities, of truths he wasn't ready to face.
As the light above faded, a single thought echoed in his mind:
If this is a dream… then why does it hurt so much?