Elias clenched his fists, his breath uneven. The shifting visions around him flickered like candlelight, threatening to consume his sense of self.
"A paradox?" His voice wavered. "Then what am I supposed to be?"
The cloaked figure took a slow step forward. The very ground beneath them rippled, as if the world itself responded to their presence.
"You are a memory that has not yet been forgotten. A story that refuses to be erased."
Elias's pulse pounded in his ears. He felt the weight of infinite lives pressing down on him. Faces of people he had never met—yet somehow knew—flashed before his eyes. Lovers, enemies, strangers. Their voices whispered in his mind, fragments of conversations he had never spoken.
"No," he whispered. "This... this can't be real."
The figure tilted their head slightly.
"Define 'real,' Elias."
The air grew thick with silence.
Elias wanted to deny it. To believe that he was just a man, an individual bound by time and space. But deep inside, something cracked. A truth he had buried for far too long began to surface.
He had lived before.
He had died before.
And every time, he had awoken again.
"Why?" His voice barely escaped his lips. "Why does this keep happening?"
The figure extended their hand. For a moment, Elias hesitated. But something inside him knew—if he didn't take it, he would remain trapped in this endless cycle, lost between dream and reality.
His fingers met the figure's palm.
The world shattered.
A surge of light and darkness swallowed him whole, and suddenly—
He was standing somewhere else.
A city. One he had never seen, yet knew by heart.
The sky was painted in hues of violet and crimson, the sun hanging too close, casting elongated shadows. Buildings towered like ancient monuments, their surfaces etched with symbols Elias couldn't read—but understood.
People passed by, their faces blurred, their voices distant echoes.
And then—
A name slipped from his lips before he could stop himself.
"Lyra."
The moment the name escaped him, the air around him grew heavy. The figures in the city froze. A hush fell over everything, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Then, from the depths of the crowd, a single figure turned to face him.
A woman.
Her eyes, a deep silver, locked onto his.
And Elias remembered.
Everything.