Cold.That was the first thing I felt when I woke — not the ordinary chill of dawn, but something older, the kind that seeps into bone and thought alike.
I opened my eyes to find a sky split in half: one side burned red, the other drowned in black clouds. The ground beneath me shimmered like cracked glass, reflecting pieces of two worlds trying to devour each other.
"Sera?"My voice echoed, then fractured, like the air itself couldn't decide which direction to carry it.
Only silence answered.
Ruined towers leaned against invisible winds. Statues of faceless soldiers lined a broken road that wound toward a floating fortress in the distance. It looked like Arden Fort—but twisted, upside-down, bleeding light from its windows.
I took a step. The earth whispered beneath my boots.
Welcome home.
A laugh—my own voice—answered from nowhere. "Still pretending you can save them?"
I turned. A man stepped out of the mist wearing my face. Same black hair, same blue eyes—but his irises glowed like dying stars. He smiled with a predator's patience.
"I'm you," he said, "or what's left of you once you stop lying to yourself."
He drew a blade made of shadow. I drew mine by reflex, though it felt heavier here, slower.Steel met darkness; sparks were memories—faces, screams, blood. Every clash showed moments from the past: me turning away from someone crying, me standing over corpses, me smiling while the world burned.
"Why fight?" he asked between strikes. "You know what happens. You win, they die. You lose, they die. That's the curse of a villain's role."
"I'm rewriting it," I growled.
He laughed. "Rewriting doesn't change the ending—only delays it."
He vanished, leaving the echo of his laughter drifting through the ruined sky.
Alone again, I stumbled forward until the road split into two bridges. One led to the fortress; the other descended into a dark forest that whispered my name.
A faint voice called from the trees. "Lucien!"
Sera. I didn't even think—I ran.
Branches clawed at my coat. The air smelled of rain and blood. The forest shifted around me; paths reversed; roots formed symbols glowing faintly red.
Then I saw her—standing in a clearing, pale light around her. She looked unharmed, but something in her eyes was wrong—too still.
"Sera," I breathed, reaching out. "You're alive."
She smiled. "Of course I am. You saved me, remember?"
Her hand brushed my cheek, warm and soft. I closed my eyes for half a heartbeat—and felt the temperature drop.
When I opened them again, her smile was gone. Her skin turned gray, veins black as ink. She whispered, "Why didn't you save me the first time?"
Her form cracked, shattering like glass into mist.
I fell to my knees, shaking. "This isn't real… This world's trying to break me."
Exactly, the voice whispered again. That's how you'll become whole.
Hours—or days—passed as I wandered the Gate World. Each ruin held ghosts of my mistakes. In one, I saw the council chamber burning. In another, my mother turning away, saying, "You're not my son anymore."
Each illusion left a scar. But each also reminded me of why I'd fought so long—to prove that destiny could bleed.
When I finally reached the floating fortress, the doors opened on their own. Inside, instead of soldiers, I found chains hanging from the ceiling, holding fragments of memories—floating orbs showing moments from both my world and the original novel I'd read back on Earth.
One orb showed Ana—the heroine—smiling at the old Lucien before she betrayed him. Another showed Evan Rylan—the reader I once was—reading that same betrayal on a phone screen.
It hit me all at once.I wasn't just inside the novel. The Gate World was built from the boundary between fiction and memory, between the villain and the reader. My curse wasn't just darkness—it was the story itself trying to keep its original ending alive.
From the shadows stepped the other Lucien again, calm now. "Do you see it? You can't destroy the story. You can only play your part."
"Then I'll change the part."
He tilted his head. "Even if it costs everything you love?"
I thought of Sera—her laugh, her stubborn courage, the way she said my name like it meant hope instead of horror. "Especially if it saves her."
He smiled, almost sadly. "Then prove it."
The fortress floor split open. A storm of black fire rose, forming the Gate itself—an archway pulsing with veins of red light. Beyond it, I could hear Sera screaming, distant but real this time.
I gripped my sword. The other me stood before the Gate like a guardian.One step closer, and he attacked again—each blow heavier, faster. Shadows bit into my armor, cutting deep, whispering doubts with every strike.
"You're not a hero," he hissed. "You're a curse wearing human skin."
"Maybe," I gasped, parrying, blood on my lip. "But I'm her curse."
With one final surge, I plunged my sword through his chest. His eyes widened, light fading. The shadows around us crumbled.
He smiled faintly. "Then go… and finish what I couldn't."
He dissolved into light. The Gate flared open.
I stepped through.
The world inverted again—sound becoming silence, color becoming fire. For a moment, I saw Sera suspended in mid-air, chains of light wrapped around her wrists, eyes closed. The same sigil—The Gate Opens—burned above her head.
"Sera!" I shouted.
Her eyes snapped open—pure white.
The curse laughed through her lips.