Chapter 8: The Fracture
The world snapped back into place with the jarring finality of a slamming door. One moment, I was in the psychic aftermath of the shattered Siren Stone, my brother's voice—Aiden?!—hanging in the air like a death knell. The next, I was on my knees on the cold, familiar floor of my bedroom. The scent of ozone and dungeon decay was replaced by the sterile smell of our home.
Silence. Deafening, absolute silence.
My heart wasn't pounding; it was a frantic bird trying to beat its way out of my ribs. I clutched at my chest, gasping for air that felt too thin. The Veil was gone, my Umbral Blades dissolved. I was just Aiden again. Aiden, who was supposed to be helpless. Aiden, whose brother had just seen him standing as the Ghost over the ruins of a dungeon boss.
He knew.
The words echoed in the hollow of my skull, devoid of meaning yet carrying the weight of my entire collapsing world. All the careful lies, the manufactured helplessness, the silent vigils—shattered in a single, unguarded moment.
I don't know how long I knelt there, frozen in the aftermath. The adrenaline faded, leaving a cold, leaden dread in its wake. I could run. Dungeon Walker could take me anywhere on the planet, to a dungeon so deep no one would ever find me. But that would be an admission of guilt far greater than what Kaelen had seen. It would be abandoning my family, my reason for existing in the shadows.
No. Running wasn't an option. I had to face this.
The front door of the house crashed open downstairs. The sound was violent, a splintering of the fragile peace we'd maintained. I heard my father's voice, startled and confused. "Kaelen? What in the world—? You're back early! Is everything—"
"Where is he?" Kaelen's voice was a raw, guttural thing I didn't recognize. It wasn't a question; it was a demand, fueled by a fury so deep it had scorched away all other emotion.
"Who? Aiden? He's in his room, of course! What's going on?"
Footsteps, heavy and fast, pounded on the stairs. I didn't move. I couldn't. I just stared at my bedroom door, watching the handle twist.
The door flew open, smacking against the wall with a crack. Kaelen stood there, silhouetted in the hallway light. He was still in his combat gear, smeared with dungeon grime and soot. His chest heaved, and in his eyes was a maelstrom of emotions—betrayal, fury, confusion, and a heartbreaking, shattered hope.
He stared at me, at my perfectly normal, kneeling form on the floor. His gaze swept the room, searching for a mask, for daggers, for any sign of the entity he'd just confronted.
"Kaelen, what is the meaning of this?" our father demanded, appearing behind him, his face pale with alarm.
Kaelen ignored him. His eyes, burning with intensity, locked back onto me. "Was it you?" he whispered, the words tearing from his throat. "All of it? The Thicket? The Quarry? The Glacial Bloom? All of it... was it you?"
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. What could I say? Denial was pointless. He hadn't asked if it was me; he'd seen me. He was asking for the scope of the deception.
"Aiden," my father said, his voice pleading. "Son, what is he talking about?"
The weight of their stares, one furious, one bewildered, pressed down on me, suffocating me. I lowered my gaze from Kaelen's, looking at the floorboards between us. My silence was my confession.
Kaelen took a staggering step back as if physically struck. The last vestige of doubt in his eyes evaporated, replaced by a desolate certainty. "All this time..." he breathed. "All this time, I was killing myself... trying to get stronger... to find a cure for you... and you... you were... what are you?"
That was the real question, wasn't it? Not who, but what.
"I can explain," I finally managed, my voice a hoarse croak.
"Explain?!" he roared, the sound making both my father and me flinch. "Explain what? How you've been lying to us? How you've been playing the helpless invalid while you... while you did... that? I saw you! I saw what you did to that crystal! You moved like... like a demon! You have levels! You have skills!"
His eyes narrowed, a new, horrifying thought dawning. "The Awakening Ceremony. You faked that too, didn't you? You never were unawakened. This has been going on for months."
"No," I said, finding a sliver of strength. That, at least, was the truth. "The Ceremony was real. I Awakened after. A few weeks after you."
"Five skills," he stated, his voice flat and cold. He was piecing it together with a terrifying, rapid clarity. "All EX-tier. That's what the system anomaly was. That's why your profile was restricted. Not because you were weak. Because you were a monster."
"Kaelen, that's enough!" our father shouted, stepping between us, though he was looking at me with dawning, terrified confusion. "Aiden, is this true?"
The direct question hung in the air. I looked from my father's stricken face to my brother's shattered one. I could see the foundation of our family, the story we told ourselves to survive, turning to dust before my eyes.
I met Kaelen's gaze. "I never wanted to lie to you."
It was the weakest, most pathetic defense in the history of lies.
A bitter, broken laugh escaped Kaelen's lips. "You never wanted to lie? Then why? Why the charade? Why let me break my arm? Why let me risk my life over and over again if you could just... snap your fingers and fix everything?" His voice cracked. "Were you laughing at me? Was this all some kind of sick game?"
"No!" The word burst out of me with more force than I knew I had. "Never! I was protecting you!"
"Protecting me?" he spat, the words laced with venom. "From what? From the truth? From the fact that my little brother isn't a victim, he's a... a god? You weren't protecting me. You were patronizing me. You made me your pet project. The poor, deluded brother you had to save from himself."
He took another step back, his body trembling with rage and hurt. He looked at me as if he was seeing a stranger. A dangerous, duplicitous stranger.
"I looked for you," he whispered, the fury giving way to a profound, chilling hurt. "I hunted for the Ghost. I thought it was an enemy. An outsider. But it was just you. Hiding in the shadows. Watching me. Pulling my strings."
He turned away, unable to look at me any longer. He walked out of my room, his footsteps heavy on the stairs.
"Kaelen, wait!" our father called after him, but it was useless.
The front door slammed shut again, this time with a sense of finality that shook the entire house.
The silence that returned was different now. It was broken, sharp-edged, and filled with the ruins of our trust. My father turned to me, his face a mask of grief and confusion.
"Aiden," he said, his voice trembling. "My boy... what have you done?"
I had no answer. I had achieved my goal. I had protected him from monsters, from dungeons, from racial invasions. But I had failed to protect him from the most devastating truth of all: the lie I had built my life around. The Ghost had saved the city's prodigy, but he had destroyed a family. And as I knelt there in the devastating quiet, I knew the real battle had only just begun.