Eryx opened his eyes to darkness.
Not the comforting darkness of night, but the oppressive kind that pressed on his chest, cold and heavy, as if the air itself had weight. His body ached with a dull throb, limbs unsteady. He tried to remember how he had arrived here, but his mind was blank, a canvas wiped clean.
The room around him was small, square, and silent except for a sound he could not place.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Slow, distant, yet unbearably loud. It felt like it came from inside his skull, syncing with his heartbeat, making every pulse sharper.
Eryx pushed himself to sit. His dark, gray-blue eyes swept over the walls. They were made of stone, unbroken, seamless, as if carved from a single slab of reality. Not a window. Not a crack—nothing but cold, gray stone that seemed to watch him back.
At the far end of the room stood an iron door. Thick, scarred, bent inward in places. Whoever had touched it before—if anyone had—had failed. Dust littered the floor, disturbed by his first tentative steps.
To his left, near the corner, was something unusual. A faint shimmer ran along a jagged crack in the wall. It pulsed softly, like a heartbeat of light buried in stone.
Eryx approached it cautiously. His hand trembled as he reached out, stopping an inch away. The glow reacted to his presence, brightening, then dimming.
He swallowed. "What… is this?" His voice was low, almost swallowed by the room.
He could feel it—something inside him responding. A pulse of energy, distant and strange, flickering just beneath his skin. He did not know it yet, but this was mana, awakening for the first time.
The iron door creaked. Dust fell from above. Not enough to scare him—he had already been startled far more by the strange light—but enough to make his heart pound. Something pressed from the other side, slow, deliberate.
Instinct urged him to run, but where could he go? The walls were unyielding. There was nowhere to hide.
He studied the crack again. It seemed almost alive, whispering to him in a language he could not understand but felt deeply. He leaned closer. The glow danced across his fingers.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Eryx froze. The sound quickened, becoming uneven, erratic, like a heartbeat racing out of control. He stepped back, eyes darting between the crack and the door.
A thought surfaced—vague, almost unbearable. A face, blurred and fleeting, pressed against his mind. A woman. Warmth. Desperation. Something lost. Something he could not fully remember. The edges of grief cut into him, leaving a hollow ache.
Another pulse of light came from the wall. This time it was stronger, warmer, almost calling to him. His hand moved forward despite the fear. The second it touched the glow, the room seemed to shift.
No falling. No darkness. Only white. Endless, blinding, infinite white.
Eryx felt his knees give out, though there was no ground. His chest heaved. His heartbeat sounded louder than the ticking he had heard before, echoing through the void.
Then it came—a presence. Indistinct at first, blurry, like smoke trying to hold a shape. It hovered in front of him, human in form, but impossible to focus on.
"You are not from this world," a voice said, calm yet resonating inside him.
Eryx's eyes widened. "Who… are you?" he whispered.
The presence did not answer immediately. Instead, visions crashed into his mind: fire, stone collapsing, screams, people running through chaos. A woman clutching a child—desperation in her eyes, a fleeting warmth, a memory almost out of reach. Shadows, strangers he did not know but felt he should.
The pulse beneath his skin reacted. Heat, pressure, power. A surge of energy he could not name flooded through his veins, filling every inch of him with burning light. Blue light. Mana. Alive, responding to fear, confusion, and grief.
"You must find her," the voice whispered, almost in thought. "She will guide you… to what you truly are."
Eryx gasped. His knees buckled, chest heaving, heart thrumming with mana. The white void began to crack, lines appearing like fractures in reality. The light dimmed. The presence dissipated.
He fell forward, landing back in the stone room. The floor was solid beneath him. The iron door loomed as before, silent. The crack in the wall glimmered faintly, a reminder that something had shifted inside him.
He pressed his hands against his chest, feeling the power thrumming under his skin, raw and unfamiliar. His gray-blue eyes darted around the room. He knew one thing with absolute certainty: there was no going back.
And then, everything went black.