Oracle (Dream Fragment)
Darkness swallowed everything.
Cold.
Heavy.
Endless.
He drifted through it, weightless and nameless, until a faint glow flickered somewhere above him — soft, warm, familiar. He reached for it, and the darkness peeled back like smoke.
A memory surfaced.
Broken.
Shattered.
Barely holding together.
He stood in a clearing he half‑remembered, moonlight trembling through the trees. His younger self — small, frightened, clutching a glowing fragment to his chest — stared into the shadows.
The air trembled.
A monstrous shape surged from the treeline, its roar splitting the night. The ground cracked beneath its weight. The Hollow screamed.
And someone ran toward him.
A silhouette.
A guardian.
A voice filled with terror.
"Stay behind me—!"
The memory warped, edges tearing like wet paper. The guardian's face blurred into streaks of light. Their voice echoed, distorted, as if dragged through water.
He tried to move.
He tried to warn them.
He tried to remember.
But the shadow struck.
Pain exploded through him — white, blinding, absolute. His younger self fell backward, the glow in his hands shattering into a thousand sparks.
The guardian lunged, too slow, too late, reaching for him with a cry that tore through the collapsing dream.
"RIE—!"
The name hit him like lightning.
His name.
His real name.
The guardian screamed it again, voice breaking with grief as the world fell apart.
"RIELUN—!"
The memory shattered.
Light burst through the cracks. The forest dissolved. The guardian's scream stretched into a thin, breaking thread.
"RIELUN!"
Darkness swallowed him again — but this time, something inside him fought back.
A pulse.
A spark.
A surge of magic that burned through the void.
The Hollow's corruption pressed in from the waking world, and his power reacted violently, instinctively.
Light erupted from his chest.
His veins glowed like molten gold.
The dream trembled.
The sanctuary trembled.
He felt himself slipping — not into death, but into something deeper, older, uncontrollable.
The darkness screamed.
And far away, through the cracking dream, he heard voices calling his name — not from the past, but from the present.
"Rielun—!"
His power surged.