Kaelen stepped through the white door, awaiting the dangers that the next trial would bring
What would it be?
Beep Beep Beep
So many options: Lighting, Magma, Ice,
Beep Beep Beep
'...Sound?'
Was this a sound trial? - it has to have been. Otherwise what was that beeping sound
No, besides that, why were his eyes so groggy? He usually wakes up almost instantly after entering the next trial. Also, wasn't he wearing the Swift Sea when he walked through the doorway
Beep Beep Beep
He tried to move and felt the weakness in his body... his body
His body felt wrong... No, it... it felt right
It felt normal
'What the fuck is happening?'—He mustered all his strength, more than he had done when fighting any nightmare creature
But after he opened his eyes, the strength left him again
"Kaelen? Oh, thank God... Kael, can you hear me?"
That voice was familiar... it was very familiar
His hand rose and he didnt even give it a thought as to why his hand was no longer that of a glowing yellow nightmare creature, nor did he give it a thought as to why he had a oxygen mask slurring his words
"Mom?"
His mother was sitting there; her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, her eyes were red as she saw his eyes open—but then she moved like a blur but he did not try to dodge the attack—not that he could with his weak body
But she didnt try to hurt him—she just wrapped him in a hug
"You're okay," she whispered as she scratched the back of his head in soothing circles. "The doctors... they said there was no chance of you waking, but I knew you were going to be okay."
He couldnt understand what was happening
Was this the 7th trial? Was it the mind that was being challenged?
No, it was too real... it was way too real.
And if he had transmigrated into Shadow Slave, how would the spell know about his past if he really was [Unbound]?
How would the spell know about that car accident?
He was trying to wrap his fragile hands around her to return the hug but due to his weakness in his body, it seemed like he was trying to scratch her arms
Then he heard it—the voice before he 'died.'
"You woke up, son."
That voice sent a shiver down his spine and if he had enough strength, he would have gritted his teeth, or he would have tried to kill the rotten basta...—'Wait, did he call me son?'
Didn't the asshole say he would never call him "son" again? No, he did call him son before he jumped of the bridge
Did he survive the fall into the water? But then how would his mother be alive... she died when he was 12 in a car accident...
'Did... did I hallucinate all of it? No! the spell must be playing a trick on me—it has to be!'
He pulled off the oxygen mask from his face and allowed his hands to fall back to the bed
"...How old am I?"
"You're fourteen, kiddo..." she choked out. "Well, you're going to be fourteen in a week. You've been gone so long, Kaelen. Two years... we thought you'd never wake up." - She cried onto his back
Kaelen felt a sickening lurch in his chest.
'Fourteen?'
That made no sense; it made no sense at all. He was 12 when the accident happened, so did that mean he was in a coma from that moment on?
No, no, no.
It made no sense; it couldn't.
When he was 12, his mother died in that car crash and after that, he started being treated like shit by his remaining family and friends and when he was about to turn 15, the allegations came out and he was kicked out of the house when he eventually jumped of the bridge at 16 and was sent to Shadow Slave
He was there for 41 days
He was suffering in the mud and then in the water then the fire and the air and light and just a few minutes ago the water
He was there in the first nightmare.
He was
He definitely was.
'I definitely was.'
He looked at his father—the man was weeping, looking at Kaelen with nothing but raw, paternal love. There was no cruelty. There was no betrayal.
He looked at his mom who had pulled back and was holding his shoulder looking into her eyes—they had life in them; they were not like the lifeless, empty gaze he saw the last time when the car had flipped because of that dickhead of a driver
Could it really have been an actual nightmare?
A nightmare he experienced in his comatose state and not a nightmare in shadow slave
No, it couldnt have been
But the machines were here, the white roof tiles were there and the bed with the light blue bedsheet was here too
"Two years," he whispered, the words catching on the dry grit in his throat. "I've been... here... for two years?"
"Ever since the accident," his father said, stepping closer. The man looked haggard, his designer suit wrinkled and his face lined with a fatigue that didn't match the monster Kaelen remembered. He reached out as if to touch Kaelen's shoulder but hesitated, his hand hovering in the air.
"The doctors said the trauma to your brain was... extensive. They didn't know if you'd ever come back to us."
Kaelen wanted to laugh, but it came out as a jagged wheeze.
"Kaelen?" his mother asked, her voice trembling. "Baby, what is it? You look... you look terrified."
I wish I knew.
Was he the fourteen-year-old boy who had just woken up from a tragic accident? Or was he the sixteen-year-old survivor who had mastered six elements and learned to kill?
The memories of the trials weren't fading like dreams usually did. They stayed sharp, etched into his mind with the permanence of a scar.
He shifted his legs, feeling the terrifying weakness of muscles that had undergone two years of atrophy.
His body was a cage of soft flesh and brittle bone. He felt vulnerable.
Naked.
"I need..." he started, then stopped. He didn't even know what he needed. He looked at his siblings, standing by the door. In his dream, they had been the first to turn their backs on him. They had whispered "rapist" under their breath when his father wasn't looking. Now, they just looked small. Scared.
They had also ostracized him at school after his mom had died, saying he was a bad omen
His sister took a tentative step forward. "We missed you, Kael. Even when you were... just sleeping. We stayed every weekend."
Kaelen closed his eyes, a single tear escaping.
The cognitive dissonance was a physical pain.
He was mourning a life that had never happened, and he was being welcomed back by a family he had already learned to hate.
He couldnt help but believe they were speaking the truth
After all... where was his disfigured monster human body? Why could he see through both eyes?
Kaelen's breath hitched.
The coma was real.
The hospital was real.
Or was?
'Fuck...'
...
The remaining day was spent in the hospital
It seemed that Kaelen was able to walk with assistance somehow despite his weakness and the fact that he had not taken a step in the past two years.
It then skipped to a blur of paperwork and things about medical bills and insurance, which he did not pay much attention to—not that he was able to.
From the time he woke up in bed to right now in the car, there was always at least 3 people around him—either his brother, sister, mother or father
He watched the city pass by through the tinted window.
It was so foreign and also so familiar.
Kaelen wanted to be suspicious, but he couldn't find out anything suspicious—it seemed he had been locked in a nightmare this entire time.
Instantly after the doctor entered to check on him, he tried summoning the runes, maybe a memory; hell, he even tried scratching himself to see if it would just grate against his skin but it was not stone anymore
"Almost there," his father said from the front seat, catching Kaelen's gaze in the rearview mirror.
There was a desperate kind of hope in the man's eyes that made Kaelen's stomach churn. "Your room is exactly how you left it. Your mother made sure the staff dusted it every single day and didn't change a thing."
Kaelen didn't answer.
He couldn't.
He was still trying to reconcile the image of this grieving, devoted father with the man who had literally treated him like shit from the time he was 12, which... well, which didn't happen
When the SUV turned into the gated driveway of the estate, the sight of the mansion hit him like a physical blow.
The limestone walls, the manicured hedges, the sprawling fountains—it was a palace of privilege. In his dream, this place had become a fortress of cold shoulders and locked doors before he was eventually banned from it entirely.
The heavy iron gates swung open with a smooth, silent grace.
"We're home, kiddo," his mother whispered, squeezing his hand.
Kaelen stepped out of the car, his legs shaking slightly as he leaned on the cane the hospital had provided and with the aid of his mom.
The air here smelled of freshly cut grass and expensive mulch.
As he crossed the threshold into the grand foyer, the marble floors echoed with the hollow click of his cane. The staff stood in a line, bowing their heads in a synchronized welcome that felt eerily like a funeral procession to him.
"Welcome home, Master Kaelen," they said in unison.
He looked up at the sweeping spiral staircase. In his memory, he had been dragged down those stairs by security while his father shouted about "reputation" and "filth." Now, the walls were covered in framed photos of him—smiling, healthy, and young, just as they had been before they were ripped out
He walked toward the center of the hall and stopped, staring at his own reflection in a massive, gold-leaf mirror. He saw a boy with sunken eyes and pale, translucent skin. He looked fragile. He looked like a victim.
He reached out, touching the cold glass.
'I look fucking hideous.'
He thought to himself
Was this really the actual world? Did he really not become that mass of elements...
Kaelen bit his lip torn between two decisions.
He felt simultaneously ridiculous and defensive about the fact that he had turned 16, that he had killed actual monsters because on one hand it was utterly ridiculous now that he thought about it—how the fuck could someone really think they had been isekaied
And in the first place, if he was, why was there a 7-layered trial
But it... felt so real—he could remember it all
"Do you want to go up to your room, Kael?" his sister asked, her voice soft, as if he were made of glass.
Kaelen turned away from the mirror, his heart hammering against his ribs. Was he safe?
He was home after all.
He was a week away from turning fourteen, and the life of a sleeper was nothing more than a ghost of a nightmare.
Yet, as he looked at the smiling faces of his family, he felt a cold, lingering dread. He knew the faces they were capable of wearing. He knew the words they were capable of saying. Even if it hadn't happened yet—even if it might never happen—he was the only person in the house who knew exactly how much his life was worth to them if things got ugly.
He was home, but for Kaelen, the mansion felt less like a sanctuary and more like a beautifully decorated cage.
The door to Kaelen's room had been pushed open slowly—he followed his mother enter with a bowl in her hand that brought a scent that made his stomach rumble like crazy
He had was sitting in the warm bed for a while now and was looking at his phone, which he barely remembered how to operate
"I told the chef to move aside," she said with a small, tired smile. "I remembered you used to crave this every time you had a fever when you were little. Four-cheese macaroni, with the extra breadcrumbs on top."
Kaelen stared at the bowl as she set it down on the little table beside his desk
He wass suddenly pulled to a lot of past 'memories'—literal garbage from the bin going into his stomach and then the unseasoned—raw for most of the trials—meat he got from the nightmare creatures
Before she could even hand him a fork, Kaelen lunged.
He started to eat like a starved bear, shoveling massive steaming heaps of pasta into his mouth, the heat searing his tongue—but he didn't care. The rich, salty creaminess of the cheese exploded against his palate, a sensation so intense it was almost painful.
"Kaelen, slow down! Oh, heavens, you'll choke!" his mother cried, her hands fluttering in alarm.
He didn't hear her.
How many times had other homeless people tried to take his meals away from him?
He swallowed without chewing, his throat working hard to down the heavy pasta so he could fit the next spoonful in. His movements were frantic, his eyes wide and unfocused, darting toward the door as if expecting someone to burst in and snatch the tray away.
He used his fingers to scoop up the stray noodles that fell on the bed, stuffing them into his mouth with a desperation that turned his mother's face pale.
"Kael... honey, nobody is going to take it," she whispered, her voice breaking. She reached out to touch his hair, but he flinched instinctively, his shoulder hunching up to protect his plate before he realized where he was.
He froze, a glob of cheese dripping onto his silk pajamas.
The silence of the mansion came rushing back, suffocating and still.
He looked down at the half-empty bowl, then at his mother's horrified, tear-filled eyes. To her, this was a sign of some deep, neurological hunger—a side effect of the coma. To him, it was the muscle memory of a year spent in the dirt.
"I'm sorry," he rasped, his voice thick with unchewed food. He forced himself to set the fork down, his hands trembling with the effort to stay still. "It's just... it's been a long time."
"I know, baby," she sobbed, pulling him into a hug that smelled of expensive perfume. "I know."
This... this really was home
'I really am home...'
....
The morning sun spilled in through the window but it had no effect on him—he had spent the entire night awake since... well, honestly, it felt silly now but he had actually thought for a second that his family were some skinwalker-like creature waiting for him to let his guard down
But nothing came; nothing attacked.
He raised his arm and placed it over his eyes, letting the tears flow into the fabric
"Kael? Some people are here to see you," his mother whispered, peeking in through the door
He quickly wiped his eyes and woke up, getting into a sit
They filed in one by one—the faces he knew well.
There was Leo, the captain of the soccer team, and Sarah, who used to let him copy her notes. They looked younger, softer, their faces unburdened by the cynicism he remembered. They looked at him with a mix of awe and pity, as if he were a ghost that had decided to put on skin again.
And then, she walked in.
Elena.
In his memory, her face was twisted in a smirk of triumph while she stood behind her lawyers. In his memory, her voice was the weapon that had severed him from his life. But here, standing at the foot of his bed, her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She looked like she had been crying for two years straight.
She was his childhood best friend too
"Hey Kael," she breathed, her voice trembling.
His fingers curled into the silk sheets, his knuckles turning white. Subconsciously, his face moved into a snarl and he took a few paces back
'This fucking bitch... i should rip out her face.'
"Hey, man," Leo said, stepping forward cautiously, sensing the tension. "Take it easy. We're just glad you're back. We thought... well, we didn't think you'd wake up."
"We missed you so much," Elena said, taking a step closer. She reached out, her hand trembling as she tried to place it on his blanket. "I stayed at the hospital every day for the first month. I never stopped praying, Kael. I swear."
Kaelen stared at her hand. It was small, delicate, and innocent. This was the girl who, in his "hallucination," had systematically destroyed his reputation, his family, and his will to live. They had been best friends since they were six. They had shared everything. And yet, the "dream" had told him she was capable of a betrayal so deep it felt like a physical wound.
Just because that bitch of a mother of hers wanted more money for their family
"Get out," Kaelen rasped.
The room went silent. His friends swapped confused, worried glances.
"Kael, it's us," Sarah whispered. "That's Elena." Your best friend."
"I said get out!" his voice cracked, rising into a panicked shout.
He couldn't look at her. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the faces of these assholes
He heard the whispers in the school hallways. He felt the cold rain of the streets. The line between the "dream" and reality was blurring. If she hadn't done it yet, did that mean she wouldn't? Or was she just waiting for the right moment to strike?
Elena flinched as if he had struck her, a sob breaking from her throat. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I just..."
"Kaelen, honey, what's wrong?" his mother asked, rushing to his side, her face full of concern.
He didn't answer.
He couldn't explain that he was looking at a group of "friends" who, in another life, had watched him drown and done nothing. He couldn't explain that the girl currently weeping at the foot of his bed was the person he actively thought about hunting down and killing
As they were ushered out by his mother, Elena turned back one last time, her face a mask of pure, heartbreaking sorrow. "I'm just glad you're alive, Kael. I'll come back when you're feeling better."
Kaelen watched the door close, his mom giving him space too, and then he slumped back against the pillows, shaking violently.
'Why did they look normal'
'Why did their eyes have genuine concern? where was the hate?'
...
The next morning, Kaelen didn't move.
His mind was a battlefield. Every time he blinked he was seeing a past that had not even happened.
It felt too real, he screamed internally. The cold of the water, the bite of the wind... the way they all looked at me with those dead, hateful eyes...
He rolled out of bed, his legs buckling as they hit the plush rug. He crawled toward the full-length mirror, dragging his weakened body with a desperation that left him gasping. He reached the glass and stared.
There were no scars.
He stripped off his silk pajama top with trembling fingers. His chest was smooth, pale, and unblemished.
The cracks in his skin was gone
"It was a story," he whispered, his voice cracking in the empty room. "My brain... it just cooked up a story where I was in my favorite novel."
He let out a hollow, jagged laugh that turned into a sob. He thought about the complex "Spell," the "Aspects," and the "Nightmares." He thought about the intricate lore of a dying world he had spent years reading
What kind of mind does this? he wondered, clutching his head. I was in a coma for two years. My brain was dying, so it created a hell to keep me busy. It took my fear of losing my mom and made her die in an accident. It took my fear of growing up and turned it into a rape allegation. It took my loneliness and turned it into a world of monsters.
He stood leaning against the cold marble of his vanity. He had to face it. If he kept believing in the "Spell," he was truly insane.
He had to accept the boring, beautiful truth: his mother was alive, his father loved him, and Elena was just the girl next door who had cried for him for two years.
The "First Nightmare" wasn't a trial of elements.
It was a symptom of a shattered psyche trying to make sense of a two-year void.
"It's fake," he told his reflection, his voice firmer now, though his eyes remained haunted. "None of it happened. There is no Shadow Slave. There is no Nightmare. There are no memories.
He took a deep, shaky breath, forcing the memories; he would bury them.
He would be the fourteen-year-old boy his family deserved.
He would eat the macaroni, he would play the games, and he would forget about his stupid mind cooking up stories
As he turned to head toward the shower, he caught a glimpse of his shadow on the wall. For a split second, he froze, waiting for it to move on its own, for a creature to crawl out
Maybe that was the 7th trial—shadows were an element too
But the shadow remained still, pinned to the wall by the morning sun.
"Just a dream," Kaelen muttered, stepping into the steam. "Just a long, bad dream."
Kaelen spent the rest of the morning forcing his hands to stop shaking. He sat by the window, watching the gardeners tend to the estate, reminding himself that this was the only world that mattered. The other one—the one with the betrayal and the blood—was a ghost.
A fabrication of a sick brain.
By the afternoon, he couldn't stand the guilt of the look on Elena's face. He picked up the sleek, expensive smartphone on his nightstand—a device that felt alien—and sent a message to the group.
An hour later, they were back.
The air in the room was thick with hesitation as they filed in. Elena was the last to enter, her shoulders hunched, looking like she was ready to bolt if he so much as raised his voice.
Kaelen took a breath, forcing a smile that felt heavy on his face. "Hey," he said, his voice softer than the day before. "I... I wanted to say I'm sorry. For yesterday."
Leo cleared his throat, looking relieved. "It's okay, man. We get it. You've been through a lot."
"It was just... a lot to see so many people at once," Kaelen continued, his eyes lingering on Elena. He forced himself to see her as his childhood friend, not the architect of his ruin. "Waking up after two years... my head is a mess. I didn't mean to snap. I was just overwhelmed."
Elena's face transformed. The crushing weight of sadness lifted, replaced by a tentative, watery smile. She stepped toward the bed, her hands clasped in front of her. "We were just so worried, Kael. We didn't want to push you. We're just so happy you're back. I didn't know if you'd remember us... or if you'd be different."
"I am a little different," Kaelen said, and for the first time, it felt like the truth. "But I remember you. I remember all of you."
He watched them relax. Sarah sat on the edge of his bed, and Leo started rambling about the school's soccer season, catching him up on all the gossip he'd "missed" while he was under. They laughed, they joked, and for a moment, the room felt like a normal teenager's bedroom.
Kaelen listened to Elena talk about a movie she wanted him to see when he was strong enough to leave the house. He watched her animated gestures and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear.
He searched her face for a trace of the girl from his nightmare—the one who would lie, the one who would destroy him.
There was nothing. Just a girl who had missed her friend.
It really was a dream, he thought, a strange mixture of relief and a lingering, hollow ache settling in his chest. The spell, the trials, the hatred... it was all just my brain trying to protect me from the void of the coma. I'm not some mystical transmigrator. I'm just Kaelen.
He let out a genuine laugh at one of Leo's stories, feeling the tension finally start to drain from his muscles. He was home. He was safe. The nightmare was over.
As the afternoon sun dipped lower, casting long, golden fingers across the mahogany furniture, the room felt warmer than it had in years. Kaelen leaned back against his pillows, watching Leo and Sarah debate over which video game franchise had fallen off the hardest during his two-year absence.
Elena sat in the chair closest to him, her eyes never straying far from his face. "You're really okay, Kael?" she asked softly, under the cover of the others' loud conversation. "You looked so... haunted yesterday. Like you were looking right through me at something terrifying."
Kaelen hesitated, his thumb tracing the hem of his silk duvet. "I had a lot of dreams, Elena. Bad ones. Long ones. Sometimes it's hard to remember which side of my eyes is the real one."
She reached out and gave his hand a quick, reassuring squeeze—a gesture of pure, uncomplicated friendship. "Well, this side is the real one. I promise, okay?"
"Okay," he repeated, the words feeling like a vow.
For the next few hours, he allowed himself to be a child again.
He listened to stories about teachers he barely remembered and laughed at jokes he didn't quite get.
He felt the heavy, suffocating mantle of the "Survivor" slipping off his shoulders. He didn't have to worry about strategies or memories or nightmare creatures
His biggest problem was catching up on the ninth-grade curriculum and also the eighth and seventh that he had missed
His mother appeared at the door, her face radiant with a happiness that seemed to take ten years off her age.
"Alright, everyone, let's give Kaelen some rest," she said gently. "The doctors said we shouldn't overdo it on his first few days home."
There was a chorus of groans and "see-you-laters" as his friends stood up to leave.
Leo gave him a careful fist-bump, and Sarah promised to bring him her old notes tomorrow.
Elena stayed for a second longer than the rest, leaning down to whisper, "Happy early birthday, Kael. It's going to be the best one yet."
As the door clicked shut and the house fell into a quiet, prestigious hush, Kaelen lay in the twilight. His body felt heavy, but it was the weight of healing
He looked at the digital clock on his nightstand. 5 days, 4 hours until his 14th birthday.
He drifted off to sleep
The next morning, Kaelen couldn't stay in bed. The stillness of his room had begun to feel like a different kind of sensory deprivation, and he needed to prove to himself that he could navigate this "real" world on his own.
He gripped the railing of the grand spiral staircase, his knuckles white against the polished wood. His legs felt like two pillars of jelly, the muscles atrophied from two years of disuse, trembling with every agonizingly slow step he took.
He made it to the third step before the air in the foyer was punctured by a sharp gasp.
"Kaelen! What are you doing?!"
He flinched, his heart leaping into his throat. His older brother, Julian, and his sister, Mia, were already sprinting across the marble floor.
In his memory—the one his brain had fabricated during the coma—something like this had happened in his dream as well, just it ... had a different ending
And it wasn't supporting him down some stairs; it was pushing him down these very stairs, the hard edges of the marble breaking his ribs while they watched from above.
He instinctively recoiled, his back hitting the banister—"I'm fine."
"Easy, easy!" Julian was there in a second, his large hand wrapping firmly but gently around Kaelen's arm. There was no malice in his grip, only a frantic, brotherly terror. "You're going to fall, you idiot. You're not supposed to be walking yet!"
Mia was on his other side, her face pale. She slid her shoulder under his arm to take his weight. "You're shaking like a leaf, Kael. Why didn't you just call us? We would have carried you down."
'Right... that never happened,' he sighed
"Sorry, I just wanted to try walking down myself."
They began to guide him down, one step at a time, moving with agonizing patience. Kaelen felt a wave of vertigo. Every time Julian's hand tightened to steady him, Kaelen's mind flashed to the "dream" where those same hands had been bruised from hitting him. Every time Mia whispered, "I've got you," he heard the echo of her "dream" self saying, "I hate you."
It wasn't them, he told himself again, his eyes stinging. Those people didn't exist. My brothers and sisters aren't monsters. I'm the one who made them that way in my head.
By the time they reached the bottom, Kaelen was sweating from the exertion and the emotional whiplash. They didn't let go immediately; they led him over to a velvet armchair in the sitting room, lowering him into it as if he were made of the finest porcelain.
"Are you trying to give us a heart attack?" Mia asked, her voice cracking as she knelt to check his legs for any signs of strain. "We almost lost you once, Kael. Don't do that again."
Julian stood over him, hands on his hips, breathing a sigh of relief. "Seriously. You're grounded until you're twenty-one. No more solo missions to the kitchen."
He watched Julian reach out and ruffle his hair—a gesture of affection that felt like a healing spell for a wound that never actually happened.
"Sorry," Kaelen whispered, his voice small. "I just... I wanted to see you guys."
Mia smiled, a real, bright smile that reached her eyes. "Well, you see us. And we're not going anywhere."
Kaelen sank back into the chair, the luxury of the mansion surrounding him. He was being pampered, protected, and loved. The nightmare was fading, replaced by the mundane, beautiful safety of a family that, in reality, had never let him go.
Kaelen leaned back into the velvet cushions, his body still humming with the exhaustion of the stairs, but his eyes were sharp.
Julian and Mia had set up camp at the sprawling glass coffee table, surrounded by textbooks and tablets. The sight was so domestic, so ordinary, yet it felt like looking at a foreign film with subtitles he somehow understood.
Julian was scowling at a complex calculus problem, his pen tapping a frantic rhythm against the table, while Mia was buried in a physics essay about thermodynamics.
"It's 144 Pi," Kaelen said quietly.
The tapping stopped. Julian looked up, blinking at him. "What?"
"The volume for the cylinder is 144 pi." Kaelen nodded toward the textbook. "You missed the squared variable in the second step."
Julian looked down at his paper, then at the book, his brow furrowed as he scribbled a quick calculation. His eyes went wide. "Uh... yeah. It is. How the hell did you do that in your head? You haven't touched a math book since you were twelve."
Kaelen felt a cold prickle of realization. In his "dream," he had spent months watching them study from the hallway, lurking in the shadows of the mansion before the allegations had turned their love into ice.
He had watched them struggle with these exact assignments from the periphery of a life he was being pushed out of. He knew the answers because he had already lived through their school year in his head.
"And Mia," Kaelen added, shifting his gaze to his sister. "You're overcomplicating the second law. Just focus on the entropy increase in the closed system. It'll make the third paragraph flow better."
Mia dropped her highlighter, staring at him like he had just grown a second head. "Kael, that's... exactly what I was stuck on. Wait, did they give you some kind of super-soldier brain serum in the hospital? Or did the coma just give your brain a two-year software update?"
Julian let out a bark of laughter, the tension in the room snapping into genuine amusement. "I'm telling you, Mom! The kid's a genius now! He went in a middle schooler and woke up an MIT grad!"
"Maybe the 'dream' world was just one giant, high-speed tutoring session," Mia joked, throwing a decorative pillow at Kaelen's feet. "I bet you were in there doing long division for two years straight. No wonder you woke up cranky."
Kaelen laughed with them, the sound feeling lighter in his chest than it had before. "Yeah, It was... challenging alright."
He rubbed his neck awkwardly
"Well, if being a genius is a side effect of a coma, I might need to go find a blunt object and take a nap," Julian teased, leaning over to show Kaelen his next problem. "Alright, Einstein, what about this one?"
He sat there, guiding them through their work with an ease that felt like magic, listening to their laughter fill the sitting room.
...
That night, sleep came easily.
When Kaelen woke, the sun was already high, casting sharp squares of light across his carpet. Today he had decided to speak to the person who he had a particularly large amount of unidentifiable emotions that he could not discern for himself
His father
His father's office was at the end of the north wing, a place that in Kaelen's dream had been the 'courtroom' where his life was sentenced to ruin.
Kaelen walked slowly, his cane clicking rhythmically on the hardwood. Each step closer to the heavy mahogany doors made his breath hitch.
In his mind, he could still hear the echo of his father's voice from various instances in the dream—yelling at him both to get out and then eventually to get down from the bridge
He reached the door and hesitated, his hand hovering over the handle.
He's not that man, Kaelen told himself. He hasn't done anything yet. He might never do it.
He knocked, a soft, tentative sound.
"Come in," a deep, warm voice called out.
Kaelen pushed the door open.
The office was exactly as he remembered: the smell of old paper and expensive tobacco, the walls lined with law books and family accolades. His father, Arthur, sat behind a massive desk, but the moment he saw Kaelen, he stood up, his face breaking into a look of genuine pride and concern.
"Kaelen. I didn't expect you to be up and about so early. Come, sit." He gestured to the leather chair across from him—the same chair where, in the hallucination, Arthur had told Kaelen he was no longer a part of the family.
Kaelen sat, his posture stiff, his eyes darting to the safe in the corner where he knew the "payoff" money would eventually come from that Elinas's family would now never get
"You've been quiet since you came home," Arthur said, leaning forward, his hands clasped on the desk. "Your mother says you're eating well, but you look... distant. Is there something on your mind? The doctors said you might have some memory gaps, or perhaps some confusion."
Kaelen looked at his father's hands. They were steady. In the dream, they had been trembling with rage as he signed the papers to disown him.
"I just... I had a pretty bad nightmare when I was asleep... I don't really want to talk about it, but... well, I was alone in that nightmare."
Arthur's expression softened into one of profound sadness. He got up from his desk and walked around, kneeling beside Kaelen's chair so they were eye-to-eye. He placed a hand on Kaelen's knee, and for once, Kaelen didn't flinch.
"Kaelen, look at me," Arthur said firmly. "I don't know what kind of hell your mind created while you were in that coma. I can't imagine the things you saw. But listen to me: nothing in this world could make me give up on you. You are my son. I spent two years praying for the chance to hear your voice again. There is no version of reality where I let you go."
Kaelen searched his father's face, looking for the lie, but all he saw was a father who had been grieving a living ghost for two years.
"I..." - Kaelen had a complex expression on his face
"It was a nightmare, Kaelen. That's all it was," Arthur reassured him, squeezing his hand. "The accident was traumatic. Your brain tried to make sense of the pain by creating a world that reflected it. But that world is gone. You're home. We're going to get you back to school, back to your life. You have a clean slate."
A clean slate. The words should have been comforting, but as Kaelen looked at his father's supportive smile
"Thanks, Dad." Kaelen said,
"Don't thank me. Just get strong." Arthur stood up, patting his shoulder. "Now, go on. I think your mom is making a surprise in the kitchen, and if I know you, you're probably hungry again."
Kaelen nodded and turned to leave. As he walked toward the door, he looked back at his father, who had already returned to his paperwork, looking every bit the pillar of the community.
Kaelen stepped out into the hallway, the heavy office door closing with a solid, final thud.
Four days until his birthday.
He may have been sure the memories were a nightmare but it was still hard seeing all these guys again
The kitchen air was thick with the scent of browning butter and cinnamon. His mother was there, her back to him as she hummed a soft melody, moving with a grace that felt like a deliberate insult to the jagged, violent memories still rattling in his skull.
Kaelen pulled out a heavy oak chair, the legs scraping against the tile with a sound that made him instinctively wince—a reflex from a dream where loud noises meant a predator was near.
"Sit down, honey," his mother said without turning around, as if she had developed a sixth sense for his presence. "I'm making those crepes you used to steal off the plate when you were ten. Remember?"
"I remember," Kaelen smiled
It was easier to be around his mother; she had never hated him even in the dream
He watched her flip a thin, golden crepe with a practiced flick of her wrist.
In his coma dream, this woman had died in the passenger seat of a crumpled car. He had lived years carrying the weight of her ghost, a grief so heavy it had defined his entire existence. Seeing her now—alive, breathing, her hair tied back in a messy bun—felt like a beautiful, cruel trick.
"You're staring again," she teased, sliding a plate in front of him. She sat down across from him, resting her chin in her hands. "The doctors said you might be a bit... observant. Processing everything. But you're looking at me like I might disappear if you blink."
"I just... missed you," Kaelen said, his voice thick. He took a bite of the crepe. It was sweet, delicate, and tasted of a childhood he was mourning even though he was currently living it.
"I missed you too, Kael. More than words." She reached across the table, her thumb brushing over the back of his hand. "I saw you every day, asleep in that bed for the past 2 days."
Kaelen chewed slowly, his eyes fixed on the powdered sugar on his plate. "In the dream, everything changed after Mom died. But Mom didn't die. So everything is different."
Her eyes widened, but she returned them to normal, and they burned with a fierce, maternal love. "That accident was a nightmare for all of us, but we made it through. "You have to forget about the past."
She chuckled. "And as youve so kindly pointed out, I'm alive—and so are you, so do not worry about a thing."
Kaelen nodded. He watched her smile, watched the way she fussed over a spot of flour on her apron.
He turned his gaze away and looked at the calendar on the fridge, a soft, understanding smile on his face and after a while he took the next crepe
"You know," his mother said, her eyes lighting up
"Once you get a bit of color back in those cheeks, we should celebrate properly. We could head up to the Red Peaks for a hike, just like we used to. Remember that trail where you found the hidden waterfall?"
"I remember the height," he said with a smile
"Or maybe the lake!" she continued, leaning in. "You were always such a fish. Or..." She leaned back, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "If you're feeling really brave, we could go back to the airfield. Your father still talks about that skydiving trip for your ninth birthday. I thought I'd faint, but you? You were laughing before we even shot the parachute."
The thought of being in the sky or around water and mountains brought back those memories from his mind.
He must have turned a ghastly shade of white, because his mother's smile vanished instantly. She reached out, her hand hovering near his, her expression shifting from excitement to a sudden, crushing realization.
"Oh... Kaelen. Look at me. I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice full of self-reproach. "I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? I'm talking about jumping out of planes when you can barely make it down the stairs."
She looked at his thin wrists, the way his sweater swallowed his frame, and the cane leaning against the table.
The reality of his two-year atrophy hit her all over again.
"I'm sorry, baby. No hiking. No skydiving," she said softly, her thumb stroking the back of his hand. "Maybe in a few months. Or a year. We have all the time in the world now. We'll start with the garden. Then maybe the driveway. We'll take it one step at a time."
Kaelen took a shaky breath, the bridge receding into the back of his mind. "A few months sounds good, Mom."
"A few months," she agreed, her eyes moist. "We'll just sit in the sun for a while."
He nodded, looking down at his plate.
...
The evening had come and the family had decided to eat in the dining room today
The long mahogany table was laden with roasted meats and seasoned vegetables, a spread that looked like a feast to a boy who had spent an eternity dreaming of starvation.
Which - it was
"I was thinking of the yacht," Julian said, stabbing a piece of asparagus with enthusiasm. "We could take it out to the bay. Just a private thing, or maybe invite the whole grade. Make a statement that the king is back."
"The yacht? In April?" Mia rolled her eyes, though she was smiling. "It'll be freezing. I think a garden party is better. We can tent the west lawn, get that catering company from the city—the one with the liquid nitrogen ice cream. Kaelen used to love that."
Kaelen sat at the center of the chatter, his fork moving slowly; they were making birthday plans
"What do you think, Kael?" his father asked, setting down his wine glass.
The warmth in Arthur's eyes was steady
"It's your fourteenth. A double celebration, really. A birthday and a homecoming. Anything you want, name it, we'll make it happen."
They were trying so hard to make up for the two years he had lost.
Kaelen said, his voice quiet but clear. "And maybe not a big party. I don't think I'm ready for a hundred people staring at me while I use a cane."
The table went a little quiet, a flicker of collective heartbreak passing through them at the reminder of his physical state.
"Of course, honey," his mother said quickly, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "We don't have to do anything big. Just the family? We could just have a nice dinner here, and maybe a movie in the theater room."
"Actually," Kaelen said, looking at his father. "Can we have a party a home - just the people we know?"
"Done," Arthur said, his voice thick with emotion. "Only family and friends"
"And Elena," Mia added with a teasing nudge as if to suggest she was something other than a family member or friend. "We have to let her in, or she'll probably climb the fence. She's been practically living at the hospital for two years—she lied, you know, that nonsense about only visiting the first month."
Kaelen managed a small laugh. "Yeah. Elena too."
As the dinner continued, the talk shifted to gifts and funny stories from the years Kaelen had "missed." He sat there, letting the warmth of the room wash over him a little longer
...
The next morning he woke up and, for the first time, he smiled.
Genuinely smiled
It was the look of a man who had finally finished a puzzle.
When he walked down the stairs for breakfast, he didn't use his cane. He gripped the railing, his knuckles white, forcing his atrophied muscles to obey him with a sheer ferocity of will.
"Kaelen! Look at you!" his mother exclaimed, dropping a kitchen towel in surprise. "You're standing so straight today."
"Everything is okay, Mom," he said. His voice had lost that hollow, ghostly rasp. It was steady. It was grounded.
He sat at the table and watched his siblings. He joined in their jokes, laughed at Julian's impressions of their tutors, and even offered to help Mia with her history project.
To his family, it was the miracle they had prayed for—the boy they loved was finally coming back to them, shedding the trauma of the "coma dreams" like a dead skin. They saw a survivor finding peace.
He sat there, the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect friend. He played the role with a mastery that shouldn't have been possible for a fourteen-year-old.
He was enjoying every moment
Later that afternoon, he stood alone on the balcony of his room, looking out over the vast, gated estate. He knew exactly what he was going to do from now, and as the sun began to set on the day before his fourteenth birthday, Kaelen finally felt like he was the one in control again.
The morning of his birthday had come
He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. There was no pain. The two years of atrophy that had plagued him for the last few days felt like they were being burned away
He didn't reach for the cane. Instead, he stood, his feet gripping the plush rug with a stability that shouldn't have been possible.
He walked to the full-length mirror and stripped off his silk pajama top. He studied his reflection—the soft, unblemished skin of a pampered fourteen-year-old once more—and smiled
He moved into the shower and cleaned himself up, and when he came out, he saw the suit on his bed with the note
[Change and come down, kiddo.]
He dressed himself in a tailored charcoal suit, the fabric crisp and sharp and opened the door
He moved down and saw his parents and siblings holding a small cake; they had done the whole birthday thing before the actual party—this one just for the family.
...
By noon, the quiet of the mansion had been obliterated by the sheer, roaring energy of the music
This wasn't just a birthday; it was a coronation.
A massive white marquee had been erected on the west lawn, but the heart of the party remained in the grand ballroom, where the floor had been cleared for a professional DJ and a custom-built stage.
Kaelen stood at the top of the grand staircase, looking down at the sea of faces. These were the children of senators, CEOs, and heirs to vast fortunes—the very people who, in a different timeline, would have whispered behind his back as he walked through school hallways in rags.
All companions of his parents
"He looks like a different person," he heard someone whisper.
"It's the eyes," another replied. "Like he is seeing far beyond us."
He descended the stairs with a grace that bordered on the supernatural for someone who was currently that skinny, but there was no cane, no limp, and no hesitation. \
Every step was calculated, every nod of his head perfectly timed. He was a master of the room before he even reached the floor.
"Kael! Happy birthday, brother!" Leo roared, emerging from a crowd of athletes. He threw an arm around Kaelen's shoulder, the smell of expensive cologne and energy drinks following him. "Look at this place! Your dad really went all out. There's a literal fleet of supercars in the driveway for us to check out later."
"It really is, isn't it?" Kaelen said, his voice smooth and resonant.
Then, the crowd parted for Elena. She looked breathtaking in a dress that shimmered like moonlight on water. She didn't approach him with the pitying look from the hospital; she approached him with the wide-eyed wonder of a girl seeing her best friend transformed into a little prince.
"Kaelen," she breathed, her hand finding his arm. "You look... incredible..."
"You too," Kaelen replied, his smile widening. He led her toward the center of the room, and as the music swelled into a heavy, rhythmic pulse, he began to move.
Everyone did too starting the dance and a while after Elina was called by her parents, whom Kaelen smiled politely too
Waiters moved through the crowd with trays of molecular gastronomy snacks and gold-leafed mocktails. The air was thick with the scent of lilies and high-end electronics. Kaelen was everywhere at once—laughing with his father's business associates, joking with his sibling's friends, and also trying to stay beside his mom for as long as he could
As the high-octane bass of the DJ faded into a sweeping, orchestral melody, the chaotic energy of the ballroom settled into a reverent hush.
It was time for the tradition that each one of Kaelens previous birthdays had—the mother-son dance that had been a staple of every single birthday
His mother stepped onto the floor, looking like royalty in her flowing gown.
She took his hand, her eyes shimmering with a mixture of pride and something that looked almost like relief. Kaelen led her to the center of the marble floor, his hand resting firmly on her waist. There was no hesitation in his step, no weakness in his frame. He moved with a practiced elegance that felt more like a chess match than a waltz.
To the onlookers, they were the picture of a restored family—the beautiful matriarch and her miracle son.
Midway through a turn, as the violins reached a mournful, soaring peak, his mother leaned in close. Her breath was cold against his ear, but her voice held a strange, sudden weight that cut through the music.
"I'm glad you forgot about everything that happened, kido; the past doesn't matter," she whispered.
Kaelen didn't miss a step. His heart rate didn't even flicker. He simply tightened his grip on her hand slightly, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.
She had said the same thing the other day too
He spun her out, his coattails flaring in the light, and pulled her back in for the final note.
He said nothing at all
As the room erupted in applause, Kaelen caught his father's eye across the ballroom. The man was smiling, oblivious. Kaelen bowed to his mother, his expression one of perfect, filial devotion.
The grand ballroom dimmed, the flickering glow of fourteen candles atop a towering, gold-flecked cake becoming the sole source of light.
The crowd pressed in, a sea of silhouettes and hushed expectations. His mother stepped forward, her face radiant in the candlelight, and pressed the heavy silver handle of the cake knife into his palm.
"Wait!" she laughed softly, her hand resting on his arm to still his movement. "The wish, Kael. You have to blow them out and make a wish first."
Kaelen looked down at the tiny, dancing flames. He took a slow, deep breath, the scent of vanilla icing and expensive wax filling his lungs.
He leaned in and blew.
The smoke curled upward in thin, grey ribbons as the room erupted into cheers and applause.
Kaelen didn't move.
He didn't laugh.
His gaze swept across the room, trailing over Leo's grinning face, Elena's clapping hands, Sarah cheering, Julian's proud stance, Mia wiping tears from his eyes, and his dad standing proud.
He looked at each of them as if he were burning their memory into his mind
Finally, his eyes settled on his mother, and he kept them there.
"Mom," he said, his voice cutting through the noise with a strange, quiet authority. "Can I tell you what I wished for?"
She smiled, leaning in, her eyes twinkling with maternal indulgence.
"You know the rules, kido. If you say it out loud, the universe might not make it come true. But," she whispered, booping his nose playfully, "tell me anyway. If the universe won't do it, I will. I promise."
Kaelen reached out, his hand hovering just an inch from her cheek, tracing the warmth of her skin without actually touching it.
"I really love you, Mom," he began, his voice thick with a weight that seemed to span eternities rather than days. "More than you could ever know. I've never forgotten you or what you've taught me..."
He managed to hold back the tears a bit longer, the tears in his eyes welling
"Which is why," Kaelen whispered, his smile turning into something tragic and terrifyingly sharp
"I know this isn't real."
The air in the ballroom seemed to crystallize, freezing the guests who were close in a state of horrific confusion. His mother's smile faltered, her head tilting slightly as if she were trying to process a language she no longer understood.
"Kaelen?" she whispered. "What are you talking about?"
"Because my mother never would have said forget the past," Kaelen said. "She detested people who said to forget the past; she always said that annoying ass line."
Her expression shifted, not to anger or guilt—it was a content smile, a smile of pure serenity
She walked toward him with a grace that felt so strong, reaching out to pull him into a final, suffocatingly warm hug. She leaned up, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.
"You were always such a bright boy," she murmured.
They raid in unison her forehead pressed against his
"One should never forget the past—learn from the harm and help you gave to the world and walk forward; it may drag you back, but that only makes you stronger, makes you better."
As she pulled away, the tears Kaelen had been holding back for years finally spilled over.
It seemed the rest of the people in the hall hadn't heard him either because their surprise seemed real when he raised the knife to his neck and stabbed it through
[You have Accomplished an Insurmountable Task.]
[You have Gained an Absolute Understanding of yourself.]
[You have Gained an Aspect Legacy: The Shards of Life.]
[Your Aspect Leagy mastery has increased.]
Kaelen heard the spell sound, giving him all of those messages but he could only focus on his body falling forward, bleeding through the neck in his mother's arms.
Then
The room cracked
The mansion cracked
The sky cracked
Everything had cracked and Kaelen found himself in another cracked room floating in the air; it was just that this room had no people, no music, no cake
It was just a cracked white room that had corpses littering the floors in the thousands; empty skulls looked at him
But Kaelen did not give them his focus.
He looked at the Titan standing in front of him and summoned both his swords—the Light Sword he had used and its identical dark copy. The Dark Sword
"I'm going to kill you but i will thank you for letting me see her again."
He started to run towards the 3-story-tall giant of white solid mist