Elliot's POV

"I was chasing my visions, trying to change my future, only to be blinded in the present."

—Elliot Starfall

Darkness.

A void stripped of all light—a hollow where I drift, bodiless. I float in it, or maybe I fly. It's hard to tell; my body doesn't move. It's still. My thoughts? Not so much.

Silence.

Is this death?

How cruel... to die and not be reunited with Ren. With my blood, my family.

My eyes are open, but I see nothing. No light, no shape, no motion. Just endless darkness.

Is this hell?

It somehow reminds me of the moment when I saw the world end back then, when everything was still alright. I try to sigh, but no breath comes. My lips don't even part. I can't move them. There's no air here—just pressure.

Vacuum.

Hell. It must be. Why else wouldn't I be with Ren? Why would I be here, in this place that devours time and sense and meaning?

My eyes stare into the eternal black pressing in on me from all sides. I feel it—its weight, its stillness.

I regret it.

I don't want to die. Not yet. I'm afraid.

I try to cry, but I can't. No tears. No heat behind my eyes. My body won't respond. Even emotion seems hollow.

Empty. I am empty. Words slip from me, and thoughts spiral without end. I can't stop them. I can't shut anything off.

Hell. This must be what it truly is.

Did I die from blood loss? Did that creature rip my head from my shoulders? I don't know.

And in the end, it doesn't matter.

I can't move. I can't hear. I can't feel or taste, or smell.

I exist—but only barely.

And I am afraid.

I keep staring into the black. Waiting. Hoping for something—anything—to come.

But nothing does.

Time passes. Or it doesn't. Maybe it's only seconds. Maybe years. It makes no difference here.

Now I fear eternity.

Something that is gone—truly gone—can only be felt in the shadow of what it once was. And this? This void teaches that lesson well.

I float.

I float through what feels like forever. No direction. No gravity. No change.

I don't want to be here.

I want to kill those beasts.

The other bloods.

The ones whose veins are poisoned by corruption. Whose tongues are blue. The Greens, with their twisted limbs and vile grins.

And yet, they live.

While I am here.

I could retch from the memory of them—what they've done. What they'll do. What they did to my kind. To our women. Our children. Our cities.

Our honor.

They'll slaughter the men. Chain them, break them into workers. Sell the women like meat.

But even as I seethe, I know I'm lying to myself.

I did not fight for the people who followed me.

Not really.

That was just a side effect. A product of my vengeance.

The truth is... I did it for him.

Ren.

I stare into the blackness for what must be weeks. And somehow, it begins to reflect me.

A mirror.

Not of fire. Not of rage. But of emptiness.

No storm. No burning. Just cold, hollow stillness.

I feel nothing.

But I want to.

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The inability to scream, to shout, to speak—it drives me mad.

How long has it been? Months? Years?

I try to recall Ren's face. But even that is fading.

I can't see his eyes anymore. Not the exact shade of blue. Not the way he smiled.

Who had longer hair—him or me?

I don't know.

And that—that—is the cruelest part.

Not the pain. Not the dark.

The forgetting.

But worse still, is the absence of grief. I don't even feel sad. Just that same, endless emptiness.

After a storm, they say, comes calm.

But this calm is like a weight. It presses down. Smothers.

I've spent what feels like years thinking of those who surrounded me. Wondering if they meant something to me.

But now...

Now I've forgotten most of their names.

My eyes close.

Or were they already closed?

Was I asleep? Or have I never woken up?

What is real? What isn't?

I don't know.

Visions flicker inside my mind. Images. Fast.

Are they memories? Dreams? Or something else entirely?

Then—suddenly—light.

Real light. A sharp, burning flash like lightning striking my skull.

But not white.

Red.

It glows—bright and brutal—and I flinch. My eyes slam shut.

But the red seeps through. Covers me. Surrounds me.

Scarlet.

I lie still. My body refuses to move. I stare into the scarlet haze. Mist—dense and thick—chokes the edges of my vision.

I can't tell if it's near or far.

It just is.

Then pain.

A small flare inside my head.

It spreads.

My eyes flicker. My fingers twitch. My breath stutters into life.

I accept it.

I don't fight it.

I let the pain wash over me.

It rises—fast. Explodes in my skull—then fades. My hands go still again.

And now... the red deepens. The black fades.

Visions bloom.

I see too much. Too fast.

Pictures. Emotions. Moments.

They rush at me like waves.

A young soul. Shattered. Crying before two heads. His world collapsing just as mine did with Ren.

A noble man—blonde—swinging lifeless from a rope.

A trembling hand in another's grasp—then left cold and alone.

A pool of blood so wide it drowns an island.

An amber-haired woman running to somebody dear, to the hanged man.

I feel them. Their pain. Their terror. Their numbness.

The boy—anger boiling in his chest, before hopelessness suffocates it.

The hanged man—crushed by guilt.

The trembling man—paralyzed by grief.

The woman—frozen in disbelief.

Then more.

A young man in a strange uniform kneeling before royalty—a prince, a princess.

His tears fall in silence.

They're noble, like the others. But their world feels different.

Not this one.

Then—violet hair against violet sand.

A girl stands atop a beast. A titan. Towering. She laughs, eyes full of wonder.

She sees the world in its beauty.

Then—a shift.

Darkness again.

A chamber.

A girl lost inside it. Alone.

Her body shifts—suddenly, violently—transforming into that of a grown woman. The change startles me, not just for how fast it happens but for how it feels. At first, I sense only emptiness in her, a familiar hollowness that reflects too much of myself. But as her gaze lifts, drawn toward kaleidoscopic colors spinning beyond her, something inside her fractures and then floods.

Emotion.

Sadness. Anger. But above all—happiness. It bursts inside her like sunlight cracking through centuries of stone, warm and all-consuming. It makes me jealous, briefly. Then the vision yanks me away.

A black-haired woman with strings of whiteness, terrible and tall, marches at the front of an army. She is no woman, not really. A demon with raven-like wings, leading legions against angels. She battles the skies—and loses. A spear of pure light strikes her and she falls, crashing to earth like vengeance made flesh.

The world tilts.

And then the moon appears.

But not the moon I know. This one is red. Too red. As if it bleeds. As if it watches. Its gaze pierces straight through me, and the vision shifts again.

I see the world.

And golden people. Ethereal, divine. One kneels. Another prays.

"Golden Reaper," whispers a voice, curling through my mind like smoke. Familiar, yet changed. I can't place it.

More images now, overwhelming and too fast to hold. People. Faces. Suffering. Battles erupt. Blood stains the earth—spilled, drunk, screamed for. Cities burn. The sky splits apart. The moon looms, swollen and pulsing.

The world dies.

And then—darkness.

Not emptiness. Not void. But something alive. Something that moves and breathes and thinks.

Red mist drapes over everything. My limbs move, but not by my will. A sword extends from my hand, yet I don't grip it. I am merely the vessel now.

A jolt, a pang—my body spasms.

Ahead of me, a boy stands. Black hair falls into his eyes, eyes that hold grief so raw it splits my soul. He looks at me, and in his gaze, I see someone familiar; however, it's distorted, and I can't make out who it is.

Then my head turns, as if pulled by strings. The world tilts again, upside down and off-axis. I don't control this body anymore.

"Golden Reaper."

Time slows.

Memories, like shards of broken glass, race through my vision.

Then a voice, young and steady, full of solemn resolve.

"In this life, you shall die for the greater good... and not for your selfish vengeance."

Someone, whom I can't identify, raises a blade, the one that I held in my hand some heartbeats ago.

And brings it down.

I don't see the strike—only the blur of motion. Then a heavy thud.

My head hits the ground.

Wet. Cold. Final.

Blood pools around me. I am swallowed.

"I'm sorry, bi—" The voice breaks, cracking into something monstrous.

Pain wracks me. My eyes roll outward. My mind begins to collapse.

And then—I breathe.

A miracle. A foreign act.

I inhale like it's my first breath after drowning. The red world dissolves around me. The mist fades, thinning and fading until blue light spills in to take its place.

It radiates from a crystal—positioned on a long, ancient table to my right. The wood looks older than time. The light deepens, overtakes the crimson haze.

My pupils shrink. My body trembles.

And for the first time in what feels like eternity, I feel.

Tears well and spill over as wind stirs from the crystal's light, brushing my face, lifting strands of my hair back.

I lift my hand to shield my eyes, grimacing—

And suddenly I'm somewhere else.

Not the void. Not the sewer.

I sit at a grand table, one carved from marble and inlaid with gold. A porcelain plate rests before me, artfully filled with delicacies. The meat—sky-blue in the center bleeds with a color too close to that of the blues.

The cutlery gleams.

The room is excessive: gold trim, violet banners, orange and blue walls adorned with paintings that seem older than nations.

But my focus narrows, because—

My hands are wrong.

They aren't mine. Paler. More delicate. The nails shimmer faintly blue. So do the knuckles.

Something's wrong.

I try to move, but I'm locked inside.

Like a soul trapped in someone else's shell.

The body I inhabit—whoever it is—lifts its gaze from the meal.

Across the table, five people stare back.

All dressed in rich blue robes. All wear the same sigil: three roses blooming over their hearts.

Their lips are blue. Their faces cold, unreadable, sculpted from disdain. Stoic.

And inside the body I'm trapped in, rage builds.

A man at the head of the table—blonde-silver-haired and tall—speaks without warmth.

"Aston."

The name ripples through the host body like venom.

Then eyes fall to the wine glass, purple and glassy, and in it—

A reflection.

Young. Blonde.

A face I've seen before.

The hanged man from only moments ago!

"Yes, Father?" the voice, this body responds, controlled and clipped.

The mouth moves, the tongue tastes, the throat swallows.

But it isn't me.

It's he, this body, who does all these things.

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