The silence around me felt like a weight pressing down on my chest from somewhere up. Everyone was staring at me, their eyes wide with anticipation and fear. I stood there, trying to keep my breathing steady while that pulsing black sphere kept throbbing in front of me like some kind of dark heart.
Each pulse made the ground tremble under our feet. People stumbled backward, but I couldn't move. The fog from that thing started spiraling toward me, these dark tendrils reaching out like fingers trying to grab something of me. Then it all happened - the fog just... went into me through my skin, into my lungs, everywhere i could feel it
"He's been chosen," someone whispered behind me. "But where's the Key? There's supposed to be some kind of revile, right? This is just... fog."
"Look at his arm!" another voice cut through the murmur. "The Circle! It's there!"
I glanced down at my forearm. Sure enough, there was this black circle with cracks running through it like broken glass. The mark every Key-bearer gets. But something felt wrong about it, it was incomplete somehow.
Ray's voice broke through my thoughts. "Rudra! You okay? Does it hurt?"
I turned to look at him, trying to force a smile. "No, it's... it's not dangerous." The words came out steadier than I felt.
But then everything went to hell the world around me started disappearing. Not all at once - piece by piece, like someone was erasing reality with a giant eraser. The crowd's voices got distant and hollow, even though I could still hear them talking. When I looked for faces, there was just... nothing. Empty space where people should have been.
I tried to focus on the voices, to understand what they were saying, but the moment I did, they vanished too. Like my attention was poison to whatever was left of the world.
The heart-shaped gateway was still there, solid and real, until I really looked at it. Then it was also gone. I realised that what i think of is disappearing the sky above me - gone the second I glanced up. The ground beneath my feet disappeared when I looked down then i started to fall but not through air or water, but through absolutely nothing like i was drowing in a endless nothing and time felt like it was stretched out like taffy. After a time i felt like i was drowing for a year now and i still couldn't hit a group and body got heavier and heavier, but there was nowhere to land, nothing to hit.
After what felt like decades of falling, I realized something that made my blood freeze. If there was no light anywhere, how could I see my hands? Realising i tried to look at them, but they weren't there. My arms, legs, my whole body was gone !
I reached for my face and found nothing. I was just... consciousness drowing in a void of nothing. And after a while which felt like another decade even my Consciousness
started to slipping away my thoughts, my memories, the very idea of who I was - all of it started to fade taking a shape of black for
Drowing for a decade i had so many thoughts and one was when was this going to end this is it i thought of giving up " This is how I die not with a bang, but by just... Like this "
Then I heard a voice. Warm, familiar, worried. It didn't say my name, but I knew it was calling to me. And I felt like something grab what was left of me - not my body, because I didn't have one anymore, but the core of whatever I was. A hand, pulling me back from the edge of nothing of me
Light exploded around me. Air rushed into my lungs. I could feel again but like my very soul trubmling after experiencing the decades of drowning i slowly turned my head up to look the beauty that I was about to forget the sun on my skin, solid ground under my feet the air hitting against my skin..
"Rudra," Ray was calling my name i could finnally hear a voice of someone else other than my consciousness, his face twisted with worry. "You weren't responding are you okay?"
I couldn't answer right away my hand were still trubmling my legs had given up. My mind was still trying to piece together what had just happened. The void, the voice, that hand pulling me back - it felt more real than anything I'd ever experienced.
"Ray," I finally managed, my voice rough. "The thread... what was it?"
He frowned. "Thread? What are you talking about?"
Before I could explain, the fog came back. Heavier this time, more invasive. It felt like it was crawling under my skin, making itself at home in places it didn't belong.
"Ray," I gasped, struggling to breathe. "Is there something on my back? Look."
He moved behind me, checking. "Nothing there. You look terrible though. What's wrong?"
"Look again," I insisted. My whole body was trembling now. "There's something growing inside me. Something that wasn't there before."
" But i don't see anything !, Rudra are you sure you ok ?"
"I feel like something's being born inside me. Something that doesn't belong ."
Then a sudden pain hit me at the start i felt relief because i could fell the pain. But the next second the real pain got me, not like the weird void experience. This was physical agony that tore a scream from my throat before I could stop it.
"Look at him!" someone in the crowd yelled. "What's wrong with that kid now?"
Ray grabbed my shoulders. "Rudra! Look at me! What's happening?"
I couldn't stop screaming the pain was in my back, burning like acid under my skin. Then it spread to my forehead, and I thought my skull was going to split open.
My parents and brother pushed through the crowd, my mother's voice cutting through everything when they got close the queen my mother "Rudra! Rudra...rudra..Tell us..tell us child what's wrong! We can help!"
"My back," I managed between screams. "Something's growing there aa..an..and now... now my forehead too!"
I ripped my shirt off, desperate for relief. The crowd gasped, and I heard someone scream. I could feel lines forming under my skin, with each heartbeat. Then my skin split open like overripe fruit on my back
The pain was beyond anything I'd ever imagined. Something was pushing through the tears in my back - white, feathered, soaked in my blood. Wings. Actual wings were growing out of my back, each movement sending fresh waves of agony through my body.
Just when I thought it was over, my forehead started splitting too. Two bumps pushing through the skin, growing into curved horns going back like of a dragon that twisted up from my skull like some kind of crown.
For a moment, blessed silence. I thought the nightmare was finished then my wings moved on their own, jerking me up into the air like a puppet on strings. I hung there, suspended above everyone, and suddenly when i finally thought this was it then there was this blade appeared in front of me. It looked like it was made of a black metal, beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
"Ray!" I shouted down at him. "What is this thing?"
"It's your Key," he called back, his voice shaky. "A dual-property Key they're incredibly rare."
The blade started moving toward me, and a second later the blade its glow getting brighter. I could feel it pulling at something deep inside my chest. It began dissolving, its light merging with my body. For a second, I thought everything was going to be okay.
Then golden threads exploded from my chest like living snakes. They wrapped around the dissolving blade, squeezing it tight, then drove it straight into my heart and the next second blood filled my mouth instantly. The metallic taste made me gag as more poured down my chin. The crowd was screaming, kids running in every direction, but I barely noticed. The pain in my chest was everything now.
"What's happening to me?" I whispered, feeling my strength drain away.
Through all the chaos, I heard something - a voice, barely audible, almost gentle
"It...its Beautiful... just like the blood flowing from the heavens."
And the blade vanished and all the wound in my chest and back sealed itself like it had never been there. I dropped to the ground, my wings shaking but still attached.
Ray was beside me in seconds, grabbing my hand and staring at it intently. "Rudra, your circle... it's only half complete !"
" Ha ! What does that mean?" I asked with a lot of suprise in voice, "And those threads... what were they?"
His face went dark. "It means something's fighting your bond with the Key. Those threads are part of that fight. Something's trying to control it... or control you."
The weight of what he said settled over me like a burial shroud. Whatever was happening to me in real.....