Chapter 276
The dream begins like sinking.
I don’t fall into it—I’m drawn, slow and soundless, deeper and deeper, like the gravity of the sea has found my bones and claimed me as its own. The kind of descent that doesn’t feel like falling, but returning. As if this place has been waiting for me.
There’s no resistance. No fear. Just silence. And the feeling of pressure building all around me, soft but relentless, like a presence wrapping itself around my skin.
When my feet find ground again, it isn’t sand or seabed—it’s smooth, cool stone, shimmering with lichen and mineral veins that pulse with faint inner light. I’m standing in the heart of something ancient. A chamber carved into the ocean’s bones, vast and hollow, echoing with the low thunder of water cascading from the ceiling far above.
Silver ribbons of waterfall plunge down sheer cliff walls, glittering as they fall into the crystal-clear pool that surrounds a singular, colossal structure in the center.
A mountain of Darklite.
It rises from the water like a monument, black-veined and glimmering, a pulsing beacon in the dim. It’s not carved or constructed. It grew. Breathed. Waited. It hums, not with menace, but with gravity—some sound beneath sound, a pull not just on the body but the spirit.
Not in the way that dreams usually do—like a place I’ve passed through in another life—but like something that belongs to me. Or I to it.
It draws me closer. I move barefoot through the shallows, my steps soundless. The water is cold but not biting—it cradles my ankles, almost reverent. My dream-self doesn’t hesitate. She knows this place. She kneels at the water’s edge, places both hands against the crystal’s smooth, radiant surface.
It glows under my touch.
A warmth rises from within the Darklite, diffusing through my fingertips. The light flickers across the chamber, throwing shadows that dance with memory. I see flashes—celebrations, rituals, faces blurred with time but etched with emotion. Laughter, tears. Not mine. Not quite. But familiar.
The realization comes like breath: I’m communing with it. Not a weapon. Not a resource. Something sacred. Something living.
And whatever is inside it—
The crystal clears like mist receding from glass.
A shape begins to form. A human shape.
A woman.
Fair skin. Blonde hair like sun-bleached reeds.
My breath catches.
Lily.
Or someone who wears her face.
Dream Lily. Trapped in the heart of the crystal, serene and still, her eyes closed in an expression of peace. She floats there like a relic, preserved in ice.
Then her eyes snap open.
And everything changes.
Her face contorts—not with confusion, but fury. The kind that comes from betrayal. Her mouth opens in a silent scream. The light in the cavern turns sickly—bruised purple and violent red, bleeding through the silver glow of the waterfalls. The water ripples outward from the Darklite, thickening like oil.
The ground shudders beneath me.
The crystal starts to vibrate.
No longer pulsing with warmth—but with activation. Awakening.
“What—” I start, but my voice is swallowed by the rising pitch of the air, a keening noise like something old and angry waking from centuries of sleep.
The water turns violent.
A spiral forms, dragging everything toward the Darklite. I try to back away, but my limbs won’t obey. My body locks, my feet rooted. A magnetic pull stronger than gravity itself begins to tear at my edges.
Then the pain begins.
It’s not pain like a wound. It’s pain like being unraveled. My fingers crackle and dissolve, turning into crystalline dust that shimmers as it scatters into the whirlpool. My arms follow. My chest. My screams are soundless, consumed by the vortex.
I don’t disintegrate. I’m claimed.
Piece by piece, I’m drawn into the heart of the Darklite.
Then—darkness.
A void of everything. No up, no down. No light. No air.
No self.
But I know I’m not gone.
I’m aware. Slipping, but still present. A ghost of thought. A consciousness caught between pulses of time.
I try to scream again—useless. My mind is cracking apart, thought after thought burning out like stars going nova.
Then a glimmer.
Outside.
A shape moves in the chamber where I once stood.
Dream Lily.
She stretches. Rolls her shoulders. Flexes her fingers. My fingers. Like someone trying on a new outfit. She blinks, her expression clear now. Confident. Satisfied.
She’s smiling.
She lifts her hands—hands that were mine—and stretches her fingers like someone testing out new gloves. She turns slowly, taking in her surroundings, stepping forward with the confidence of someone who’s walked this place before.
And I’m still here.
Trapped in the crystal.
Inside the prison she left behind.
I watch, powerless, as she breathes in, her eyes glowing faintly with reflected power. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to.
She’s free.
And I’m not.
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