Darkness.

  Then pain.

  Vermond gasped as his lungs pulled in thick, humid air. He opened his eyes slowly, blinded by the haze of sunlight breaking through tall, moss-covered trees. His body ached, bones screaming, skin bloodied. The last thing he remembered was the Corvette rupturing in an explosion of flame and fury… and his scream as everything went white.

  But now—he was alive.

  He sat up slowly, coughing. The air smelled like ash and salt. Around him, the dense forest twisted unnaturally, almost watching him. It was quiet—unnaturally quiet—except for a low mechanical hiss… and the faint crackling of fire.

  He stumbled to his feet.

  That's when he saw it: wreckage.

  The broken husk of the Corvette, or at least a portion of it, had crash-landed nearby, torn into pieces like paper. Metal twisted against trees. Black scorch marks painted the forest floor. Smoke still rose from its shattered engine core.

  His heart pounded—was he truly the only one?

  He rushed to the wreck, hand trembling as he gripped the melted remains of a hull plate. There were no bodies. No blood. No charred remains. Nothing.

  They were all… gone.

  Or perhaps… pulled elsewhere—like him.

  He dropped to his knees. The orb in his chest pulsed faintly, like it too was catching its breath. “Kiana,” he whispered.

  A breeze stirred. Then, from somewhere deep in the woods… a distant, echoing sound.

  Not human.

  Not animal.

  Like something massive breathing.

  Vermond’s head turned slowly. His instincts, sharpened beyond human comprehension, screamed in warning. Whatever had brought him to this place wasn’t f

  inished yet.

  And he wasn't alone.

  Something was calling him.

  Not with words.

  Not with voice.

  But with existence—a pressure that pulled at his very soul, like invisible chains dragging him toward the forest’s heart. The air grew colder with every step Vermond took, though no wind stirred. Leaves were still. The sky above dimmed unnaturally, even though the sun hadn’t set.

  The orb on his chest… it throbbed, in sync with something far beneath the earth.

  And then—snap. A branch underfoot.

  He flinched, heart hammering. But it wasn’t just the sound. It was what followed.

  A whisper.

  Not from around him. Inside him.

  "Come back… my king…"

  His vision blurred. Pain seared through his skull like needles in his brain. He fell to one knee, clutching his head.

  And then—he saw it.

  Not the forest.

  Not reality.

  But memories—and none of them were his.

  Charred thrones of bone and steel. Undead legions kneeling in silence, their hollow eyes glowing like embers. A black sun hanging in a blood-red sky. And at the center of it all…

  …a figure sitting on a jagged throne.

  Its face… his face.

  But twisted. Hollow. Regal. Dead.

  "No…" Vermond gasped, eyes wide. "What is this…?"

  The images kept coming. Skeletons chained to ships that floated in voids between stars. A moon cracked in half, bleeding darkness. And rising from the ruins—a black crown forged from suffering and silence.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "You are not born… You were awakened."

  The voice again. Now louder.

  The trees bent around him as if bowing—or recoiling. The shadows thickened.

  He stumbled forward, breath ragged. His surroundings flickered like a broken simulation. One moment forest, next moment battlefield. One second moss-covered trees, next—towering black obelisks screaming with silent runes.

  The voice now filled his ears, not a whisper anymore.

  "A throne abandoned… A soul split… A king… reborn."

  He fell to the ground, gripping the earth, trying to breathe.

  “No! I’m not… I’m not a king! I’m not that thing!”

  But the forest said nothing.

  Only the orb pulsed.

  And behind him, something enormous stirred beneath the soil.

  The wind shifted.

  Vermond stood on the ashen soil, the sky above choked with curling red clouds, a moonlike sun casting a pale, washed-out light. Then came it—the sound. It wasn’t footsteps. It wasn’t metal or wind. It was something… else. Like bones rubbing against bones, like screams twisted through water. Something was coming from the forest.

  Vermond turned toward the trees.

  There was nothing at first.

  Just thick trunks, veiled in fog that clung like a living thing, swallowing the horizon. But the sound grew louder—closer. It made the hairs on his neck rise. It felt wrong.

  And then the memories surged in again.

  Like knives through his skull.

  Frederen’s face twisted in agony, his hands reaching for Vermond, for mercy. The terrified soldiers. The screaming. The fire. The blood pooling under his boots. Their voices echoed inside him—

  “You killed them.

  You killed them.

  You killed them.”

  “No,” Vermond whispered, trembling. “No—NO!”

  He collapsed to his knees, clutching his head, the orb on his chest pulsing with guilt, like a second heart. The words wouldn’t stop.

  You killed them.

  Tears rolled down his cheeks, and for a moment, the silence after the screams was heavier than the roar of war.

  But then…

  A new voice.

  Not twisted, not accusatory.

  Warm. Familiar.

  His grandfather.

  > "Vermond… listen to me, boy. If you're hearing this, then you're still alive—and that means there's still a path forward.

  What you've done… what you've become… it's not who you are, not truly. Power like this, it doesn’t come without a price. And sometimes the price comes in blood.

  I’ve seen what you could be, even before all this madness. You were always brave. Always stubborn. But never cruel. That pain in you—that guilt—is proof you’re still human inside.

  There will be voices that try to drown you in your mistakes. Let them scream. But don't let them define you.

  You can't undo what’s done… but you can choose what comes next.

  You must.

  There’s more to this path than just power, Vermond. I believe in you. And if you can’t believe in yourself yet… then borrow my faith until you can.

  Stand. Walk. Face it. And if the world says you're a monster—then show them a monster can still protect what’s right."

  Vermond sat frozen, breath caught in his throat, staring blankly at the fog as it crawled forward.

  The forest sound… it had stopped.

  But something had crossed the boundary now.

  Something was watching him.

  The tears still rolled, but his body—scarred, stronger than before—began to rise.

  Step by step.

  Toward whatever came from the trees.

  The fog parted.

  From within the forest came not a monster, nor a beast—but a girl.

  She walked barefoot over dead leaves, light as a whisper, the mist coiling around her like silk. Her hair shimmered like starlight, silver with strands of shadow, and her skin was pale with a ghostly hue. But it was her eyes that stopped Vermond cold—emerald, just like his.

  Vermond’s breath caught. His body froze.

  She smiled—gently, knowingly—and walked toward him like she had always known the way.

  “I finally found you,” she said softly. “Brother.”

  “…What?”

  Her voice was melodic, warm, and piercing like the wind. His heart thudded in his chest. “W-Who…?”

  “I’m your sister,” she answered, her hands clasped in front of her chest. “Kiana.”

  His vision blurred.

  “No… Kiana is—not my sister.. and kiana… Is currently on my chest.. just what the hell is happening?”

  But the more he looked into her eyes, the more something inside him recognized her. It was subtle. A familiarity buried in the marrow of his soul. Like a dream half-remembered.

  “Big brother,” she said. “Your blood remembers. Your power remembers.”

  She stepped closer and raised her hand to his face. He didn’t flinch. Couldn’t.

  “Everything you’ve been through… I’ve seen it,” she whispered. “You endured it well, big brother, and that Kiana on your chest.. is basically me, I'm the one who did this to you.”

  "W-wait, I don't understand—"

  She leaned forward and pressed her lips gently against his cheek, a sister’s affection—sweet, but laced with sorrow.

  And then…

  His mind fractured.

  A pulse of light burst from his orb. The trees twisted. The wind screamed. His knees gave way, and he fell, clutching his head as an explosion of visions roared through him.

  Her voice was gone.

  She was gone.

  But his memories remained—and they were changing.

  The blurred figure who had haunted his visions, sitting on that blackened throne of bone and starfire, always cloaked, always unknowable—

  Wasn’t her anymore.

  It was him.

  His own face.

  Crowned.

  Eyes hollow and bright with blood emerald light.

  He was the one on the throne.

  And he was smiling.

  Vermond fell to his knees, clutching his head as the memories spiraled.

  He saw galaxies burning.

  He saw fleets kneeling.

  He saw himself—not as he was now, but as something greater… something terrible. A lord of ash and bone, seated on a throne carved from the corpses of forgotten gods. His eyes were like burning stars, and his voice… it echoed through time itself.

  The wind around him howled like whispers—you were not meant to be mortal.

  “No—no!” Vermond shouted, pounding the earth with his fists. “That’s not me!”

  But it was.

  Buried in the bones of who he thought he was. In the soul he thought belonged to a boy raised by his grandfather. But he was starting to understand now—

  He hadn’t just lost Kiana.

  He had been someone else… before.

  Someone older than the Federation. Older than the Fallen family. Older than the monsters that prowled between the stars.

  “You weren’t born,” a voice whispered in the wind. “You awoke.”

  The earth beneath him trembled. The trees bent. The sky above rippled, dark clouds swirling into a vortex of memory and power.

  From the storm of visions, Kiana’s face appeared again—soft, kind, but no longer alive.

  “You were always meant to rise again.”

  And then silence.

  Vermond stood slowly, staring at his hands. The glow in his orb had grown darker—no longer a pure green, but tinged with crimson. His fingers crackled faintly with an energy he didn’t know how to control.

  “…What am I becoming?”

  And from the void, from nowhere—and every

  where—a voice answered.

  “Yourself.”

  The wind had died.

  Not faded, not slowed—but died, as if strangled by something unseen. The trees didn’t rustle. No birds called. No insects buzzed. The silence was maddening, hollow and thick, as if the planet itself was holding its breath.

  Vermond stood still, his bare feet pressing into the cool earth. Dirt under nails. His fingers trembled slightly as he clutched a branch sharpened into a crude spear. Sweat trickled down his spine, though the air wasn’t warm.

  His emerald eyes glowed faintly, and the number “48” shimmered inside them—almost branded into his soul. The number stared back at him when he caught glimpses in broken metal or reflected water. Forty-eight souls. Consumed. Trapped within him. Screaming silently, only he could hear them now.

  He pushed those thoughts aside.

  He needed to survive.

  The wreckage of the Corvette lay shattered across a slope not far from where he woke up. Twisted metal, fractured hull pieces, and scattered tech were all he had. Vermond scavenged. A snapped solar panel became a makeshift roof. He shaped a wall from alloy slabs, leaning them against a fallen tree trunk. It wasn’t a fortress—but it was shelter.

  The planet's vegetation seemed untouched by civilization. Moss clung to towering, thick-barked trees. Purple fungi sprouted from rocks, pulsing faintly as if breathing. He didn’t trust them.

  He ate carefully—boiled roots, heated small red fruits over fire, even managed to catch a lizard-like creature. The meat was bitter but it didn’t kill him. Yet.

  But it wasn’t the hunger that haunted him. Or the cold.

  It was them.

  At night, when the fire died and the stars blinked through a violet sky, the voices started. They didn’t whisper anymore.

  They screamed.

  He heard Fredene’s voice—“Why couldn’t you stop it, Vermond?”

  He saw flashes in the dark. Twisted figures creeping through the trees, just beyond the firelight. He never saw them fully—only silhouettes, faces half-formed, crawling like broken puppets. They watched him. Judged him. Waited.

  One night, he found a mirror shard from the ship. Just a tiny sliver.

  He looked at himself.

  Eyes glowing. Muscles no longer belonging to a salvager. And behind his reflection—her. Kiana. Smiling. Dead eyes. Behind her… himself again, but seated on a throne of bones, crowned in shadows.

  Vermond dropped the shard.

  Clutching his head, he gasped, “This isn’t real…”

  But he knew it was. Something was pulling him deeper into this planet. Into his own darkness.

  And then—something rustled the trees.

  He stood instantly, weapon in hand, staring into the forest line.

  The wind hadn’t returned.

  But something else had.