The air in the realm beyond the Veil was thick with a suffocating silence, broken only by the echo of their footsteps. Kael, Ivy, and Aiden stood on the edge of an ancient, cracked bridge, its surface smooth but weathered, as though it had existed for eons. Below, a swirling void stretched infinitely—a turbulent sea of shifting colors, fractured light, and scattered fragments of broken dreams.
Kael's mind buzzed with the woman's words: Find the shard. Remember who you truly are. But what did that mean? And how could they find something as elusive as a memory?
"Where do we even start?" Aiden asked, his voice tense. He glanced at the swirling chaos below them. "This place is a nightmare. It's not real, is it? None of it is real."
Ivy's gaze was distant, her eyes scanning the shifting horizon. "I don't know. But it feels… real enough." She looked back at the others, her expression unreadable. "What if the shard isn't something we can touch or hold? What if it's inside us?"
Aiden snorted. "Inside us? Are we supposed to have some sort of epiphany and then—poof—everything fixes itself?"
"No," Kael said softly, his brow furrowing. "But what if Ivy's right? What if the shard isn't a thing, but a part of us that we've forgotten? Something buried deep inside."
He stepped forward, cautiously moving along the bridge, his eyes flickering with the strange light that surrounded them. It was as if the air itself was alive, writhing with potential. The Veil was watching, and Kael could feel its presence pressing against his skin, as if it could slip into his thoughts at any moment.
"This place feels like a dream," Ivy said, her voice barely a whisper. "A dream that's almost too real. Like… like we're in the space between memories."
Kael stopped in his tracks, turning to face her. "A space between memories… What if that's it?" He looked at her, his eyes lighting up with sudden realization. "What if the shard is the lost pieces of who we were before? The fragments of our past selves that we forgot?"
"I don't know if I like where this is going," Aiden muttered, but there was a flicker of doubt in his tone. "You're saying we have to… remember something we don't even know we've forgotten?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Kael said, his voice steady, yet a tremor of uncertainty snaked through him. "This place… it's not just a world between worlds. It's a place where the lost fragments of reality linger. Memories that never made it into the timeline we know. The Veil… it keeps them hidden."
Ivy stepped forward, placing a hand gently on Kael's arm. "So, we're looking for pieces of ourselves—pieces of who we were before all of this. But if we're supposed to find them, how do we even know where to look?"
Kael's eyes narrowed, his mind working through the puzzle. "The Veil has shown us parts of ourselves we didn't know existed. It's hidden memories within us. Maybe we just need to… ask. Ask the right questions."
"I'm not sure I understand," Aiden admitted, shaking his head. "Ask what?"
"Ask the Veil," Kael said with newfound resolve. "We've been searching for the wrong thing. The shard isn't some object waiting to be found. It's inside us, hidden by the Veil's magic. To uncover it, we need to face our past—face the parts of ourselves we've forgotten."
Ivy stared at him, as if weighing his words. "That sounds… dangerous."
"Everything about this place is dangerous," Kael said. "But it's the only way forward. We need to remember. We need to ask ourselves who we were before all this—before the game, before the Veil… before we became part of this endless rift."
Aiden's eyes flicked between the two of them, then out toward the void beneath them. He hesitated for a moment, then sighed, a wry smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "Well, if we're going to dive into our own memories, I guess we might as well start now."
Kael nodded, stepping closer to the edge of the bridge. The swirling colors beneath them began to shift again, ripples spreading across the surface like waves. The ground beneath their feet hummed with a strange energy, the same energy that had permeated every other part of this place.
"Close your eyes," Kael said softly. "Let go of what you think you know. The Veil will show us what we need to remember, but we have to let it. Let it take us where we need to go."
Ivy hesitated, but after a moment, she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Aiden followed, his shoulders tense as he joined the others.
Kael shut his eyes, feeling the pulse of the Veil all around them. The sensation was overwhelming—like a thousand voices whispering in his ears, a thousand lives that could have been his. Time seemed to stretch, the past and future blending into one. He reached for the lost fragments of his own mind, focusing on the feeling of something familiar, something buried just out of reach.
Then, like a spark in the dark, a single image flickered into his mind—a memory, hazy and fragmented, but unmistakable. A field. A bright sky. Laughter. He reached out, grasping at it with everything he had.
And suddenly, it was there—sharp, clear, like a shard of glass embedded deep in his heart.
It was a moment from his childhood, a moment he had long forgotten. His mother, smiling, her arms around him, her warmth filling him with an unspoken promise. He had been safe. He had been whole.
"Kael?" Ivy's voice broke through his thoughts, but he didn't open his eyes. He was too afraid that if he did, the memory would slip away.
"I remember," Kael whispered, the words slipping past his lips before he could stop them. "I remember who I was."
The bridge beneath them shifted again, and suddenly, they were no longer standing on it. Instead, they were in a new place—a place that felt familiar, yet wrong. They were back in the world they knew, but everything was twisted. The sky was darker, the air thicker. The buildings around them seemed to pulse with energy, alive and breathing.
It was a place they knew, but it wasn't the place they had left behind.
The Veil had begun to unravel, and the memory that Kael had unlocked—his past—had opened a door to something far more dangerous than they had ever imagined.
"I think we've just crossed another line," Aiden muttered, his voice low and full of unease.
Kael swallowed, his heart pounding in his chest. "We're not done yet. The shard… it's here. And we have to face whatever comes next."
And as they stepped forward into the unknown, they realized that the path they were walking was not just about recovering lost memories—it was about uncovering the truth of who they truly were, and what the Veil had hidden from them all along.