Grey opened his eyes with great difficulty. The world around him swam in a haze of pain and disorientation. He recognized his room, but before he could steady his breath,
"AaaAAAHHH!"
A guttural scream tore from his throat.
It wasn't a normal headache , no, this pain was unnatural. Blinding. As though his skull were being peeled apart from the inside, as if some unseen being were clawing at his mind, trying to unearth something buried deep within.
For ten agonizing minutes, he could do nothing but writhe, his body convulsing in sweat-drenched sheets. His vision blurred. His thoughts fragmented. Reality thinned.
Then slowly, reluctantly, the pain began to recede.
By the time an hour passed, Grey sat hunched on his bed, breath ragged, body trembling. His shirt clung to his back with sweat. A feeling of hollowness washed over him, as if something vital was missing or something had entered him.
He remembered one thing the moment before unconsciousness: a strange formless entity transforming into a massive, gaping mouth that swallowed him whole. And now
Things were no longer normal.
He blinked, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and froze.
The chair. His desk. His books.
They floated.
No, not just floated, they hovered unnaturally in midair, slowly rotating as if caught in some invisible current.
At first, he thought it was a hallucination, a side-effect of his condition. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force the illusion away.
But when he looked again, the world had only grown stranger.
The very wooden planks of the floor were detaching, rising into the air and orbiting in a perfect circular pattern. It was like being inside a silent hurricane, the eye of a storm formed not by wind but by some arcane force.
A shiver ran down his spine.
From the center of the floating maelstrom, an inaudible murmur reached his ears:
"Yuuu... wllll... dieeee..."
The voice was fragmented, distorted, like a radio tuning through a dying frequency. The words were meaningless. Incomplete. Unsettling.
Grey staggered back toward the door, panic blooming in his chest.
But before he could reach the handle, the storm of floating debris shifted, blocking the exit. As if it were... alive, as if it wanted him to stay.
"It doesn't want me to leave"
He glanced toward the window. He was on the first floor a jump could injure him, but it might save his life. He hesitated.
Then, suddenly, the swirling storm halted.
The debris began rearranging, the wooden pieces snapping into place not randomly, but with intent. A pattern. A shape.
In seconds, it was clear:
FALLEN ONE
Two words. Assembled from the broken fragments of his furniture, scrawled across the air like a divine message.
Grey's breath caught.
"Someone… something… is trying to communicate."
"Fallen One?"
Was it referring to the dead God of Darkness? The deity whose path Grey had unknowingly inherited?
Or was it referring to himself?
A mere citizen-rank paladin. Weak. Insignificant. A discarded soul reborn into a world at war with forgotten gods.
Still seated, Grey gathered what courage he could. His voice was hoarse when he spoke:
"Who are you? What do you want from me?"
Silence.
Then the murmurs returned but clearer now. Closer.
"You will… di—eeee… hehehehhhhh..."
A manic chuckle echoed in the silence, sending a chill crawling up his spine.
He straightened. "What are you saying? Why will I die? Who are you? Are you from the church?"
But no answer came.
Only more whispers, like moths fluttering against the inside of his skull. Meaningless. Mocking.
He realized something terrifying this presence was not from the Church.
It was not human.
It didn't play by the rules of reality.
It simply was.
And then the pain returned.
A brutal spike, as if hot needles were being shoved through his temples. Grey barely had time to gasp before the world fell away.
When he collapsed unconscious, his room came alive once more.
The floating remnants of wood and iron did not fall. Instead, they moved again slower this time, with eerie precision.
They formed shapes.
Eyes.
One. Then two. Then more unblinking, watching him sleep. Their gaze was not of curiosity, but scrutiny. Judgment. Hunger.
They stared until the last second.
And then, as if a curtain had fallen, the eyes faded. The wood returned to its place. The room returned to normal.
And Grey slept.
Unaware that something had looked into him and marked him