In the ethereal void stretching endlessly before Leonard, time and space seemed to have unraveled. Silence reigned, sharp and absolute—like the breath before a storm. He was trapped in a colorless limbo, devoid of life or hope. No pain stirred within him, nor relief—only a gnawing emptiness, as if his very soul were slowly consumed by infinite darkness.
"Where am I? Am I dead?"
The question drifted through his mind like a ghostly breeze. He tried to move, but an unfamiliar numbness held him still. His legs were there, his feet resting on an invisible ground. His eyes were open, yet all he saw was blinding white. No wounds, no death. Still, the nightmare clung to his soul—a shadow refusing to fade.
"Am I... really dead? Powerless, just gone?" Leonard's voice trembled, barely more than a whisper, as if he struggled to believe what was happening.
Then, from the vast emptiness, a voice came—low, distant, barely more than a breath:
"In a way, you are dead, boy." The words vibrated through him, a silent scream tearing at his essence.
Leonard scanned the void, searching for the source. He stepped back, unease tightening like a noose around his chest.
"Where are you? Who are you?" he asked, voice cracking.
No answer came at first. Then, from the nothingness, a shifting blur emerged—viscous and pale, erratic in form. Slowly, it shaped into something humanoid, but faceless, colorless, and nameless—a being born from absence itself, yet filled with a disturbing wisdom.
"I am here," the voice solidified, cold and weighty—not comforting, but burdened with an unsettling gravity.
Leonard fixed his gaze, heart hammering. This isn't normal... but then again, what here is?
A bitter laugh escaped him. He needed answers, before the creeping void swallowed him whole.
"Who are you? God? Some supernatural force?"
The voice faltered, hesitant: "I am... a fool. A sinner." A long pause hung between them, thick with unspoken regret.
"A fool?" Leonard raised an eyebrow, dread curling in his gut. This isn't good.
"Yes. But you, too, are a fool—perhaps an even greater one."
Leonard's forced chuckle was bitter. "Maybe so. After all I've endured in that hell, I can't argue."
The figure became clearer—an echo of Leonard himself, but flawless, hauntingly beautiful, as if a glimpse of what could have been if different choices had been made.
"You... those memories—are they yours?"
"Perhaps once... perhaps they were." The being's voice trembled, recalling distant fragments. "The flame that kept you alive... once, it was me."
Cold deepened, sinking into Leonard's bones.
"Was that the warmth? The desperate screams I heard in the rain?"
"They are the cries of those I've slain. Through my own folly, I cast my world into chaos... and sought, through you, my descendant, to restore the order lost to the seed of madness."
Leonard's soul ached at the confession, yet a strange kinship blossomed—beyond time and space.
"But I failed, too," Leonard said, voice heavy with guilt. "I failed to mend what was broken."
The figure seemed to wither, as if drained by the weight of its own failures.
"And now?" Leonard asked.
"Now, beyond the fading of my essence... the door has been opened to your world."
Fear constricted Leonard's throat. He braced for the revelation.
"Don't tell me... it was that cursed book?"
The whisper was soaked in horror.
"Book? I do not know... That nameless curse... It took the form of a necklace with a strange key when it bound me... when it forced a pact upon me."
The echo of that pact thundered in Leonard's mind—doom looming.
"A pact..." Ice crept down his spine, terror blooming.
In the absolute void where being and nothingness blurred, Leonard felt himself fracturing, a fragment swallowed by the endless abyss. Light faded with every breath, his own shallow exhale a faint pulse of lost life. The specter before him continued its haunting revelation, the final tether linking Leonard to a crumbling reality.
"You not only can see it, but the harbinger of war has already come. You saw it, didn't you? The vision of the end of your world."
The voice cut through silence like a blade, merciless and cold.
Leonard's mind reeled, images flooding his vision. The burden was crushing—a weight he could barely breathe under.
"This ability... is it like yours? The 'Eternal Vision', wasn't it called?"
"There are two versions," the voice hesitated. "One Cedric inherited, and mine... and unfortunately, you are cursed with the eternal vision of madness."
Madness—the word poisoned Leonard's thoughts, creeping like venom through the cracks in his reason. He blinked, trying to catch hold of the unraveling threads.
"Madness? Why?"
"Like the eternal vision of wisdom, the eternal vision of madness weaves through fate's delicate threads... but it cannot be wielded at will. During your time in the 'dreamworld', all you experienced was a fusion of both eyes into one... perhaps the absence of a second bearer caused this."
Each word landed heavy on his chest. "Dreamworld," "eternal vision," "madness." His mind spun like a rusted wheel.
"I see... but why dreams? Does that mean I died in a dream?"
"Yes. What you experienced was akin to brain death..." The voice dripped indifference. "We, who bear the Eternal Vision, endure this many times. Each destiny is so vivid we feel every pain..."
The revelation crushed Leonard's heart, and suddenly, an overwhelming nausea seized him. He tried to control it in vain, but the world warped, and he vomited—liquid strange, colorless, hollow—like a part of his soul breaking free.
"Hey, hey, don't lose such an important piece of your soul. Your existence is messy enough from what I had to impart."
The voice, once detached, now held a trace of concern. The being seemed annoyed by Leonard's physical reaction.
Leonard wiped his mouth, struggling to breathe and process the flood of truths. His body, battered by past horrors, could no longer tell pain from despair.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped, dry and hollow.
"Are you dumb? How long do you think you'd have survived with hunger, dehydration, and wounds like those? I had to drain some of my own soul's energy just to keep you alive... but everything has a price. My soul itself is unraveling."
The whispered mystery now lay bare in cruel clarity. Leonard felt the weight of truth—beyond comprehension, beyond hope.
"Soul energy..." he murmured, repeating a word foreign yet resonant.
"Are you a parrot now? Repeating everything I say... yes, soul—the core of what makes you who you are." The voice sounded bored now, impatient with the slow learner.
Silence fell heavy, awkward. Leonard had no questions left; the being seemed to fade, the void thickening, a metallic curtain descending.
"Thanks for bearing witness to my hell," Leonard muttered, exhaustion bleeding from his voice.
"Whatever. You'll wake soon enough. Don't forget what you've seen. The end times will come..."
The figure melted away like a candle snuffed by the wind. The once impenetrable void cracked like shattered glass, a cacophony growing around them.
A desperate urge to escape burned in Leonard, but terror paralyzed him. The apparition receded, pulled by invisible forces. He lunged forward, chasing a sliver of light at eternity's end, too fragile to grasp, beyond human understanding.
As the shattering crash echoed, Leonard vanished into darkness
...
Calius remained alone in his endless prison—his body shattered, his soul fragmented, yet unyielding. Banished from heaven and hell, condemned to linger in the limbo between worlds, he stared into infinity with a sadness carved by millennia.
"One day... we will be together again..." he whispered—a promise fractured by time, never to be fulfilled.