The moment the words settled—
[Trial Initiated]
—everything changed.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
The ground beneath Damien didn't shift so much as rearrange. A pulse ran through it—like stone remembering how to be earth again—and the space around him bloomed with definition.
Sky formed above.
Not blue. Not black.
Something between—ash-colored and boiling, stitched with veins of flickering lightning that danced without warning.
BOOM.
Thunder crashed overhead.
Raw. Close. The kind that wasn't just sound, but weight—the kind that rattled through bones, not ears.
Damien didn't flinch.
He just raised his head slightly, eyes narrowing at the storm-churned sky.
A wind began to move.
Wide. Circular.
Pulling the air around him like a spiral drawing breath before it speaks.
And then—
It did.
A voice.
Not from above. Not around.
Just in.
Not telepathy. Not projection.
More like memory. Like something had been waiting in his blood to finally wake up and speak.
