Darkness.
Not the kind that came with nightfall or closed eyes—but a formless, suffocating void that stripped Raen of everything: sound, sight, self. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
And yet, something thought for him.
> "You are not free."
The words echoed not just in his mind but in the marrow of his bones, deeper than memory, deeper than soul. Raen didn't know if he was falling or floating, if time still passed or if he had been swallowed whole by the beginning of nothing.
But then came the light.
A single crack appeared in the void—a fracture in the fabric of the black. From it, voices leaked through like blood from a wound.
Children crying. Soldiers screaming. A woman whispering his name.
"Raen…"
His eyes snapped open.
