Kassian sat in silence, his back pressed against a dry log he had dragged to the edge of the fire. The flames crackled steadily, casting long shadows that danced across the forest floor. But his eyes weren't on them. They were distant, lost in thought.
"Essence Abilities… Merge… Balance…" he muttered under his breath.
The words from the Waygate echoed in his mind, strange and weighty. Tools? Powers? It all felt unreal - like concepts ripped from a game or an online conspiracy thread. And yet… they were real enough to be displayed there, carved into ancient runes that he could mysteriously read.
Growing up in the walled city, nothing even remotely supernatural had ever happened. His episodes - the blackouts, the darkness that swallowed his senses - were always dismissed as something natural. Left unexplained to him. But the term Dark Essence Ability made him wonder if it was never a sickness at all.
What if it had always been something else?
He was not one to believe baseless superstition. Conspiracies, urban legends, even the strange ones - some made some sense, but others were just pure made up. But he believed something he once saw in the internet: "Your body is preparing you for something..."
And now… here he was. In an alien forest. Surviving things he couldn't explain.
"Why am I here?" he asked no one. The fire offered no answer.
How does someone just… vanish from their world?
And then, there was the Waygate. The one structure that didn't feel like it belonged to this corrupted forest. A door, maybe - a key to return.
If it worked.
If he survived long enough to reach it again.
In the middle of his thoughts, something shifted.
The fire dimmed, edges melting into smears of color.
Sound fled. Even the crackle of flame fell silent.
Kassian tried to blink - but wasn't sure if he still had eyes. He tried to move, but nothing answered. Not a twitch. Not a breath.
He wasn't cold. He wasn't warm.
He just… was.
His body, if it still existed, didn't belong to him. The ground beneath him was gone. The forest, a blurry outline. His vision tunneled into a fogged reality where everything bled together - slow, distant, unreachable.
Panic surged - but it had nowhere to go.
No heart to race. No lungs to seize.
No hands to clench.
He was still in the clearing. He could see the fire's faint glow flicker like a dying memory. He could see the shapes of trees and vines and roots.
But none of it could touch him.
And he could touch none of it.
He wasn't invisible.
He wasn't absent.
Just… separate.
As if the world had forgotten him.
Or he had stepped somewhere he was never meant to be.
The silence stretched, slow and suffocating.
There was no pain.
No fear.
Only stillness.
Just as Kassian was struggling to escape the incorporeal grip of his state - trapped between form and formlessness, pinned in place by his own darkness - something shifted.
A sound. No - not a sound. A presence.
The chaotic storm of his thoughts stilled for a moment, sharpening like glass.
In the distance, between the trees just beyond the firelight, something moved.
It was massive.
Its silhouette passed between twisted trunks, weaving through the forest with uncanny grace. For something so large, it made no noise. No snap of twigs. No rustle of leaves. It was like watching a shadow made flesh - liquid and feline, every motion deliberate and smooth.
Kassian tried to breathe.
He couldn't.
He could only watch, locked in stillness, as the thing prowled closer - toward the clearing. Toward the flickering fire. Toward him.
But he wasn't him anymore. Not right now. Not quite.
He was the silence between thoughts. The hush between heartbeats.
And yet… he felt its gaze.
Like it knew something was there.
Like it was looking through the flame… and directly at the nothing he had become.
The figure paused just beyond the edge of the clearing, half-shrouded in mist and darkness. Its head tilted. Sniffing. Sensing.
Kassian, for all his will, could do nothing.
Not yet.
Upon closer inspection, the creature stood over two meters tall. It resembled a large feline, like the jungle predators of Earth - but it had no eyes.
None.
Its face was a mask of sleek black fur, unmarred and blank, save for the blood-red streaks that ran like open wounds across its body. The crimson lines pulsed faintly, like veins filled with something more vile than blood - like the corruption had marked it as one of its own.
Kassian watched helplessly as the creature padded into the clearing, silent and slow, its movements predatory but graceful. It circled the fire. Close. Intent.
He wanted to back away. To vanish deeper into the shadows. But he was already gone - already trapped in this strange incorporeal state. Nothing but an observer. A ghost behind his own eyes.
Panic clawed at his mind until something clicked.
The documentaries…
Predators feared fire. Most animals, even the most vicious, avoided open flame.
But this one didn't.
It wasn't afraid.
It was drawn to it.
It moved around the firelight not out of fear, but out of caution - like it understood the edges of flame. As if it had seen it before. Learned from it.
Kassian's mind reeled.
'How many creatures would I have attracted if I started lighting fires on the first night?'
The answer twisted in his stomach.
Too many.
He was lucky to be cautious.
The creature sniffed the ground, its eyeless face lingering near where Kassian's bag had been. Then, without warning, it tensed its muscles and leapt - disappearing into the branches above with terrifying speed.
Gone.
Just like that.
A long silence followed.
Kassian remained frozen in his incorporeal state, his mind still spiraling through what had just happened. Then -
A sound.
A whisper of movement.
A dried leaf, dislodged by the creature's leap, fluttered downward through the still air.
It drifted lazily, spiraling in slow circles, weightless in the glow of the fire.
Toward him.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.
Then - instinct.
As the leaf approached where his face should've been, Kassian's hand shot up to shield himself.
And he felt it.
The brittle scratch of the dry leaf brushing across his skin.
He stared in shock.
He was back.
His body had returned - solid, trembling, real.
The shadows no longer passed through him. The world no longer felt distant.
He exhaled, shaky and shallow, eyes wide as the fire crackled nearby.
The night remained silent.
But now, Kassian knew one thing for certain.
This was definitely the ability, 'Merge'.
It was a state. A refuge. A terrifying escape.
And for now, it had saved his life.
Kassian immediately stood up, the cold realization slamming through him like ice. Without wasting a second, he moved to snuff out the fire - stomping, scattering, smothering the embers beneath dirt and leaves. Sparks hissed in protest before vanishing into smoke. Darkness crept in fast, reclaiming the clearing like a patient predator.
He had built the fire to keep the insect creatures away. To scare them.
But instead, it had drawn something far worse.
His breathes came short as he grabbed his leaf-wrapped pouch and slipped the dagger securely into his belt. The clearing no longer felt like safety. It was an exposed trap.
And he had lit the bait himself.
Kassian disappeared into the trees.
The forest was black, suffocating. But somehow, he could see - details, textures, shadows - all etched in shades of muted gray and silver. Not perfectly, but enough. Enough to move without stumbling. Enough to avoid the twitching, root-dwelling things below.
It wasn't natural. He knew that.
Another question he didn't have an answer to.
Why could he see in this darkness?
Was it the essence?
Something awakened in him?
He pushed the thought aside and focused on survival.
After nearly an hour of slow, silent movement, Kassian finally found what passed for shelter - a massive tree with sprawling, raised roots. He checked each hollow and knot with cautious steps, scanning for movement. No insects. No fangs. No signs of the crawling things.
He settled at its base, hidden between two thick roots like he was being folded into the arms of a sleeping giant.
There, with his back against bark that pulsed faintly with warmth, Kassian wrapped his arms around his knees - shuddering, unable to keep still - and stared into the dark.
He couldn't sleep.
Not after what he saw.
That thing. That monster. It had moved with intelligence. With awareness. With intent.
And it had circled his fire.
If he hadn't merged - if the timing had been different --
Kassian closed his eyes.
But sleep did not come.
Only the sound of distant clicking.
And the image of blood-red streaks weaving through the trees.
Just like that, Kassian wasn't able to get even a glimpse of sleep - and dawn came.
The pale glow slowly returned, seeping between the trees like a silent tide. The forest didn't warm or soften, but the darkness peeled away just enough to let him breathe.
It gave him energy.
With renewed urgency, he climbed the tree where he had hidden, the bark still damp with the clinging moisture of night. His muscles ached, his hands raw from days of scraping wood and stone, but none of that mattered now.
He broke through the canopy, breath catching.
There it was.
His destination.
What once looked like a flicker - a distant flare of hope - now pulsed larger, stronger. No longer just a glimmer through the fog. It had form now. Presence. A light that cut through the oppressive gray of this dying forest.
Kassian grinned.
It wasn't much. But it was enough.
He could almost feel it calling.
As the light rose up, the veil was pierced momentarily. He could see a horizon vibrant with life in contrast to this damned forest.