A young man sits inside a classroom, his mind wandering and racing, staring afar into the sun outside the window. He could hear chalk scraping across the blackboard, and a man with a deep, resounding voice.
"What do you all think makes an artist... an artist?"
The man in front of the class spoke—his voice low and resonant, each word deliberate, like it had been weighed before being released.
"Is it the ability to pick up a brush and paint what you see?"
His voice lingered, low and steady.
"Is it the countless pieces one can make?"
The man stopped talking for a moment to think.
"Or is it a piece…. They can never finish?"
The silence stretched.
"Every artist chases something."
He said quietly.
"Whether it's a memory, a feeling, or a shape they once saw in a dream."
He spoke like he was caught in one of those dreams himself, eyes distant, unfocused.
"But some things aren't meant to be captured. Not fully."
His voice dropped slightly.
"Some canvases are meant to remain unfinished."
His tone softened.
"Because once they are… there's nothing left to chase."
The classroom bell rang—sharp and hollow.
Chairs scraped against the floor. Papers rustled. Students murmured as they filed out, their conversations picking up again like a paused song.
Someone tapped gently on a desk near the back.
"Dean."
A woman's voice—soft, familiar, warm.
Dean blinked out of his thoughts. He looked up. She was already smiling at him from the aisle, sunlight catching in her hair.
"You coming or not?"
She called over to Dean.
He smiled faintly, standing as he slid his sketchbook into his bag.
"I'm coming, Elise."
Dean replied.
They fell in step.
.
.
.
"Are you really that fond of sunsets?"
She asked playfully, glancing sideways as they walked.
"Yeah... I really like the sun."
He said, his voice tinged with something unspoken—pride, maybe, or something quieter. Bittersweet.
"Something about sunsets soothes me."
Dean added, his voice calm and distant.
"Then I guess making you that sun-engraved goblet was the right call."
Her tone turned light, teasing.
"I guess I've got you to thank for that, I'll treasure it for the rest of my life."
Dean replied, a soft smile tugging at his lips. The silence held just long enough to mean something. Then Elise darted ahead with a sudden laugh. He blinked, surprised—then followed her. Her laughter tugged him forward like a thread.
And just like that, he chased after her.
The grass bent beneath their feet—the wind tangled in their hair. For a moment, nothing else mattered but the sound of their breath and laughter. He watched her—how the light stretched across her back, how her steps carved joy into the earth. Then she looked over her shoulder, smiling.
Her eyes caught the last flicker of sunlight. And in that gaze, the world began to blur.
The wind faded. The warmth faded with it. Not every moment stayed golden.
Some came back sharp, uninvited.
.
.
"Elise, you always do this."
Dean said, frustration creeping into his voice.
She stood across the room, arms folded, with the moon shining over her.
"No, Dean. You always do this. Something goes wrong, and suddenly it's my fault?"
He fidgeted before replying.
"I'm just saying—if you hadn't—"
Elise's expression darkened. She took a step forward, arms folding tight against her chest.
"If I hadn't what? Asked you to show up? Asked you to care?"
He turned away, jaw tight. The silver goblet and sketchbook on the table trembled beneath his hand.
"I didn't mean it like that."
Her voice was quieter now. Not angry—just tired.
"Yes, you did. You always find a way to make it my mistake."
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
The silence stretched again—but it wasn't the kind that meant something this time.
It was the kind that hurt.
.
.
The front door creaked softly as Dean stepped outside. The cold air bit at his skin, but he barely noticed. He just needed to breathe—to think—to cool the burn beneath his chest.
A breeze passed. Dry leaves skittered across the porch.
His hand trembled slightly as it brushed the edge of his jacket pocket — her voice still echoing in his head.
Then, without warning —
a soundless pulse.
Dean flinched.
His eyes snapped to the house — to the living room window where Elise had been moments ago.
Reality folded inward like scorched paper curling at the edges. A ripple tore across the air—silent and absolute—like a black hole had bloomed in the center of his home. No sound, no crash, no warning. Just a quiet devouring.
A portion of the house—gone. No fire, no smoke, no debris, just absence.
Elise was inside.
"Elise?" His voice cracked, barely audible. Then nothing—not even the sound of his own breath.
His chest tightened. He couldn't hear anything. Not the wind, not the trees, not his heart. His lungs fought for air, but it came shallow and quick—he was hyperventilating, dizzy, like the world was tilting beneath him.
His vision darkened at the edges. But even as his knees wavered, he forced himself forward.
He stumbled up the steps, shoes scraping the wood. He didn't think—didn't stop—didn't care if he collapsed mid-sprint.
Every breath was a fight.
But still, he ran.
Into the quiet.
Into the hollow space where Elise used to be.
.
.
Curtains shifted under fluorescent light.
Machines blinked rhythmically in a quiet room.
An old man lay in the hospital bed, breath shallow.
A small nametag beside the door read:
Dean Callahan.
Once an art student. Now a hundred years old, skin thin as memory.
The same eyes—dim now, but still holding something from the past.
In his hand, he held a silver goblet. Not grand, just there, heavy and still.
The nurses didn't recognize it. But he did, It had taken a lifetime.
And now, he could finally rest.
The world toned down as his eyelids fell. No more beeping, no white light.
Only warmth… and the goblet.
Its surface shimmered faintly in his wrinkled hand — too clean, too bright. A hum, soft and low, began to vibrate through his fingers. He tried to breathe, but something felt off.
The air was heavier now. Thicker, like he was sinking beneath water that didn't feel wet. The walls pulsed—The shadows stretched—And behind his closed eyes, color bloomed—silver, violet, black.
Then came the pull. Not violent, not sudden.
Just... inevitable. As if something had been waiting for him. Waiting a very long time.
And then the goblet pulsed again.
Once. Twice.
And the room—the bed—his body—began to blur, like memories, like a dream.
The floor cracked.
Not with sound, but with light—thin, silver fractures crawling outward from the foot of the bed like a web on glass. The walls twitched. Not moved. Twitched. Like the pixels of a screen—stuttering, flickering, fragmenting. For a moment, everything held still.
Then it shattered.
And Dean fell.
Not through space, not through time, through something else entirely. The ceiling stretched into a vast, dark tunnel. The machines peeled away like paper. His bed dissolved beneath him. He was weightless, yet heavy. Falling in every conceivable direction.
Silver streaks spiraled around him. Memories—his memories—flickering like broken film:
His wife, Elise, laughing. A candlelit dinner. A cold street corner. Hands, held too tightly. A hospital hallway. A silver goblet gleaming in the moonlight. They all collapsed into the light.
And still he fell.
The farther he dropped, the more distorted everything became. Color twisted. Shapes warped.
There were no walls, only cascading fragments of dreams and memory. Faces that he knew, places that he didn't. The world tried to remember him—or forget him—he couldn't tell.
He reached for something, anything. But there was nothing. Only windless falling.
Then the light dimmed. Everything slowed, and the silence returned.
He blinked.
A weight pressed against his chest.
The ground.
He was lying on something soft, but cool—not sterile, not clean. The scent of damp stone filled his lungs. He could hear… water? His fingers grazed a rough, moss-veined surface. It curved strangely beneath him—like the inside of a vast shell.
He opened his eyes.
A pale sky arched above, distant and strange. Neither day nor night. The clouds were frozen in place, colorless and still—like a painting waiting to dry.
He sat up slowly, breath hitching. He wasn't on flat land, he was tucked against the inner curve of a massive stone wall, concave and sloping—as though the very world bent inward. From this angle, he could see the terrain ahead dropped sharply, forming a jagged path that spiraled downward and outward into the wider expanse.
Dean pulled himself toward the edge. And there it was.
A hollow, impossible world—bent inward like the basin of a colossal chalice. Ruined towers clung to the curving walls in the distance, leaning as if struggling to hold on. Shattered stone bridges arched across impossible gaps. Fragments—floating shards of light and memory—drifted lazily through the air, caught in unseen currents. He could just barely make out a dark pit far below. Not a full view, but just the edge of it, like a crack in reality, partially hidden by layers of terrain and distance.
Then just above it was a giant castle on top of a floating island, looming over everything. It looked like a city with multiple other floating islands having bridges connecting each one seamlessly.
Dean inhaled slowly.
The breath felt real. The silence was not empty.
It was waiting.
His legs ached as he stood, but not from age—from the shock of not feeling old. The stiffness, the fragility… gone. His body moved with a fluid ease he hadn't known in decades.
He stumbled forward, drawn by the sound of water nearby. A shallow puddle, nestled between crooked stones and silver-veined moss. The surface was unnaturally still, as if the wind, too, had forgotten how to move.
Dean knelt beside it, and stared.
A face looked back at him. Young, Clear-eyed, untouched by time or grief. Not the weathered, fading face he had last seen in a mirror. No sagging skin, no gray in his hair.
This was him—but as he had been at eighteen. The age he remembered feeling most alive, the age he remembered her best. His breath caught. He raised a hand to his face, as if the reflection might lie.
It moved with him. Matched him—even the smallest tremble.
"…What is this place?" he whispered.
The puddle did not answer. But something behind his reflection shimmered. A faint light curled in the depths of the water—not a reflection, but something deeper.
Like a second world beneath.
Then the ripples began. And the silence… cracked.
Footsteps.
Dean stiffened. He turned—his breath caught—stunned by the beauty, paralyzed by the unknown.
Inches away stood a terrifying amalgamation—A thing born not of flesh, but of crystal shards. Its form shifted like a broken thought, stitched from fragments he couldn't place. Limbs that bent the wrong way, eyes that weren't eyes, and a mouth that trembled with the weight of something unsaid.
It stared back at him—or through him—and for a moment, Dean forgot how to breathe.
Awe gripped him. So did fear.
He blinked. And when his eyes opened, the amalgamation was gone.
Then came the sting.
A sharp breath escaped as warmth trickled down his cheek. He touched his face—blood. A thin, precise cut ran just beneath his right eye.
His eyes widened.
Something was behind him.
A breath that wasn't his whispered against his neck.
"?Gnik eht nees uoy evah"
The words slithered out of the amalgamation's mouth—broken and backward, thick with distortion.
Its voice was wrong, like oil sliding over broken glass, like something pretending to speak.
Dean didn't wait to understand. He ran—heart pounding, feet slamming against the warped ground as he descended the stairs. For a moment, it didn't matter that he was supposed to be a hundred years old. His legs moved like they remembered being young.
"What the hell was that?!" he gasped, glancing over his shoulder—
But as he turned forward again—
He stopped cold.
Dozens of them. Crowding the path ahead. Each one twisted in different ways—jagged limbs, hollow eyes, silver-cracked skin pulsing faintly in the dark.
Every head turned toward him in unison.
And then…
They started to move.
Terrified, Dean hesitated—torn between returning to the first amalgamation or facing the horde ahead. He stood still, thinking—then made up his mind.
He decided to go back to the room with the first amalgamation, knowing charging through the horde would've only ended with him dead.
As he turned, a sudden shimmer of light caught his eyes—a beam cutting through the haze, glinting off something beyond the horde. Behind the shifting mass of amalgamations, a pair of massive doors stood tall and silent, half-shrouded in shadow. Ancient. Waiting.
Dean hesitated. Only for a moment.
The ground trembled beneath him as the horde closed in.
Dean took a step back—breath ragged, heart pounding in his ears. The doors stood far, maybe too far, but they were the only way out. He had to move.
The first amalgamation from the horde lunged. Dean raised his arms on instinct—no weapon, no shield. But before the blow landed—
A sudden heat surged through his shoulder.
Blue light burst from beneath his skin. He staggered. A sharp, cold pressure bloomed at the joint, then spread down his arm like frost catching fire. A crystal, embedded just below his right shoulder. He hadn't noticed it until now—buried under the chaos, dormant.
But it wasn't dormant anymore. It pulsed, alive.
Syncing with his breath.
The closest amalgamation raised a jagged, blade-like limb—but Dean moved. Not away, but through.
For a man who was supposed to be a hundred years old, Dean moved with a strange sense of familiarity—like his body remembered something he didn't.
He sidestepped, caught the amalgamation's arm mid-swing, twisted, and ripped it free.
The thing shrieked, spasming. Dean didn't flinch. He rotated the severed limb in his hand—it shimmered faintly with the same blue light from the crystal. As if the energy had transferred.
Another one charged. Dean swung the stolen limb like a sword. The blade struck—clang—as it met the amalgamation's twisted form. Sparks scattered from the impact, and the attacker's own momentum dragged the weapon downward—Dean turned, letting it cleave into another amalgamation lunging beside it.
They were cutting each other now.
And he was guiding the blades.
The next minute was blood and instinct. Dean ducked beneath a claw, slammed the limb upward into a throat. He rolled, then snatched another from a fallen corpse. Dual-wielding now—grotesque weapons crackling with light.
The glow in his shoulder flared brighter with every strike.
Limbs clashed, bodies fell. Dean didn't stop moving. Every motion turned the enemy's momentum against itself. Every attack became a redirection—forcing them to become their own undoing.
When the last one fell, he stood trembling. Breath burning. Hands shaking.
Dean looked up.
The doors were just ahead.
He dropped the limbs. Stepped over the carnage. And walked towards whatever came next.
The cold fire that had burned through his arm vanished without warning. No warmth, no pulse. Just silence. Dean froze, glancing at the shard embedded near his collarbone. Still there, but now dull, as if it had never done anything at all. He frowned, breath still heavy.
"…What?" he muttered.
His voice felt too loud in the quiet.
No answer came.
Just the soft echo of his words disappearing into the distance.
Dean took a minute to rest and process what just happened. He felt a sense of restlessness.
Eventually, he refocused and faced the massive doors—its surface worn smooth by time and touch, etched with faint carvings half-erased by age. It loomed like a memory he wasn't ready to face, and for a moment, he just stood there.
.
.
But then Dean finally mustered up the courage to push the doors open.
They groaned under his touch, reluctant but yielding, and beyond them—whatever waited had waited long enough.