The darkness thickened around him as he slowly descended from the surface. Above, the moonlight shimmered across the water like scattered silver dust, its gentle ripples tracing soft patterns through the stillness. It was a delicate thing - quiet and untouchable, the kind of beauty that seemed not of this world. Lio watched it drift farther away, the pale light dimming with each breathless moment, until it became a distant blur, like the memory of a dream slipping beyond reach.

  The surface blurred; the shimmer dulled; and the water enveloped him completely, folding around him with the silence of something ancient and patient. Down here, beneath the skin of the world, sound had no meaning. Even the beat of his heart felt lost, like it, too, had been swallowed. It seemed to him that if he opened his mouth and screamed, no one - not even him - would hear it. The silence was not just absence, but a presence in itself, immense and complete.

  He sank slowly, not with the violence of drowning, but with the weightless drift of something forgotten. The water was not cold nor warm; it carried no comfort and no pain. It simply was - dense and unmoving, like the body of a god too vast to notice him. He felt no fear, not in the way he expected. The stillness numbed him, but it also invited surrender. There was nothing to fight against, nothing to hold on to. Just a quiet descent into the unknown. Yet even as his body yielded, his mind refused to fall quiet. Thoughts moved through him - not in words, but in images, in sensations. Faces emerged from the dark, brief flickers of light against the black canvas surrounding him. His mother appeared first, the weariness in her eyes softened by the love that never left them. Her hands, her voice, the way she whispered his name when she thought he slept - these came and went like drifting stars. Beatrice followed - her sharp tongue, her calloused fingers brushing crumbs from his collar, her familiar sighs half irritation, half fondness. He could almost smell the kitchen fire on her sleeves. Then Edric and Ellysia, the rhythm of their laughter weaving through sunlit woods, their shadows dancing beside his in the golden light of childhood.

  And last - Felix.

  His face did not flicker like the others. It appeared whole, vivid, and painfully real. That smile, always a little too wide to be anything but sincere, stretched across his face like sunlight through leaves. His blue eyes shone with a warmth that felt alive, bright as riverlight. His hair, light brown like a hazelnut shell, curled gently across his forehead, soft and wild and full of life. He was color itself. He was movement, laughter, breath. He was everything this place was not. And Lio knew he would never see him again. Not his mother. Not Beatrice. Not Edric. Not Ellysia.

  Not Felix.

  The truth of it pressed into him - not like a blade, but like something heavier. Something slow. His heart, even as it quieted, felt as though it might collapse beneath the weight. “I failed you”, he thought, and it didn’t feel like thinking. It felt like confessing. “I failed all of you. Forgive me, Mother. Forgive me, Beatrice. Forgive me, Edric. Ellysia. Forgive me, Father. Forgive me… Felix.”

  The name did not pass quickly. It moved through him with weight and purpose, lodging in his chest like something that did not want to be forgotten. It did not fade as the others had. It held. And from that name - whispered not with his lips, but with every aching part of him - there came a warmth, small at first, like something remembered rather than felt. It rested low in his chest, not painful, not urgent, but steady. A pulse. A quiet flicker. As though some part of him, long hidden, had heard the name and begun to stir. The warmth grew - not with fire, but with presence. There was no sudden jolt, no clarity, only a feeling rising slowly, as if his heart had decided, without permission, to keep going. His fingers twitched. His legs shifted. Muscles, dulled by stillness, began to wake.

  Above him, the surface had not disappeared. It shimmered still, distant and silver, a ribbon of moonlight stretched thin across an unreachable sky. And something in him reached for it - not with thought, not with hope, but with instinct. His limbs moved. Weakly, but with purpose. Not enough to rise. Not yet. But he tried. And then - he stopped.

  There was no resistance at first, just a gentle touch curling around his wrist, almost soothing in the way it held. But the feeling did not stay gentle. Another sensation met it, this one sliding around his ankle, then his other arm, then along the base of his throat. He could not see anything holding him. No cords, no figures, no shapes in the water. But he felt them. They were cold - like the bottom of the lake, untouched by sun - and yet hot at the same time, a searing heat that did not burn but overwhelmed. The sensation was soft, almost delicate, like silk dragged over bare skin. But beneath that softness, there was strength that defied reason. He tried to move again, but the invisible binds did not yield. They didn’t tighten. They didn’t pull. They simply held him in place, without malice, without violence - just unshakable certainty. They did not want to hurt him. They simply would not let him go. And so he hung there, suspended in the deep, held by something that felt both impossibly gentle and utterly inescapable. The lake, it seemed, had chosen. And he could go no farther.

  Time had unraveled.

  Lio remained suspended in the depths, bound by threads he could neither see nor resist, his body held in perfect stillness, his lungs aching with a silence that gave no mercy. The lake around him remained unchanged - dark, unmoving - but something within it began to stir. The blackness ahead began to shift, not like light rising, but like a curtain parting without touch. It wasn’t that something was coming toward him - it was as if he were being drawn into a place that had always existed just beyond sight. A shape emerged. Then walls. Then light. It did not make sense, not with the logic of breath or stone, yet the vision formed clearly before his eyes: a vast and ruined hall, shadowed and crumbling, framed by pillars that reached upward into broken arches. The structure seemed impossibly distant and impossibly close, as though it lived both inside the lake and far beyond it. On the right side, the hall was torn open - great wounds in the stone revealing the sky beyond. Through the cracks and holes, soft shafts of golden light filtered in, dust dancing in their path like drifting motes on a sunlit riverbed. Rubble lay strewn across the floor - splintered columns, shattered stone, remnants of something long ago broken and never repaired. And at the far end of that fractured space, raised on a series of worn steps, stood a throne. Its shape was strange - angular, jagged in places, forged of a black material Lio could not name. It did not reflect the light. It seemed to drink it. One arm of the throne had broken off entirely, and parts of the seat bore long cracks, as though struck by something meant to destroy it.

  Upon that throne sat a man.

  He was still at first - seated with his back straight, arms resting lightly on what remained of the throne’s sides. He wore dark armor, the kind Lio had only ever imagined in legends, its surface dull and rough, shaped in sharp, overlapping layers that gave it the look of something scaled - yet not of any creature he knew. His face was too far to see clearly, but the man’s posture held a strange, silent strength. His hair was white - soft and tousled, cropped short like Lio’s own, not long enough to reach his neck. In the fractured light, it glimmered faintly, like frost on stone. He appeared young - or at least he seemed untouched by age. There was something unnatural about the stillness with which he watched, something unspoken in the way he sat, as if he had been waiting in that hall for a very long time. Then, slowly, he stood. His armor moved with him, silent and heavy in appearance, though the sound never reached Lio’s ears. He took the first step down from the throne, then another, descending toward the center of the ruined space. His movements were measured, almost ritualistic - neither fast nor slow, but deliberate, like someone walking a path he had walked many times before. And still, Lio hung in the water, breathless and bound, watching this figure cross the impossible distance between them. Though they did not share the same space, though the hall did not belong to the lake, somehow - they saw one another. And the man was walking toward him.

  He continued his descent, step by step, as if the distance between them was both shrinking and infinite. Lio watched, unmoving, the water holding him in its silent grip, the binds coiled around his limbs with unshakable calm. There was something strange in the air - or whatever passed for air in this place. Not a wind, not a sound, but a tension, as though the world itself had drawn a breath and was holding it.

  A flicker moved at the edge of his vision. Then another. The hall wavered. Its pillars blurred, their edges softening like wet charcoal, and for a moment Lio could not tell if what he saw was still real, or something else entirely. The throne, the man, the broken stone - they dissolved like ink in water.

  In their place, warmth. Dim light. A quiet stillness, as if the world had narrowed to a single point.

  There was a woman standing overhead. Her form felt familiar - not because of memory, but because the moment itself said she should be. Her hair was long and black, flowing down her shoulders and beyond, dark and soft like a night without stars. She was close. Near enough to touch. Yet her face - her face was missing. Not absent, not hidden, but lost. The outlines were there, gentle and faint, like the edges of a dream half-remembered. Her features blurred in motion, never settling into clarity, as if the memory of her had grown too old to carry every detail. She leaned closer. Her voice was soft - low and calming, each word shaped with care, as though it had been spoken many times before, like a lullaby worn smooth by love.

  “Aoi… Mama and Papa love you more than all the stars. You are our blessing. Always remember that.”

  The words felt warm, even if the face remained lost. And before the shape of her voice could fade, before the name could echo too long - she vanished. The warmth with her. The moment passed before it could be questioned, swept away like leaves in a current.

  Snow crunched beneath boots.

  The warmth was gone. In its place, cold air hung heavy in a wide, open glade, the sky above pale and thick with cloud. All around, snow blanketed the ground in gentle silence, broken only by the looming outline of trees in the near distance - tall, black-limbed, and reaching like frozen hands toward the sky.

  A figure stood before him. A boy - broad-shouldered, a little round in the face and belly, older by a few years, yet still touched by youth. His cheeks were red from the cold, and his coat hung loosely on him, stuffed with wool and stitched with care. But the face… the face was wrong.

  Not frightening - only incomplete. As though someone had once known every detail and then forgotten them, piece by piece. There was the shape of a smile, the glint of kindness in what might have been eyes, but nothing ever quite settled into place. The boy’s voice, however, came clear.

  “Scared of the forest, are you?” he asked, his tone light, teasing, but soft. He nudged gently with an elbow, more affection than mockery.

  “Don’t worry, your Big Bro is here to protect you! You’re the village’s blessing - I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  The words lingered longer than the image. Then the snow faded. The forest blurred. And the boy was gone.

  For a moment - just a sliver of thought - the edge of Lio’s mind returned to the hall.

  The man was no longer at the top of the steps. He had drawn nearer, his shape clearer now beneath the pale shafts of light. Lio could just make out the outline of his face - sharpening with distance closed - though still softened by the haze between them. His eyes were striking, pale blue, and fixed on him with unwavering focus.

  Then the vision shifted again.

  Snow returned, this time tinged with the scent of bark and woodsmoke. The glade stretched around him once more, rimmed by the same dark forest - those towering trees standing like sentinels beneath a white sky. Before him stood a man, arms bare to the cold, axe in hand. He worked with quiet strength, splitting logs with the ease of someone long used to the task. His build was solid, his movements efficient, practiced. A tail of black hair hung from the back of his head, and a trimmed beard covered the lower half of his face. But the details were broken.

  His features were blurred at the edges, smudged like a face remembered from childhood and revisited too many years later. It wasn’t just time - it was something deeper, as if the moment itself resisted clarity. The axe paused. The man looked over his shoulder.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Why are you crying, Aoi?” he asked, his voice low and warm. “Your wooden knight broke? Here - let Papa make a new one for you.”

  He smiled faintly, bent to gather the splintered wood, and turned back toward the chopping block.

  The trees faded. The smoke vanished. The snow scattered into light. The memory was gone.

  The light returned - warm and golden, flickering softly across polished wood and fire-lit stone. The cold of the forest had melted away, replaced by the low murmur of voices and the comforting clatter of dishes. He sat at a long wooden table, its surface crowded with platters of roasted meats, bowls of steaming rice, baskets of soft bread, and cups filled to the brim. The air was thick with the scent of salt, smoke, and spice, warmed by the hearth at the far end of the room. To his right sat the man who had once split wood in the snow, now wearing simpler clothes fit for supper. To his left, the woman with the long black hair leaned slightly toward him, her presence gentle, familiar. Across from him sat the broad, cheerful boy, a wide grin stretched across his shadowed face.

  In truth, every face was shadowed. Not hidden with purpose, but softened - forgotten, perhaps. Like names half-remembered in a dream, they were there in shape, in posture, in voice, but not in full. Around them, the table buzzed with quiet joy. Adults filled the benches, eating, chatting, pouring drinks. At the head of the table sat a man well into his later years, his trimmed beard and short hair both the color of pale silver. His voice carried clearly through the room, but it was the man to the boy’s right who spoke first - lowering his head slightly in quiet respect.

  “We humbly thank you for the invitation, my lord. It’s a joy to share your table.”

  The silver-haired man offered a small smile, lifting his cup in reply.

  “But please, Renjiro - we are good friends, are we not? And your son… he is this village’s blessing. It is an honor to sit with you.”

  The woman gave a quiet nod. The boy across the table beamed. Someone refilled a cup nearby. Laughter drifted through the gathering. The fire crackled in the hearth. The light on the wooden table glimmered gently. And the moment passed without a sound.

  The warmth was gone. Stone walls stretched endlessly in both directions, dark and lined with flame. Torches burned in ornate sconces, their flickering light casting long shadows that danced across the carved stone floor. The air was close, heavy with smoke and something else - something tense, unsettled. Far down the corridor, faint shouts echoed - distant, angry, growing louder with every passing second. Beneath them, the rhythmic thud of footsteps beat like drums of warning.

  She stood before him - the woman with the long black hair, her face still half-swallowed by shadow. Her figure blocked the hallway behind her, but there was no safety in her stance. Not this time. Her voice, once gentle and soothing, now trembled with urgency.

  “Aoi,” she said, voice low and sharp, “run. Run for your life. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

  For the first time, a voice answered her - high, broken, and full of fear. A child’s voice. His voice.

  “I don’t want to leave you!” it cried. “I want to get back to Papa!”

  The woman dropped to one knee. Her hand reached up, trembling slightly, and rested on his head. She stroked his hair once - slowly, carefully - as if memorizing the feel of him.

  “I will find you, Aoi,” she whispered. “I swear it. Now go. Quickly.”

  His legs moved. He turned. The corridor ahead stretched long and narrow, lit in flickers and shadows. He ran. The sounds behind him grew louder - the cries, the footsteps, the clatter of armor on stone. Then something in him made him look back.

  Just a glance.

  She was still there, standing tall - but not for long. From the shadows came iron. Spears. Sharp and gleaming, thrust with rage and certainty. Her body jerked once, then again.

  The flamelight blurred. The corridor rippled. And she was gone. All of it fell away, like ash scattered on water.

  He was back in the hall.

  And now, the man stood only a few steps away.

  Up close, the illusion of distance no longer softened him. What had once been a distant figure was now something full and impossible, a presence so vast it seemed to press in on the space around him. The air - if such a thing still existed here - grew heavier, colder, as though the light itself hesitated to move in his direction. The man’s face, now fully visible, was flawless. Ageless. Sculpted with a precision no living hand could replicate. He bore no scars, no creases of time, no trace of weather or grief. There was no softness, no warmth - only that still, impossible beauty that felt more like a mask than a face, as if the idea of emotion had never occurred to it.

  And his eyes - those piercing, crystalline blue eyes - were framed in pure black. Not shadow. Not paint. But darkness. His sclera were the color of ink, unbroken and deep, making the eyes appear suspended in a void. They shone with cold brilliance, like stars swallowed by a dying sky - watchful, knowing, utterly unmoved.

  Lio felt it, not just with his senses, but in the marrow of his bones: this was not a man. Not now. Not ever. Whatever stood before him had been shaped outside the bounds of life. It had not been born. It had not grown. It had not suffered or changed. It simply existed - like night, like death, like something ancient that had waited too long and forgotten what time meant.

  His armor drank the light. Where it covered him, the hall dimmed. The metal was not merely black - it was a darkness unto itself, a deep matte that reflected nothing, no shine, no glare. Its surface was jagged and uneven, scaled like the hide of some extinct beast, and its very presence distorted the world around it. Lio could feel it even through the water - a pulling, a weight, as though the creature’s existence bent the rules of the world just by standing still. That was what made the dread so unbearable.

  It wasn’t just the sight. It was the sense that this being had never belonged to the world Lio came from. That it stood untouched by pain, by mercy, by joy, by loss. That it was immune not just to emotion - but to the idea of it. It radiated presence - quiet, still, suffocating. A pressure in the mind. A silence in the soul.

  And as Lio floated there, bound and helpless, the man lifted his hand. It moved slowly, each finger sheathed in dark metal. The gauntlet was sculpted like bone over sinew, dense and heavy, with a texture that looked more grown than forged. The hand did not shake. It did not reach in hesitation or aggression. It simply extended - steady, cold, inevitable. Lio opened his mouth to scream. The water surged in. It flooded his throat like frozen fire - biting and searing all at once, scraping his insides raw as it filled his lungs. His limbs strained against the bonds, every part of him twisting in desperation, but the invisible ropes held firm, wrapping him in silence. The hand grew nearer. Time collapsed.

  And the world changed again.

  He stood at the edge of a river. The air was gentler here, cool and fresh, filled with the sound of rushing water. Before him, a wide current shimmered in the soft light, beautiful and swift, its surface clear as glass. At its far edge, the river narrowed and dropped into a thundering waterfall, spraying mist into the air in a soft, endless cloud. The river was deep. Too wide to cross. Too fast to fight. He stood still, unsure of what to do, the soft roar of the waterfall echoing against distant stone. Something inside him stirred with confusion, with quiet dread.

  “Aoi?”

  The voice came from behind. Familiar. Warm, but wrong.

  “Why are you running from your big bro, Aoi? We’re friends, right? I told you I’d protect you.”

  He turned.

  The boy stood not far behind him, face rounded with boyish fat, clothes dusted with the dirt of the forest path. His expression was half a smile, half a sneer, and in his arms he cradled a crossbow. Two men stood behind him. Silent. Waiting.

  Lio’s voice came out thin, trembling, cracking beneath the weight of breath he couldn’t catch.

  “Why… why are you doing this?”

  The words barely formed. They spilled out broken, choked with tears, soaked in disbelief. The voice wasn’t just afraid - it was heartbroken, reaching out for something that could still make this make sense.

  The fat boy smiled wider.

  “You really thought we’d let a monster like you live among us?” he said. “You’re cursed, Aoi. A monster. That’s why.”

  His arms raised. The crossbow leveled. There was no pause, no delay, no mercy. The string snapped. The bolt struck his chest, sinking deep. His breath left him all at once. His knees buckled. The edge of the cliff slipped beneath his feet.

  He fell.

  Down, through the spray, into the roaring waters below. The surface shattered around him, light bending and breaking. And the vision faded like a stone sinking through memory.

  He was back. Back in the broken hall. Still bound. Still suspended. The man stood before him, unmoving - an anchor in the drifting silence, his armor swallowing the light, casting no shadow because there was no light left to bend.

  The man’s hand reached for Lio’s forhead. The gauntleted finger brushed against his skin. Cold - not like winter, but like the silence beneath a grave. The pain began, blooming like fire behind his eyes, sharp and immediate and far too large for his body to contain.

  Visions flooded him.

  A woman with broad shoulders and eyes hard as stone stood above him, gripping a thick, splintered stick. Her voice rasped with cruelty as she spat, “You want food, you wretch? I’d rather give it to the dogs than to the likes of you.” The image broke, and another followed.

  A man with black hair and red eyes smiled at him - calm, amused, and wrong. That smile returned again in darkness, where the man crouched beside him in a windowless room, the edge of a bloodied scalpel gleaming faintly in the candlelight. He ran his tongue slowly along the blade, whispering, “You’ve been a good boy, Aoi. Master is very pleased with you.”

  Flames rose. A house in the woods screamed in firelight as its roof collapsed inward. The heat carried voices and crying and silence, all at once.

  Then - stone walls, and the silver-haired lord from the feast, impaled through the chest and nailed to the wall beside his wife and the boy who had once grinned across the supper table. Their eyes were empty. Their mouths frozen in shapes that might once have formed words.

  Through the horror came a light. A child - golden-haired, green-eyed, and radiant - stood laughing beneath the sun, his smile wide with trust.

  Another memory followed him: a young woman with brown curls and warm brown eyes crouched low to meet his gaze. She cupped his cheek with both hands and smiled as if he were her whole world, the light in her eyes soft and full of love.

  Then the glass. She lay inside it now, unmoving. Her skin pale, drained of color. The smile that once lived on her lips now stilled by death.

  Then a battlefield. Steel and ash. Lio - clad in the black armor - wielded a great hammer forged from the same light-swallowing metal, and with each swing he broke men like clay, reducing shields to dust and bodies to silence.

  At the end of it all, the boy with golden hair returned - no longer a boy, but a grown man. He stood above him, calm and solemn, a stone in his hand marked with the sigil of the Light.

  The visions stopped. The pain withdrew like a wave drawn into the sea. The hall, the man, the water - all fell away into silence.

  And Lio knew no more.

  “Lio…?”

  A voice. Faint, at first - barely more than a thread drifting in from some faraway place. Then another. Clearer.

  “Lio...?”

  It pulled at the edges of his mind, drawing him from the weightless dark, from the cold and silence and memories that no longer made sense. His eyes opened slowly. The world around him blurred, shifting like oil over water, until the shapes came into focus - Edric’s sharp features, Ellysia’s narrowed, worried gaze. Both crouched beside him, their faces drawn with concern.

  “Lio, are you alright?” Ellysia asked, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “We heard you screaming.”

  “How do you fall asleep in a place like this?” Edric added, trying for a smile, though the tension in his voice betrayed the fear beneath it.

  Lio blinked, struggling to understand where he was. The rough scent of herbs, the dim light, the faded tapestries - it was the witch’s house. He was lying on her bed.

  “But… the stag,” he muttered, trying to piece the visions together, “the silver stag... the lake… the man in the armor… What happened?”

  Edric and Ellysia exchanged a quick look.

  “A silver stag?” Ellysia asked slowly. “An armored man?” Her voice tightened. “Lio… you know there’s no lake in this forest.”

  Lio didn’t respond. The ache in his head pulsed with each heartbeat.

  “You just had a nightmare,” Edric said, placing a hand on Lio’s shoulder. “A bad one. That’s all.”

  “Yeah,” Lio murmured, unsure if he believed it. “I… suppose.”

  His vision drifted to the floor. The boards beneath him were worn and cracked. Everything felt too solid. Too still. The contrast made him dizzy. Ellysia stood and glanced at the shelves and the scattered parchments nearby.

  “Did you find anything useful?”

  The question lingered. Memories surged back into his mind - words burned onto ancient pages, truths that shattered everything he had believed. The rituals. The lies. The crimes. The silence of the gods. He hesitated. He couldn’t tell them. He couldn’t place the weight of that despair into their hands. They didn’t deserve to carry it. Not yet.

  “No,” he said softly. “There was… nothing.”

  “I knew this was just a waste of time,” Edric muttered, though the edge in his voice was dulled by fatigue. “Let’s head home.”

  They stepped out of the house and into the warm air of the afternoon, the forest pressing close around them. The path stretched ahead, winding through trees painted gold and green, the sounds of birds and rustling leaves faint underfoot. Edric and Ellysia talked quietly - about nothing in particular - but Lio said little. His thoughts spun like wind-caught ash. The despair from what he had read clung to him, heavy and silent, a grief too wide for words. And behind that - just behind - was the memory of the lake. The feeling of cold in his lungs. The man’s eyes. The way his hand had moved with neither hate nor mercy. It had felt real. Too real. But it couldn’t have been. The forest had no lake. A silver stag? It sounded absurd. And yet… no dream had ever hurt like that. No nightmare had ever lingered so clearly in the mind.

  As they crossed the open field, the village came into view - rooftops and chimneys and crooked fences washed in the golden light of late afternoon. The sun was beginning its descent, casting long shadows over the earth. Shopkeepers were closing their stalls, workers locking up sheds, the day quietly folding into evening.

  “I’m tired,” Lio said softly. “I think I’ll go home.”

  “You sure?” Edric asked.

  Lio nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  They parted at the square.

  When he reached his front door, Maiden Beatrice was just setting aside a basket near the hearth. She turned, bright-eyed.

  “How was your day?”

  “Boring,” Lio replied, his voice low, careful.

  She raised an eyebrow but didn’t press.

  He went upstairs. The silence of his room greeted him like an old friend. He stood for a moment, just breathing. Then crossed to the window, gazing out over the rooftops of the village, the way the sun gilded the horizon in deep amber.

  He thought of the book. Of the lies. Of Serenna’s warning. Of Felix’s pain. He lowered his eyes, placed his hand over his heart, and spoke to no one.

  “I’ll find out the truth. I’ll gain his trust. And I’ll destroy him from within. For her. For the village. And for Felix.”