My eyes flutter opens slowly, and I find myself seated at a table. I try to make my gaze shimmer, to summon emotions from the depths of old memories, but my body remains still, my hands motionless, my head tilted slightly toward the red hue that fills the room. It takes me a moment to realize it—this is not my body. I am no longer myself.

  I am Eos. The god I created.

  High above in the crimson palace, my palace, I sit. And yet, I cannot fully comprehend it. How can I remain so calm in such a moment? I should be desperate, clawing to return to my body, to find a way to survive. But no such thoughts cross my mind. Instead, I sit frozen as red-stained hands press against me, pulling and pushing from every direction. My mind should scream that this is a dream, that any moment I will wake up at my desk or even sprawled in the gutter. But I do not think these things. I simply stare ahead at the long table before me, where each crystalline shard glows brighter than the last, save for one.

  The red crystal is dull. Lifeless.

  My eyes move to the brown crystal, and as I fixate on it, the world around me becomes saturated with its earthy hue. The color dominates my vision, swallowing all others. My left-hand rests upon the chair's armrest, the fingers whole and unbroken, the pain in my chest and head vanished. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, my limbs feel intact. Yet my gaze remains cold and detached as I examine the brown crystal. Unlike the others, its surface is rough and unpolished, its jagged imperfections almost cutting against my palm though I do not touch it directly. Still, I sense its coarseness, its crude edges scraping at the raw nerve of my thoughts.

  The chair beneath me feels vast, a throne carved for a being greater than myself. My left hand hovers over the crystal, and for a fleeting moment, I imagine myself—no, I see myself—seated before it, commanding it. The thought unnerves me. A light wind howls past my ears, carrying chaos I cannot decipher. The harsh glow of the crystal blinds me until, in an instant, the light disappears, and I am plunged into darkness.

  Nothingness.

  I see nothing. I hear nothing. The air is void, devoid of sound or warmth or even cold. It is as if this place exists beyond sensation, beyond reality itself. My senses fail me. There is no taste, no texture, no pressure. Just emptiness. And in this void, I too feel hollow.

  Seconds stretch into hours, perhaps days. Time becomes meaningless as I remain trapped within this borrowed flesh, tethered to a body that is not mine. I try to move, to command these limbs to act, but the weight of stillness keeps me paralyzed. My memories flit like shadows, just out of reach, refusing to coalesce into anything tangible. Desperation gnaws at the edges of my mind, but I cannot even scream.

  And so, I linger. The silence presses against me, filling my head with thoughts I wish to ignore.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I do not want to be in this body.

  A brown blood… The thought forms unbidden. My experiences with them have been far from kind. Out of the few I have met; none have been merciful. Two brown-bloods have crossed my path—both sought my ruin, and I am not even certain whether the first succeeded. The darkness offers no comfort, only the bitterness of my self-reflection.

  I am alone in this void, yet the memories creep in regardless. My colleagues. My friends. I try to convince myself that their fates are not my fault, but the truth rings hollow. The lies I tell myself are paper-thin, shredding under the weight of my guilt.

  The black blood… My thoughts inevitably return to it, to the cursed substance and the disaster it wrought. Aston… If only he had found a better supplier, none of this would have happened. Yet even as I think it, I know it is a lie. He may bear some blame, but most of it falls squarely on my shoulders. My greed drove me. My thirst for power led me to seek the black blood, though I had no need for it. My hubris brought this calamity upon us.

  If I could move, I would strike myself for my folly, but my hands remain limp.

  And then, there is Ren.

  My brother.

  Now I understand what he meant. About the future version of me. About the Golden Reaper. I picture myself… or rather, what I could become. The image chills me to the core. Not because I envision myself slaughtering masses, drinking the blood of the fallen, or tormenting innocents without a second thought. No, the cold comes from how vividly I can see it—how plausible that future feels. The vision of me as a monster is not some distant nightmare but an inevitability etched into the fabric of who I am.

  A dilemma. The word rolls across my mind, heavy and unwelcome. What can I do? I want to scream, to rage against the confines of this body and my fate, but the void swallows my protests before they can take form.

  "Damn it! Move!" I shout internally, my veins pulsing with a futile frustration. Yet my body refuses to respond. It is as though I am no more than a doll, my strings cut, abandoned in an empty theater. The silence mocks me, the endless dark suffocating in its indifference.

  I taste iron.

  The metallic tang dances across my tongue, bitter and sweet, and I find myself savoring it despite myself. Something is intoxicating about it, the essence of life distilled into a single flavor. The memories rush back—of holding that life in my hands, of controlling it, of snuffing it out. It was never just about killing, though that was often the outcome. It was vengeance. Retribution against those who stole my life, my family, my future.

  The world made me this way. Not me. I am merely a product of its cruelty, a construct of the decisions and circumstances thrust upon me. My actions, my thirst for revenge, are but reflections of a broken system. I tell myself this, even as a darker part of me revels in the power.

  And yet, one question lingers. In which future will I kill my brother?

  Up until now, my reasons for killing have been survival or revenge. But what of the day when power corrupts me so deeply that I strike down Ren? The thought lingers, unwelcome, as my pupils dilate, the darkness swallowing the last vestiges of light.

  I lose myself in the void. My thoughts blur, my mouth slackens, and a faint trail of saliva escapes as my mind drifts aimlessly. Time ceases to hold meaning. Seconds and centuries intertwine, stretching endlessly into the abyss. I feel neither alive nor dead, suspended in a timeless state of being.

  When I finally see something, it is not the darkness receding. It is white. Blinding, all-consuming white. The contrast burns into my vision, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, my thoughts align into a single, coherent realization:

  This is not the end.