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Touya awoke to the gentle rocking of a boat. Its hull cut silently through a river so dark it seemed to drink in the faint light around it. The surface shimmered with an eerie, otherworldly glow, and the mist above it drenched and prickled his skin.
The air was cold enough that his breath fogged in front of him. His tattered robes, creamy white and frayed at the edges, offered no protection against the chill, yet it didn’t seem to matter. He felt strangely warm despite it. Touya rubbed his arms absently, trying to piece together how he’d come to be here. And where ‘here’, was.
All he remembered was Sekoto Peak; the unbearable heat, the blue flames consuming everything, the acrid smoke stealing his breath as it forced its way down his throat to fill his lungs.
And then...nothing.
The river stretched endlessly in every direction. Its surface reflected faint, shifting glimmers of light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. A soft ripple in the water caught his attention, and he looked down to discover the river was not water at all. But something darker, thicker, and alive with the faint whisper of countless lost voices.
A low creak made him glance toward the front of the boat. There, a figure stood cloaked in tattered black robes that flowed around them like smoke. Its pale, skeletal hands gripped a long oar to push the boat forward, towards the horizon covered in an impenetrable fog. The entity’s face was hidden beneath a deep hood, but Touya could feel its gaze on him, heavy and unrelenting. It sent a shiver down his spine. He tried to speak, to ask where he was, but his throat tightened, and the words wouldn’t come. The figure said nothing, though, only continuing to steer the boat toward an unseen destination.
The journey felt timeless. Minutes, hours, days; Touya couldn’t tell how much time had passed. If it even passed at all.
The steady rhythm of the oar slicing through the dark river lulled him into a trance, broken only when the boat scraped against a shoreline of black sand. The cloaked figure gestured at him to disembark. Touya hesitated but found his legs moving on their own, carrying him onto the warm, gritty shore.
Ahead, the landscape sloped upward, a towering dune of black sand leading to a distant peak. At its top stood another dark-cloaked entity, its silhouette somehow stark against the equally black sky.
Around him, people clawed and struggled, dragging themselves upward with visible agony. Some turned their hollow eyes toward him, their lips trembling as they whispered pleas for help, their hands reaching toward him as if he were their salvation. Others sobbed, their bodies wracked with despair, begging for mercy from an unseen force. A few seemed to have abandoned all hope, their expressions empty, their movements sluggish as they crawled aimlessly through the shifting sand, resigned to their suffering.
Then there were those who recoiled from him, their gazes filled with a strange mix of fear and reverence, as though they sensed something within him that set him apart from the rest. All of their bodies were gaunt, their faces twisted in pain, their movements slow and labored. Yet, despite the scene’s despair and the inevitability of having to follow, Touya felt no fear for himself—only empathy for the others.
He stepped forward, his feet sinking slightly into the sand, and began to climb. The sand was warm under his bare feet, almost comforting. While others faltered and fell, he moved with ease, as though the path had been carved specifically for him.
Touya's skin burned and ached with every movement, the pain growing more intense with each step. When he glanced down at himself, he jerked in surprise, his breath catching in his throat at the sight. His arms and chest were decorated with scars, vivid and raw. Scars he hadn’t noticed back on the boat. Did they only just appear?
Touya yanked open his robes to see his body bore matching marks. Some were deep and dark, shades of purple and black. Others were fresh, red and pink with raised angry skin. But as he watched, the scars appeared to shift and fade, the worst of them softening, as though he were healing the closer he got to the summit.
Touya closed his robes and continued to climb with the hopes of finding answers at the top. Halfway up the slope, he paused to look at the others below. Their hands trembled as they reached for purchase in the shifting sand. Their agony was palpable, and Touya’s heart ached for them, though he could do nothing to help. He looked down at his own body again, at the scars that marked him, and realized he was different. While their pain consumed and hindered them, his seemed to have left him or maybe transformed into something else.
The closer he got to the summit, the more he felt an inexplicable pull, as though the figure at the top was calling to him. The air grew heavier, charged with an energy that pressed against his chest, but he kept walking.
~~~
Finally, he reached the peak and stood before the cloaked man.
The man’s hood obscured most of his face, but Touya could see his eyes, inky black voids that seemed to absorb all light and reflect it back, shimmering with a faint, otherworldly glow similar to the river. They were hauntingly familiar, stirring a memory deep within Touya that he couldn’t quite grasp.
“Welcome home, King of Hades,” the man murmured, his voice low and resonant, echoing as if the words came from the very ground beneath them.
The title felt alien, yet right, as though it had always been his, and he was only now remembering. The cloaked man extended an arm, gesturing to the temple behind him. It loomed in the hazy distance, its dark spires reaching toward the sky, a monolithic structure that exuded mystery.
No.
It was more than that; it was a fortress made of obsidian stone so ancient that time itself dared not touch it. Despite standing empty for what Touya could only assume was a few millennia, it bore no sign of decay; no dust, no cracks, no wear from the passing ages. The air around it pulsed with power so dense it seemed to warp reality, holding the temple in a state of eternal preservation, waiting only for Touya to return.
Its gates stood open, inviting him in.
Touya looked back at the cloaked man, searching his eyes for more answers since his voice was still lost. The voids stared back, offering none. Yet, something in them calmed him. Reassured him and encouraged him to proceed. Touya took a deep breath and stepped forward past the figure and toward the temple. As he crossed the threshold, the warmth that had carried him this far intensified, enveloping him completely. The scars on his body pulsed with heat, and for the first time, he felt whole. He felt light.
He felt safe.
The gates closed, and the darkness of the temple swallowed him. In that darkness, he found light. Not around him, but within. And he understood, then.
He was home.