Chapter Text
You remembered a flash. a blinding, inescapable surge of light that devoured the world before the eternal darkness.
One moment, you were seated in your private library, the cool weight of a hardcover book resting against your palm. The calm moment was pierced by a subtle glow.
Your gaze lifted to the window beside you.
A faint green luminescence had begun to bloom across the sky, spreading like ink. It was mesmerizing, beautiful yet curious. You couldn’t tear your eyes away, even as it grew, engulfing the whole streets.
And then, silence.
You never heard the sound if glass shattering, nor the thud of your book falling from your hand. There was no pain, no final moment to cling to. Pure nothingness.
Death, you thought, should not feel like this. There was no release, no dissipation into oblivion. You were certain you had not crossed that threshold. No, this was something else, a suspension, a limbo born of something unnatural. Perhaps it was the light, that strange emerald brilliance that had swallowed the sky.
Time, as you once knew it, dissolved. You were stripped of motion, of voice, of touch, yet your consciousness persisted.
An unbroken mind trapped in an unresponsive vessel. And that might’ve been one of the most agonizing parts.
You began to count. Seconds, then minutes, then hours. You marked their passage in perfect rhythm, building a framework of reason to keep yourself from unraveling. But numbers lose meaning when there is no sun to divide the days, no moon to name the nights.
Eventually, your calculations faltered. Hope decayed. What use was intellect when there was nothing left to understand?
The darkness remained absolute, not the absence of light, but the suffocating presence of something that denied even the concept of it. And yet, through it all, you remained aware.
In a way, it was worse than death.
At least the dead were granted the mercy of silence.
You were condemned to an existence where thought itself was your torment. Where awareness was the only thing that refused to die.
…
CRRRRRAAAACCCKKK.
The sound of a rocky material shattering filled your ears, tearing through the silence you’d become so accustomed to.
CRAAAAACCKKKK.
Again, and again, the noise persisted, echoing. You didn’t realized how sensitive your ears had become after years in the absence of sound. Then the light came. After years of being stuck in the shadow of your head, you could finally see. Your vision was overwhelmed with the sudden change in scenery.
Instead of the home library you stood in before the flash, you stood in what seemed to be a small clearing in a place adorned with vegetation. As you observed your surroundings, your eyes finally landed on the person standing before you.
…
That..That couldn’t be him, could it?
Your eyes fixed on that familiar green tipped hair.
No.
Those distinct red eyes you could recognize anywhere.
No…
That same irritating grin that he always wore confidently.
No……
He folded his arms, the sloshing of the liquid he held following him with the motion.
“Welcome back, Prodigy,” he grinned.
No!