Displaced from the warmth of the dinner table, he felt it slip from his fingers—all gone in an instant.
Now, he drifted.
Suspended in a blackened abyss where no ground lay beneath him, no sky stretched above him.
The void seemed endless, soundless, absolute.
A soft, grey light pulsed from his body, a dim glow against the endless black.
But he was not alone.
In the distance, they stirred—tiny lights dotting the abyss, scattered like stars across a dead sky.
And they were watching.
The lights blinked, shifting, gazing back at him. A creeping sense of peril unfurled in his gut as they were drawing closer.
Each star a colour of another colour—maybe a belief.
Each light shimmered with its own hues, none quite like the other. Some swirled with warm colours, like molten gold and sunset fire. Others pulsed with deep blues, glacial whites, and shifting silvers. One rippled in dark browns and vibrant greens, like an ancient forest. Another undulated like bioluminescent tides, waves of colour rolling in and out of existence.
They were more than just stars.
Their lights were— Thoughts? Beliefs? Experiences?
Who knows.
They felt beyond mortal understanding, yet Altha instinctively categorized them—as if some part of him recognized what they truly were.
And yet, whatever they were, he felt, did not belong to the natural world.
Their approach was inevitable. And if they reached him— maybe even lethal.
Altha kicked his feet and paddled his arms, trying to propel himself away. But his body remained.
Yet even if he were to move, all directions pointed to almost certain death.
He stilled, eyes shifting to his hands, then to the abyss.
"The light. They're drawn to my light. But how do I turn it off?"
Logic felt useless here. This place did not obey reason. So he let go. He surrendered thought to instinct, relinquished his presence, and allowed himself to dissolve into silence.
A hum resonated in his mind—not a sound, but a feeling. A vibration. An echo of something older than memory.
The gray light dimmed, faded, and eventually dwindled to a candle's flicker.
The stars slowed and a stillness pressed over, stretching beyond time, as the void held its breath.
Then—
[Insceptious Candidate Found: Altha Noctorin Valkyriel]
Panic clawed at him as the voice echoed in his head.
The stars blinked, their attention snapping toward him as the gray light suddenly spread out.
No. No, no, no.
[Somniate Trial Status: Accepted]
Close enough to make out the faintest detail, he saw a tendril of fire whipping across the star's surface, and suddenly his eyes combusted, but before the stars could descend upon him or even for him to find time to scream—he vanished.
...
Everything was dark and he found it difficult to move.
Calmly, he reached for his eye, expecting scorched flesh, but his fingers glided across smooth skin.
It seemed he was somehow unharmed.
Then, the voice returned.
[Welcome Candidate, Altha. Your Somniate Trial has begun. You are now a Somniate.]
[Notice: Attribute Gained]
Altha flinched at the sudden echo in his skull. For a split second, he feared he was still in the void.
He sighed, "So where are we now, I wonder."
He reached out, feeling around. The surface was smooth and solid. It felt like wood. His fingers traced the grain of the surface above him.
"Am I in a—"
He pressed against the lid but it didn't budge. His breath caught.
"I'm in a coffin, aren't I."
A bitter chuckle escaped him. "So little oxygen. So little time. Of course, what did I expect?" He asked rhetorically.
Taking a steady breath, he exhaled, completely forcing his lungs empty. Less air usage. More time.
Placing his palm flat against the coffin's ceiling, he let intuition take over.
A force stirred within him, something unfamiliar yet natural, like a second heartbeat. It coiled in his chest, spread to his fingertips.
Then—strike.
The lid splintered apart, and a wave of dirt poured in. Warm against his skin, pressing in from all sides almost hot even.
Pushing the dirt to his feet, he used an unknown force to pull more dirt down, and once a large enough hole had been made, he climbed into the vacant space and dug upward.
Then, carefully, he peeked his head above the grave and surveyed the area.
But not just any garden—a geometric one, eerily symmetrical. The grass was too neatly trimmed, the stone pale stone floor too perfectly aligned. Beyond the walls, the world blurred into a haze, obscuring anything beyond a certain distance.
And at the garden's heart, a tree.
It stood tall, regal, its leaves shimmering gold, its trunk deep crimson, rooted in red grass. The sight sent an instinctive shudder through him—something about it was wrong. Or maybe… right?
As he climbed out of the grave, his left eye burned. A glow—as gold light rippled within his iris, a singular ring of crimson nestled within.
Climbing out of the hole he took another look at the tree. His left eye glowed a golden colour with a singular ring of crimson within the iris.
Suddenly, his vision fractured. The world shifted—reds and blues bleeding into each other, like infrared distortions. It all seemed so confusing until he closed one eye allowing the words to filter the one golden lense.
In Eidolimancy Script along the tree, a message was carved out in Insignial Inscription.
The insignias pulsed, written not in ink, but in Ether itself, carved into the tree's very lifeblood—its ether network.
He squinted, trying to decipher the message. But the meaning evaded him, dancing just beyond his current realm of comprehension.
Sighing, he turned to the stone floor encircling the garden. Across the pale stone's surface were runic carvings in concentric rings around the whole open structure.
Sighing Altha walked toward the flat stone floor.
He crouched and took a long look at the texts.
These rune types he was more familiar with, but still, from the looks of it, he doubted if he was capable of deciphering the intent of this incantation or incantations.
It was broken anyway.
A deep slash had cut through the runes, disrupting their connection. A deliberate strike—clean, calculated. Someone had destroyed it on purpose. On another note—the floor itself lay blackened and singed.
Altha quirked his head. "Hmm..."
Crossing the bridge, he entered the cathedral beyond. Upon entry Altha found ruined pews scattered and broken.
The place was mostly singed and covered in layers of ash. The air itself was thick with the scent of something long burned.
As he was leaving toward the exit, he looked back. At the cathedral's heart, a stained glass window loomed.
A large window pane that depicted a tree with a golden crown of leaves, a red trunk, and white smoke framing it within a blackened sun.
Altha's gaze trailed downward.
Blood, smeared along the walls. Lining the cracks in the stone.
He exhaled slowly. "What ungodly slaughter took place here?"
Curiosity gnawed at him. There were answers here, buried beneath the ash. But now wasn't the time.
The exit led to descending stairs, opening into a courtyard where a fountain gurgled softly, its water crystal clear.
To one side, steps led back into the cathedral, while a separate path veered toward a vast garden and additional buildings.
On the opposite end, another set of steps plunged down the plateau.
Altha took that route, descending with light, fluid steps. He pushed off the ground, leaping from one step to another, his body lighter than expected. His jumps carrying him higher than intended, forcing him to adjust mid-air each time.
"Strange…"
All was well, until his foot slipped.
The world tilted and the wind whistled past his ears. The ground surged toward him at a terrifying speed.
Instinct seized him in that moment as he braced for impact—but when he hit the earth, the force of the fall barely rattled him.
The was a sudden small crash then silence.
Emerging from the Altha exhaled, pressing his palms into the dirt. No pain. No broken bones.
Slowly, he stood, rolling his shoulders. He felt… fine. No—better than fine. His muscles coiled with a new spring-like elasticity as his skin remained barely scathed despite the fall.
He looked down at his dirt-covered hands and smirked. "Fascinating, my body's... Different."
A warm breeze swept through the courtyard.
Picking himself up he dusted himself off and stretched. His nakedness bare to the elements.
"Good thing no one was here to see that fall or my indecency." He looked back up at the height he had fallen from. He smirked subtly. "I'm convinced the universe just likes to see me naked at this point." He chuckled. "Still, I wish there were some clothes lying around that I could 'borrow'."
Dusting himself off, he turned toward the distance.
As he walked, the blurry edge of the world grew sharper, solidifying into a barrier of distorted light.
Altha narrowed his eyes. His left iris flared gold, a crimson ring forming within.
The barrier burned bright, brighter than Sòl, its radiance almost unbearable to look at. But beyond it—there was nothing.
Nithing that he could make out. Just far stretching light in all directions.
It wasn't that he couldn't see beyond the barrier. Just that whatever he did see he couldn't identify or give a clear shape to, only colour.
He paused. "I'm- I'm trapped."
BOOM.
A deafening blast shook the air, rolling across the land like thunder. Altha froze. His hands curled into fists as his head jerked in the direction of the sudden noise.
The sound had come from behind the large landmass. A far enough distance, but not far enough to not reach him.
"And it seems I'm not alone."