Kal didn't know how long he lay on the obsidian plateau.
It could've been seconds. Minutes. An hour.
His body didn't ache anymore—because the pain had become something deeper. A layer of himself. Like breath. Like blood.
He was resting in a corpse that still moved.
And then.
Wind.
A low sigh, like the inhalation of a slumbering titan.
Kal lifted his head.
The sky above had shifted.
It was no longer the dull, molten gray of before. It boiled now—black and violet, thunderhead clouds swirling into a vortex that radiated wrongness.
He pushed himself upright.
The weight was gone, for now. His limbs responded. His back cracked. His breath steamed in the cooling air.
He was being given this moment.
A lull.
But not mercy.
The world rebuilt itself in silence.
Kal stood at the edge of a corridor not made for men. Shattered stone floated in uneven slabs beneath his bare feet—obsidian platforms suspended over a void so wide, so deep, it felt like standing on the edge of the beginning of time. Above him, the sky churned. Not a sky of clouds or stars, but something more ancient: a roiling sea of galaxies and screaming colors, vast nebulae that pulsed like lungs in slow motion, distant suns devouring themselves in silence. A cosmic sky, stitched with fire and birth and death.
This wasn't Earth.
It was something built to break gods.
The air thrummed, alive with electricity and pressure, and then came the voice—calm, pitiless, unmoved:
"The storm does not care if you are a god. MOVE."
Kal opened his mouth to protest—but the first meteor struck.
It came down like a judgment: fast, precise, inevitable.
It didn't hit him. It struck a slab fifty meters ahead, exploding with a force that ripped sound out of the air. He flinched as the shockwave rolled past, searing hot, laced with static that made his skin itch and burn.
Then another meteor.
Three seconds later.
Then another.
And another.
Each strike landed with perfect, terrible rhythm. One every three seconds. A steady beat of annihilation.
Kal squinted into the distance. The corridor went on for what felt like miles. No cover. No shelter. Just a cracked path winding toward a destination he couldn't yet see.
[Sprinting required.]
[Gravity modifier: 5x Earth Standard.]
The System's interface pulsed red in the corner of his mind's eye.
He inhaled. Felt his muscles tighten.
No time to think.
He ran.
The first thing he noticed was the weight.
It hit him like shackles. Every step dragged like it was underwater. His legs pumped, but each motion cost triple the effort, his knees screaming with each stride.
He wasn't fast—couldn't be. Not under this gravity. The enhanced speed he'd begun to rely on in the real world was gone, locked away. He was just a man again. A strong one, yes. A fast one, maybe. But human.
Above him, the sky screamed.
Thirty meters in, a meteor crashed behind him—close enough to lift him off his feet.
Kal hit the ground hard, ribs slamming into jagged rock. Pain burst through his chest like glass shattering in slow motion. He rolled, barely avoiding a second impact. Heat kissed his shoulder, burning through the fabric, searing skin.
He pushed up, half-crawled, half-stumbled. His vision spun.
The pain wasn't dulled. This was no simulation. The System wanted him to feel everything.
Another impact—this time, too close.
The stone beneath his feet trembled.
And Kal stumbled into the blast radius.
The meteor struck him in the ribs.
Or maybe it didn't. Maybe it struck near him, but the effect was the same.
Bone cracked. Sharp and unmistakable.
Kal screamed. His body went limp, flung across the corridor like a ragdoll. He landed hard, shoulder first. His left arm flopped uselessly beside him, socket dislocated.
He tasted blood.
He tried to move.
Another meteor fell, closer.
The air ignited around him.
Blink
Kal woke at the edge of the corridor again, panting. Sweat poured down his face, though the air here was cold.
He was whole again. No bruises. No burns.
But the pain lingered in his memory like a brand.
He stared at his hands. They were shaking.
He'd died.
The System hadn't killed him. Not permanently. But he had died. That was a new feeling. Even in the fight in the alley, even when rage had taken over and the world blurred—he hadn't been afraid like this.
He stood slowly, spine stiff. Gritting his teeth.
Above, the sky pulsed again.
The voice returned.
"The storm does not care. MOVE."
He ran again.
This time, he didn't try to dodge.
He braced.
The meteors kept falling, like a divine drumbeat. He ignored them. Tried to force his body through the trial with sheer will. Each blast rocked the corridor. But he didn't break stride.
Ten meters.
Twenty.
Thirty.
He growled, low and steady, tuning out everything but the rhythm of his steps.
Then a meteor struck the path ahead. Kal raised his arms and charged through the explosion.
He made it.
But not without cost.
The blast cooked the flesh on his forearms. The shockwave fractured his left femur. He didn't fall—not yet—but his leg buckled. A warning.
He ignored it.
Forty meters.
Fifty.
The next blast hit closer.
Kal twisted to shield himself.
Wrong move.
The impact shoved his broken femur through muscle. He dropped, screaming—bone grating against bone. Blood poured from his thigh. His hands clawed at the stone.
Still, he crawled.
Still, he moved.
Then another blast. This one too close.
His vision went white.
Kal's breath came in shallow gasps.
He blinked.
Still standing at the start.
Again.
The same silence, same floating stone corridor under a sky that didn't belong to any world he knew. That sky burned into his retinas—impossible colors, constellations like eyes watching him, dispassionate. Unmoved.
He hated it now.
Not because it was alien.
But because it didn't care.
The System's voice was gone. No countdown. No instruction.
Just the expectation that he'd run.
Kal flexed his fingers. They trembled slightly, already anticipating pain.
The fear wasn't in the meteorites.
It was in the knowing.
Knowing what would come. What the fire felt like. What the snap of bone sounded like from the inside.
Still, he clenched his jaw. Took a breath. Then another.
He ran.
He didn't try to be clever this time.
Didn't brace. Didn't dodge.
He just ran.
Each impact was an earthquake beneath his bones. Thirty meters in, a meteor struck behind him. The heat licked up his back like a whip, blistering skin in an instant.
He staggered forward, half-running, half-limping.
Then it happened again.
A blast to the left. This time, the shockwave came from below—lifted one of the floating slabs slightly, knocking his feet out from under him.
Kal tumbled.
The landing split his lip. The stone tore his palm open. He scrambled to his knees—
And saw the next meteor.
It was already falling.
He rolled.
Too late.
The blast didn't kill him. But it buried him.
The pressure cracked his ischium, dislocating both femurs. He screamed into stone, half-suffocating under the heat and debris.
He didn't die immediately.
He felt himself die.
That time lasted longer.
He woke choking.
Cold sweat slicked his skin. He retched, but there was nothing in his stomach. Just bile. Just memory.
His knees were whole again.
His lip no longer split.
But he didn't move.
Not at first.
The corridor stretched ahead again, quiet, waiting.
Mocking.
Kal looked up at the meteor sky. At the uncaring beauty of it. Something in his chest flickered—not fear. Not yet rage. Doubt.
He didn't want to admit it.
But for a moment, a single moment—
He didn't think he could do this.
Minutes passed.
Then, in the distance, he heard it.
Boom.
The storm hadn't stopped. It never stopped.
It waited for him.
Kal stood.
Not because he wanted to.
But because the idea of staying still was worse.
His fourth attempt started slower.
He didn't sprint.
He jogged. Testing the rhythm. Watching the sky.
A meteor hit just ahead—he counted under his breath.
"One… two… three—"
Another.
Good.
They were spaced. Timed. It wasn't random.
He narrowed his eyes.
This was a pattern.
Not just a punishment.
A test.
Kal ducked low and ran again.
The meteors came like heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Always on cue.
But the path twisted now. Not straight. The floating slabs staggered, dipped. Some were smaller. Some slanted.
He had to read them.
He had to learn.
At seventy meters, a meteor crashed five paces ahead. Kal dropped to the ground instinctively, rolling under the blast. The heat washed over him, curling the ends of his hair. He grit his teeth and pushed forward.
Ninety meters. A hundred.
He was panting now, arms pumping like pistons, legs screaming.
Then the meteor pattern changed.
Faster.
One every two seconds.
His timing broke.
He didn't notice until he leapt—
—and the sky came down to meet him.
This time, it hit his back directly.
The pressure drove him flat.
Kal's chest struck stone. His arms gave out.
He felt his spine pop.
He didn't scream.
He couldn't.
The last thing he heard before it all went black was his own heartbeat, thudding against fractured ribs.
The fifth time, he didn't move for a long while.
The voice didn't rush him. There was no taunt. No countdown. Just the sound of meteors in the distance, like a cruel metronome.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
He sat at the start of the corridor, hands on his knees, listening.
His knuckles were white.
Not from rage.
But from focus.
That was the difference.
The first time he ran with anger.
Then desperation.
Then brute force.
Now?
Now he listened.
He ran again.
And this time, Kal started to see the pattern, not just hear it.
He ducked before the blast.
He slid between platforms before they shook.
His movements weren't perfect. His ribs still caught the edge of one explosion—enough to bruise deep. Blood still welled at his temples from strain.
But he was adapting.
By the time he hit the halfway mark—roughly 200 meters—his shirt was burned off at the shoulder. His right leg was dragging slightly from an earlier misstep, but he kept going.
There was a joy in it, twisted as it was.
Not because it didn't hurt.
It did.
But because he was learning.
Pain had a rhythm, too.
Kal stood again.
He didn't stagger this time.
He didn't breathe hard.
He was quiet. Still.
His skin itched from phantom burns. The scent of scorched fabric still clung to his nostrils. He wiped blood from his lip, though he knew it hadn't bled yet. Not in this reset.
The corridor yawned before him again.
Sky above—forever watching. Indifferent.
But now, Kal didn't look up at it with hatred.
He simply nodded.
"You'll do what you do," he muttered, under his breath. "And I'll do what I do."
He rolled his shoulders once. Legs already braced. Ankles loose. Knees soft. He wasn't sprinting this time. Not charging. Not bracing.
He was reading.
The sixth attempt.
Boom.
The first meteor struck behind him—he felt the shockwave before he heard it. It sang up the soles of his feet like a tuning fork. That was good. He counted.
One… two… three—
Boom.
Another ahead. He sidestepped a half-second before it landed, using the blast to propel himself diagonally off the platform's edge.
He landed hard—rolled.
Sprang up.
Keep going.
Each step now was choreography.
He didn't dodge the meteors.
He moved with them.
He passed a falling one to his left—shielded his face with his forearm. Skin blistered instantly, but the burn was shallow. Bearable.
Another to his right—he jumped, using the blastwave to boost his momentum over a gap in the platform.
He laughed.
A hoarse, ugly sound.
Blood smeared his teeth, but he didn't care.
He was inside the storm now.
And it couldn't touch him.
Not the way it used to.
He hit the 300-meter mark limping.
One rib cracked. His ankle swollen. His back scorched from a near-miss.
But his eyes gleamed.
Not with fury.
Not even with determination.
With clarity.
This wasn't about winning.
This was about enduring.
He took the last thirty meters crawling.
A meteor landed so close the stone cracked under him—sent a spike of rock through his thigh.
He screamed.
Didn't stop.
He dragged himself.
The final platform dipped, wobbled.
He reached the edge and collapsed forward—onto a slab of stone with the faint etching of a sunburst carved into it.
A sigil.
The end.
He blinked.
Then rolled onto his back, chest heaving.
Above him, the sky burned.
The meteors continued to fall behind him, far in the distance.
But not one more touched him.
The System didn't speak for a while.
Then:
"You are beginning to understand."
"Pain is not the enemy."
"Pain is the lesson."
Kal closed his eyes. Let the words wash over him.
He didn't cry. He didn't cheer.
He just breathed.
Slow. Deliberate.
Then he laughed. Dry. Ugly. A sonata of suffering through cracked and bleeding lips. But within it something else, pride, ridicule.
Now he was the one mocking the voice.
[PHASE TWO COMPLETE.]
[BEGINNING PHASE THREE: THE FURNACE LIFT]
The stone beneath him crumbled like ash.
Kal fell.
Not screaming. Just falling.
Into fire.
"Let's see how long your pride lasts, when your lungs BOIL."
Kal hit the ground with a crunch.
No broken bones this time.
Just searing, absolute heat.
The floor was metal, glowing dull orange. Not molten—yet. But soft. Bendable. Almost alive in its heat, like the flesh of some slumbering giant.
He jerked his hands up immediately, but the damage was done.
Blisters bubbled on his palms. The skin split open with a hiss, curling like parchment.
He staggered to his feet. The air clawed at his lungs.
Hot. Dry. And thin.
Each breath stabbed like razors.
The world around him was a sealed chamber. Round. Walls cracked with glowing seams of molten orange, like veins pumping magma. The air shimmered with heat mirages, and in the center stood the mechanism:
A vertical crank.
Solid obsidian. Ancient. Wrapped in blackened steel with jagged glyphs glowing white-hot across its face.
Attached to the crank was a shaft. Simple. No gears. No counterweights. Just resistance. And at its base, etched into the scorched metal:
"Five Minutes."
Kal stumbled forward. His feet left skin behind. He hissed in pain, but kept walking.
As he neared the crank, the system voice returned.
Always mocking.
"You crawled like a godling. Good. Now rise like a mortal."
Kal looked up, through heat-blurred vision.
The crank wasn't moving. Not yet.
But it was waiting.
He took hold of it.
Hands sizzling on contact. Fingers blistering again even over the ruined skin.
His muscles bunched.
He pulled.
Nothing.
He screamed, and pulled again.
This time, the crank moved a fraction.
A creak like groaning bones filled the chamber. The glyphs pulsed brighter.
He set his stance. Bent knees. Spine braced.
And began to turn.
The first ten seconds felt like wrestling the planet.
Every inch of motion cost more than the last.
His arms screamed. His chest locked. The metal fought him.
But Kal moved it.
Slow.
Steady.
Gritting his teeth so hard his gums bled.
He stared ahead, lips peeled back in a snarl. A beast. A machine.
Twenty seconds.
Sweat dripped off his brow. Landed on the crank. Sizzled to vapor.
His hair curled with heat. His breath came in shallow gasps. He could feel it—the air was changing. Getting thinner. Dryer. Hotter.
Thirty-five seconds.
His hands began to stick to the crank.
The skin was melting. Adhesion forming. He tried to scream—but his throat stuck too. Cracked open like burnt paper.
He wrenched his arms again.
Fifty seconds.
His vision blurred.
Then failed.
Black spots. Tunnel narrowing.
Still he turned the crank.
Still he—
His knee buckled.
Then the other.
He slumped forward. Fell.
Tore his hands off the crank. Skin came with them.
He hit the floor—face-first—screaming soundlessly.
The crank reset.
Kal lay on the glowing metal, twitching.
Steam rose from his back.
And above him, the System laughed.
"Try again, Kryptonian."
"The sun will not save you here."
He didn't move for what felt like hours.
But when he did, he crawled.
His knees left bloody trails behind him.
He reached the crank. Stared at it.
Then—without thought—stood.
The heat had stolen his voice. His blood was syrup in his veins.
But he moved.
He took the crank.
And began. Again.
This time he didn't scream. He didn't snarl.
He moved.
Deliberate.
Measured.
He found a rhythm.
Half-turn. Breathe.
Half-turn. Step.
Half-turn. Bite down on pain.
Time became a blur.
The world shrank down to one motion.
One direction.
Turn the crank.
Turn the crank.
Turn the crank.
And for a moment—
It was working.
Kal's muscles burned, tore, healed. Again. Again.
His skin split and re-sealed like wax over a candle.
He made it to four minutes and nine seconds before his grip failed.
One hand slipped.
The other followed.
Reset.
Kal collapsed again.
This time he didn't scream.
He just wept.
The tears boiled off his face before they fell.
Aftermath
The chamber didn't cool.
The air didn't soften.
No respite. No mercy.
Kal lay in a pool of skin, blood, and sweat.
His fingers were bones wrapped in jelly. His eyes so bloodshot they glowed.
He didn't know if he was breathing anymore.
But he was still alive.
Somehow.
And he was still Kal.
That mattered.
He reached out again—
And blacked out before he touched the crank.
He woke up choking.
The heat hadn't lessened.
But his pain had changed.
It wasn't screaming anymore.
It hummed.
Every nerve was raw, but quiet. Like they'd burned out, leaving only dull static.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then pushed himself up.
The floor groaned under him, metal warping beneath his palms. He felt the hiss of new skin forming—thin and pink, not even half-healed—but enough.
Kal sat still.
Gathering.
His breath was shallow, but present.
The chamber loomed around him, vast and cruel, but less like a god now. Less towering.
More… beatable.
Like a monster he'd learned the shape of.
He stood.
Slow. Unsteady.
But he stood.
And took one step forward.
Then another.
Back to the crank.
He gripped it differently this time. Not in fury.
In acceptance.
His hands closed like iron, skin already beginning to blister again.
He pulled.
It turned.
It moved.
And so did he.
Kal didn't roar this time.
He breathed.
One motion.
One moment.
One pain.
Then another.
The chamber pulsed with each rotation. The glyphs reacted to his defiance, flaring white-hot, spitting sparks into the air.
Kal ignored them.
His lungs shrieked with every breath, but he kept the rhythm.
Turn.
Breathe.
Burn.
Turn.
Breathe.
Burn.
At three minutes, his legs gave out. But he didn't fall.
He locked them straight, bone to bone, teeth bared.
The blood in his mouth tasted like coins and ash.
The pain in his spine crawled up to his skull, coiling like a serpent behind his eyes.
And still he turned the crank.
At four minutes, something popped in his ear. Pressure change. Blood ran down his neck. His knees trembled.
He screamed, wordless, throat torn and ragged—
And bit down.
Hard.
Too hard.
His jaw clenched in reflex, and—
CHHK.
His tongue split between his teeth.
A white-hot agony bloomed behind his eyes.
His scream turned into a gurgle.
Blood flooded his mouth. Down his throat. Into his lungs.
He coughed, sputtered, tasted metal and fire—
But his hands never left the crank.
He didn't stop.
Even when he couldn't breathe.
Even when he choked.
His vision blurred again. Faded.
Everything turned red.
He felt himself slipping.
But his body—
Kept turning the crank.
[04:56]
A few more seconds.
The crank locked into place.
A sharp chime rang out, cutting through the boiling air.
The glyphs pulsed once—then flared, violently bright.
The floor began to cool.
Slightly.
And the obsidian crank crumbled into ash in his hands.
Kal collapsed.
Flat on his back.
Mouth full of blood.
Tongue—gone. Or almost. He didn't know.
Didn't care.
He stared up at the ceiling. At nothing.
Then the voice returned.
"Good."
"The mortal rises."
"The god is born."
[YOU HAVE GAINED A TRAIT: "Furnace-Forged"]
Your pain threshold is significantly increased. Your body now resists burning, blistering, and pressure damage more effectively. You do not lose consciousness from pain alone.
[UNLOCKED: PASSIVE QUEST — "CHILD OF STONE, SCION OF FIRE."
Objective: Prove yourself through survival. Endure, rise, and become unbreakable. XP will now be passively gained through surviving extreme damage or hostile environments.]
Kal didn't read the text.
Couldn't.
But he felt it.
A shift inside him. A line crossed.
The part of him that was still a boy drifting through space… was gone.
He coughed blood onto the floor. Smiled with cracked lips.
Even through the pain.
Even with a ruined mouth.
Because he knew one thing, more than ever:
He was still here.
And he would never break.
[TRIAL PHASE: FINAL]
[ENVIRONMENT: OBSIDIAN PLAIN | STATUS: SEVERE TRAUMA | MOBILITY: NEGLIGIBLE]
Kal awoke not with a gasp, but with the slow ache of existence.
The world was quiet.
No flames. No screaming winds. No monstrous glyphs crawling across molten walls.
Just… ash.
Soft, falling like snow.
It drifted down over his back, his arms, the burned rags of what used to be his shirt. His skin was open in places—raw meat clinging to fractured bones. There was no more blood to bleed.
Only marrow.
Only will.
He blinked once.
Lifted his head.
The plain stretched ahead—flat, endless, but for one thing:
A faint glow.
A sigil, carved into stone. Maybe a hundred meters away. Maybe a thousand.
It didn't matter.
The System didn't announce this one.
He just was—face down, on broken stone, each breath dragging sparks through raw lungs.
There was no music.
No whispering void.
Just the sound of his body.
[SYSTEM NOTICE:
You have reached the final chamber of the Trial of Endurance.
You may now:
Accept Partial Completion: Exit immediately and receive +25 XP.
Continue: Endure the final challenge for +100 XP and unlock the trait: Iron Will.
WARNING: Continuing may result in extended trauma simulation. Proceed with caution.]
Silence.
Just his ragged breathing.
Kal didn't move.
Didn't blink.
He felt the weight of the offer, sinking into him—an escape hatch. A mercy.
He could take it.
He'd earned it.
He could leave.
His bloodied fingers twitched.
Then curled into the stone.
The System paused. As if waiting.
Only after a long moment, a long silence, did it speak.
Then—for the first time in all the pain, all the fire, all the mockery—the voice changed.
No longer cruel. No longer cold.
Now it was gentle.
Almost kind.
"You are not judged for how you fall… but for how you rise."
"Choose."
Kal didn't answer.
He moved.
He reached forward—barely—his arm trembling like a steel cable under strain.
Fingers dragged across the obsidian.
And he began to crawl.
Meter 1
Every nerve screamed.
His ribs ground like broken glass.
But he moved.
Meter 3
His left arm gave out. So he rolled. Used his shoulder.
Ash stuck to open wounds.
He didn't care.
Meter 7
A cough wracked his chest—thick, red-black.
He spat.
Kept going.
Meter 10
Then the hallucinations began.
A voice. Familiar.
"Kal?"
"Why are you hurting yourself, my son?"
His mother.
Not the fake one.
The real one. From his old world.
He closed his eyes, shook his head, and dragged himself forward.
Meter 15
His legs twitched once. Then stopped moving entirely.
He no longer needed them.
He had his arms.
He had his will.
Meter 20
The stone beneath him blurred.
He blinked blood from his eyes.
Laughter echoed—his own, as a child.
That memory broke something in his chest.
But he didn't stop.
Meter 30
A moment of stillness.
He lay there, chest rising.
Then he began again.
No one was watching.
But he refused to stop.
Meter 45
Another voice.
"He's not getting up."
"He won't make it."
A man's voice. Authority behind it. His father?
Kal didn't know. Didn't care.
He pulled again.
His fingernails snapped off. One by one.
He used his fists instead. Curled, bone exposed.
The stone beneath him stained red again.
Meter 60
The System didn't speak.
Didn't comment.
Didn't mock.
It simply watched.
Meter 75
His vision faded at the edges.
The sigil was there now—closer. Glowing softly like a heart in the dark.
Meter 90
He was crawling blind.
Body gone.
Mind fraying.
But something deeper inside—older, unchangeable—kept him moving.
Meter 100
The light touched his hand.
He collapsed into it—not with a cry, not with a roar—but a single, shuddering breath of peace.
[Trial of Endurance 1 Complete]
[+100XP]
[TRAIT UNLOCKED: IRON WILL]
"You cannot be broken by pain. When body and mind fail, your will endures." Mind control and pain effects have reduced effectiveness.
The System spoke again—soft, almost proud.
"You will forget the pain…"
"…but not what it taught you."
[EXITING TRIAL...]
[RETURNING TO REALITY]
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kal lay on the bed, staring up at the cracked ceiling of his small room, the harsh, unyielding light of the world outside seeping through the thin curtains. His body felt like it had been through a thousand lifetimes—every muscle, every sinew, screamed in a language he couldn't even begin to understand. But he was still breathing. Still here. That, at least, he could cling to.
His hands twitched at his sides, the weight of the Trial—the searing pain, the pressure—lingering in every fiber of his being.
But that wasn't all. There was something deeper. Something he couldn't explain.
He didn't know if he could get up. Didn't know if he even wanted to.
But he would.
Because he had to.
[LEVEL UP: Level 2 → Level 3 (40/300XP)]
The notification flared into his mind with a force that felt oddly... distant, as though it came from somewhere far beyond the limits of his own body. It was too clinical, too matter-of-fact, like an observer noting the progress of a machine. But Kal—Kal, the one still lying in this room, still unsure whether he could even stand—was more than that now. He was the one changing. He was the one moving forward.
He didn't need to be told that.
But there it was. And with it, something cracked in him—some part of the boy who had been drifting through space, lost and alone, now stretched out of his bones like it was too small to hold him.
He didn't feel invincible. Not yet. But he knew one thing:
He was no longer fragile.
He closed his eyes again, resting his hand over his chest. The feeling of his own heartbeat—a reminder that he was still alive—settled over him. The warmth of his skin, a warm rush of empowering force inside him as he levelled up.
The Trial had tested him. But it hadn't broken him.
And if there was anything his life had taught him, it was that no matter how far he fell—he would always rise.
That wasn't just strength. It was resolve.
And for the first time in a long while, Kal didn't just believe it—he felt it, like a piece of him that had finally clicked into place.
He stood.