The sky beneath the earth should not have shimmered.
Orion stood at the edge of the broken platform, staring down into a yawning chasm that hadn't existed the day before. Pillars of stone jutted from below like jagged teeth, but what stole his breath wasn't the architecture—it was the sky stretched across the chasm's bottom. Not stone, not water. A mirrored dome of stars, as if the world's heart had cracked to reveal the heavens hiding inside.
No one else had seen it. Not fully.
The others were behind him, still recovering from the fight with the Warden of Ash. They laughed now, exhausted, victorious, as Serah sparked fire from her fingers and teased Iris for her mid-battle war cry. Even Azrael smiled faintly. But Orion stood apart, his heart pulled downward.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Selene's voice echoed within him, soft and distant. Like moonlight refracting across a still lake. "The pull beneath your brand. The place where thought becomes shape."
"The Astralum,"she whispered..
—
Later that night, he couldn't sleep.
The others had found space in one of the Academy's abandoned archives aboveground. Dust lay thick on every surface, and the starmetal torch lights flickered like dying fireflies. But Orion was awake, his hands pressed to the side of his skull, his brand burning like a second heartbeat.
He sat up, breath uneven.
"Selene?"
No answer.
He staggered out of bed, eyes blurry, limbs moving as if someone else guided them. Down the old stairs. Past rusted symbols carved into iron doors. Beneath the first ring, then the second. No one stopped him.
The world around him faded with each step—replaced by windless silence, echoing light, and a sensation of falling without moving.
And then—
A blink.
Orion stood in a void of silver-blue starlight, constellations shifting around him like living things. There was no ground. No horizon. Only stars—twisted and stretching into infinity—curving like rivers of glass. Some burned brightly. Others pulsed like wounds.
He was inside the Astralum.
Not a dream.
A space behind the soul.
A reflection of all celestial bonds, living and broken.
"Welcome," Selene said.
He turned. She stood before him—taller than he remembered. Not quite human, not quite divine. A silhouette of luminous curves and crescent arcs, her eyes vast as galaxies, sorrowful as time.
"You've seen pieces of this place," she said, voice layered in echoes. "In your sleep. In your fear. But this… this is the true shape. The mind behind the stars."
"What is this place really?"
"A memory of the heavens. A fracture left behind when stars chose to bond with mortals." She gestured toward a burning nebula twisting in the distance. "Each star touches it differently. But we all live here… in part."
Orion stared at his hand.
His body wasn't whole here. He was fractured—slices of himself visible in mirrored lines. Doubt. Rage. Hope. Burden. All drifting beneath his skin like constellations etched in bone.
"I feel like I'm unraveling."
Selene stepped closer.
"That is what it means to bond. To become more than one. You carry me. I carry you. And here, we are both seen clearly."
Something rippled across the distant stars. A jagged surge—like a tear in the sky.
Orion flinched. "What was that?"
Selene's glow dimmed. "A wound. Small for now. But not for long."
He turned toward her. "Is that why my brand burns?"
She hesitated.
"There is something else awakening. A hollow place. You've felt it before, haven't you? In your nightmares. In the moments between waking."
His hands trembled. "That voice in the dark."
Selene reached forward, touching his brow.
"You are not meant to face it alone. But the Astralum is thinning. Something wants to push through. It watches. It waits."
"I don't understand."
"You will. Soon."
Then the stars began to collapse inward.
Not explode.
Collapse.
As if reality were folding itself around him.
Selene looked away.
"No… not yet."
She reached for him.
"Orion—"
—
He woke with a scream.
The others jumped to their feet. Iris grabbed her weapon. Azrael lit a lamp. Serah was already scanning for threats, fire coiled in her palm.
But there were no threats.
Only Orion, gasping, drenched in sweat, a ring of starlight glowing faintly beneath him. The mark over his eye pulsed.
He looked up, shaking. "It's real. It's all real. The Astralum."
They stared.
"The what?" Iris asked.
He swallowed. "The place… beyond the stars. Where Selene lives. Where they all live. I was there. I saw it."
Azrael's eyes narrowed. "That word. It's in one of the sealed files."
Orion looked at him. "What files?"
"The ones I started reading after the Warden. There were theories—fragments—about something beneath the Academy. A metaphysical plane connected to star-bearing. Supposedly it was madness to enter."
"I didn't enter," Orion whispered. "I was called."
Azrael studied him. "Then what did it show you?"
Orion hesitated. His gaze flicked to the others-Serah, still braced to strike. Iris, eyes wide but watchful. Azrael, calm but unreadable. They were waiting. Hoping for answers he didn't have.
"It wasn't just a vision," he said finally. 'It was a place. A mind-space. Selene called it the Astralum. It's where the stars go when they leave the sky… or when they choose us."
He swallowed.
"And it's bleeding into our world."
Silence fell like snowfall.
Iris was the first to move. She knelt beside him, gently brushing a lock of sweat-damp hair from his face. "You said something's trying to come through?"
He nodded.
"I don't know what it is. But Selene-she's scared."
That stilled everyone.
Serah let the fire in her hand flicker out. "Stars don't fear. They burn."
"Not this," Orion whispered. "She called it a hollow place. Something ancient. Watching."
Azrael exhales through his nose. "That lines up with what I read. The old theory said the Astralum was a kind of veil. But some believed it wasn't one-sided. That something could stare back through it."
"Why?" Serah asked. "If this thing is real-and waking-then reading dusty pages won't help."
Orion pushed himself to his feet. "It might. Because it's not just waking-it's calling to me. I think I've heard its voice before. In dreams. After the Starfall… when I was a child."
That changed everything.
Serah went still.
Azrael's jaw tensed.
Iris looked like she wanted to speak, but didn't.
The room pressed in, heavy with cold air and new fear.
Then, a low crack echoed from the hallway.
Everyone turned.
Just a stone setting… probably. But none of them moved for a long time.
—
Outside, the stars were veiled in clouds.
Orion stood alone again, this time on one of the ruined balconies that overlooked the deeper rings of the Academy. The wind was cold, but he didn't feel it.
The Astralum still shimmered behind his eyes. Not as a memory-but as a presence.
Something had changed in him.
He felt it in the way his breath caught without warning. In the way Selene's voice had gone quiet again, not out of rest–but retreat.
He traced the mark over his eye.
It pulsed once.
He didn't know if it was a warning.
Or an invitation.