The ground was still shaking.
Aarav struggled to stay on his feet, dust swirling all around him, choking the air. The crater where the shadow had crashed hissed and steamed, radiating a bone-deep cold—so unnatural, it made the sweat on his skin feel like ice.
Selene stood completely still.
Her glowing eyes stared into the heart of the crater, and for the first time since he'd seen her, the light around her began to dim.
"Selene," Aarav gasped, stumbling toward her, "what the hell is that thing?!"
But she didn't answer.
Instead, she whispered—more to herself than to him—"He followed me…"
From within the smoke, something moved.
A silhouette. Not a beast. Not a man. Something in-between.
Long and thin, as if its limbs were stretched beyond what should be possible. Its head tilted at an impossible angle, twitching unnaturally. No eyes. Just a silver mask with three glowing lines—a triangle, the same one Aarav saw in the sky.
It stepped out.
And every star above them flickered.
Aarav's knees buckled as the thing turned its masked face toward him. The pocket watch in his hand ticked again—twice—and then shattered in his palm, slicing a red line across his skin.
Selene suddenly grabbed his hand.
"Don't move. Don't run. Don't breathe loud. If it doesn't see you, it won't awaken."
Aarav's breath caught in his throat. "See me? It doesn't even have eyes."
"That mask is the eye," she said quietly. "And that triangle… it's the seal of the Forgotten Ones."
Aarav swallowed hard. "Forgotten by who?"
She looked at him—and for a moment, he swore he saw sadness in her glow.
"By the sky."
The shadow-creature sniffed the air. It took a slow, deliberate step closer. Grass withered where it walked. The stars dimmed even more.
Selene whispered, "We have to get out of here."
"But you said—"
"I know what I said," she snapped, fear cracking her voice. "But if it finds you now, it'll tear the memory from your soul before it even wakes."
Aarav couldn't begin to understand what she meant.
"Why me?" he asked desperately. "What does it want from me?!"
Selene's grip on his wrist tightened. "Because you were the first. Because it remembers your name."
Before Aarav could react, the creature snapped its head toward them—fast, too fast—and a high-pitched ringing screamed through the meadow like the sound of a dying star.
Selene didn't hesitate. She pulled him into her arms, light flaring around them like a shield.
"Hold on!" she cried, her voice echoing through space and sound.
Aarav felt his feet leave the ground.
The world twisted, colors bleeding together, light bending backward. The meadow vanished. The stars turned black. The cold turned into heat—and then—
Silence.
They landed hard.
Aarav coughed, his vision blurring. They were in a narrow cave, walls glittering with fragments of quartz that pulsed faintly with moonlight. The entrance behind them had collapsed.
"Where… what just happened?" he asked, trembling.
Selene slumped against the wall, her glow nearly gone. "We used a fragment path. It's not safe. I… I couldn't take us far."
Aarav's head spun. "Why are they after me, Selene? I don't understand."
She looked at him with something deeper than sadness. Regret.
"Because you were never supposed to remember me."
Aarav's heart stopped. "What?"
She touched his chest, just over his heart. "In another life, you made a choice. One that saved me—but cursed the sky. They erased you to stop it from happening again. But now… now you're starting to remember."
Aarav stared at her, barely breathing. "You mean we… we knew each other? Before?"
Her eyes shimmered. "You loved me enough to make the stars fall. And now that love has called them back."
Aarav's mind reeled. Before he could speak, a deafening screech echoed through the cave—the sound of stone being devoured.
Selene's face went pale.
"They found us."
Aarav turned to the blocked entrance. Faint cracks were spreading across the stone. Something was clawing through.
Selene grabbed his hand again, weaker this time.
"There's only one way out," she said, breathing hard. "But if I take you, you'll remember everything."
Aarav looked into her eyes. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
She hesitated.
And then whispered, "Not if it breaks you again."
CRACK.
The stone wall splintered—black claws piercing through. Shadows leaked like blood.
"Choose now, Aarav," she said, her voice shaking. "Your memories… or your life."
Selene's words hung in the cave like forbidden echoes.
"Not if it breaks you again."
Aarav's heart raced—thunder in a cage. Shadows curled at the edges of the blocked tunnel. Cracks spread like lightning across stone, and from within them oozed a darkness that hummed, almost as if it could think.
Then—
A single eye opened within the crack.
Not human. Not sane. A vertical slit of blinding white flame in a pool of shadow. It wasn't looking at them. It was looking into them—like it could read through the layers of soul and time.
Aarav fell to his knees, his vision blurring. The eye locked onto him, and in that single gaze, a memory shattered loose:
A starlit tower. Selene on her knees, screaming as celestial chains bound her.Him—Aarav—rising above the world with a crown of light and blood.A voice: "You would destroy the heavens… for her?"
Aarav's nose bled. His breath hitched. "I've seen this before…"
Selene lunged forward, pressing her glowing hand against his forehead. Her light flickered—unstable, as if something was tearing her apart from the inside.
"You're remembering too fast," she cried. "It's too soon! The seal isn't fully broken yet!"
The eye blinked again. And this time… the world blinked with it.
The cave shifted. The quartz walls cracked, revealing slivers of other places—a burning forest, a drowned cathedral, a field of silver feathers—like the world was splitting into fractured memories.
Selene's voice dropped to a whisper, almost a prayer:
"If they breach this place, Aarav... the past will reclaim you."
Aarav's voice trembled. "What does that mean?"
She looked at him—truly looked at him—and her voice broke.
"You'll forget me again. But this time... I won't be able to bring you back."
The cracking wall exploded inward.
A clawed, skeletal hand made of stardust and screams punched through. It gripped the stone like a god reaching into a grave.
Aarav turned to Selene, tears hot in his eyes. "Then tell me the truth—everything."
She hesitated, light fading fast.
Then, with a voice like a dying moon:
"You were not just the boy who loved me...You were the one who killed me."
Darkness surged in.
Aarav screamed. The cave shattered. Reality folded.
🌘 To Be Continued...