The dream did not begin gently.
It tore Haraza from the edge of sleep and cast him into a world of fire and memory.
He stood at the edge of an endless canyon, its depths swirling with light and shadow. Above him, stars wheeled like burning eyes, and the sky pulsed with impossible colors—violet storms colliding with rivers of silver flame. The air was heavy with voices, none of them his, all speaking at once in languages no mortal tongue could hold.
But the voice that found him was quiet. Familiar.
("You are not the first.")
Haraza turned.
The Sleeper stood beside him.
Not as a child. Not as a monster.
But as himself.
The figure was identical to Haraza in every way—height, voice, even the subtle scar beneath the right eye from an old job gone wrong. But his eyes were filled with stars, and his presence radiated a depth of age no man could carry.
("You think you were chosen,") the Sleeper said. ("But there was never a choice. You are the consequence.")
("I don't understand,") Haraza replied. ("I didn't ask for this.")
The Sleeper smiled, a shadowed echo of Haraza's own grin.
("No one ever does.")
The world shifted.
They now stood in a field of corpses. Not human. Not anything Haraza could name. Creatures of crystal and smoke. Shapes made of thought. Entire cities, collapsed in on themselves, sprawled beneath an open sky torn by Riftlight.
("I made this,") the Sleeper said. ("I dreamed it, and so it became. And then I tried to end it. But my prison cracked. And when the Rift opened again… you were born.")
Haraza stared at the ruin. At the weight of it.
("You're saying I'm a… fragment?")
("A vessel. A continuation. The Seed in your chest is more than a piece of me. It is me. But not as I was. As I might become.")
The Sleeper stepped closer, eyes dimming.
("And now, the world is waking. But it does not wake cleanly. It shudders. It breaks. And only you can choose whether to return to the dream or end it.")
Haraza clenched his fists. ("You want me to become you.")
("No,") the Sleeper said. ("I want you to understand me.")
The ground split beneath them, and they fell.
Not down, but through—through moments, memories, ages.
A child with eyes of fire, pulled from a burning home.
A man kneeling beside a shattered friend in a war that made no sense.
A whisper in the dark, saying, There is more than this.
A gate. A choice. A voice saying yes.
Haraza woke gasping, hands shaking, eyes burning.
The fire had long gone out. Lirien sat a few feet away, watching the horizon.
("Bad dream?") she asked without turning.
He rubbed his face. ("I saw him again.")
("The Sleeper?")
Haraza nodded.("He showed me what he'd done. What he is. And what I might become.")
She looked back. ("Do you believe it?")
He hesitated. ("I don't know. But if even half of it's true… we don't have much time.")
Lirien stood and handed him a flask. ("Then we keep moving. We're close to the Warden outpost. There's a chance—slim, but real—that someone there remembers Sigma-Twelve.")
They broke camp and followed the slope downward into a narrow pass, where broken stone pylons marked the outer edge of what had once been a defensive perimeter.
Here, the land was scarred. Massive gouges in the ground hinted at past battles. Arcane scorch marks sizzled faintly on the stone, long dormant but not forgotten. Half-melted constructs lay shattered across the hills, their cores cracked open like eggshells.
It wasn't long before they saw it:
The Warden outpost.
Nestled against a cliff wall, surrounded by old wards and perimeter glyphs, the outpost looked more like a mausoleum than a fortress. Its walls were ironwood and obsidian, etched with scripts that flickered weakly in the sunlight.
And it was not abandoned.
Two figures stood watch at the gate—both clad in weathered Warden armor, the stylized "V" of the Vanguard painted across their cloaks. One held a glaive etched with Riftsteel runes; the other carried a bow shaped from ghostbone.
They did not shout. Did not raise weapons.
They simply watched as Haraza and Lirien approached.
("Halt,") the archer said, voice steady. ("State your names and purpose.")
Lirien stepped forward. ("Lirien Sael, Warden Archivist. This is Haraza Genso. We seek passage and knowledge regarding Sigma-Twelve.")
The glaive-bearer narrowed his eyes. ("Sigma-Twelve is a ghost. A lie.")
("No,") Haraza said. ("It's real. And I think I'm the reason it was sealed in the first place.")
Silence stretched between them.
Then the archer lowered her bow slightly. ("You wear the Seed.")
Haraza blinked. ("You… recognize it?")
("I've seen its mark in the dreams. You stand at the end of a long road, Genso. One that should have ended ages ago.")
The gate opened.
They were allowed inside.
The interior of the outpost was worn but operational—halls lined with glyph lanterns, ancient tomes stored in vaults of stasis, a central chamber dominated by a map etched into living crystal. Several Wardens—perhaps two dozen—remained. Veterans. Survivors. None younger than forty.
And all of them had seen the signs.
Lirien conversed with the outpost's commander—a tall, gaunt woman named Serah Voran, whose eyes had long since turned grey from overuse of Rift-sight. She studied Haraza like a weapon she didn't trust.
("You carry a burden none should bear,") she said. ("And yet you've borne it without breaking.")
("I didn't know I had a choice,") Haraza replied.
She nodded. ("Then maybe you are what the world needs after all.")
She tapped a panel beside the map.
The crystal map shifted, focusing on a section deep within the Sigil Spine. A symbol appeared—a spiral gate buried beneath the mountains.
("Sigma-Twelve,") Serah said. ("We found it five years ago. Sealed behind an oathlock only the Seed could open. We never had the key.")
Now, they did.
And the path ahead was clear.