The gate of silver mist loomed tall in the distance. Its edges flickered like candlelight trapped in slow motion, humming with soft echoes—as if it remembered being a doorway once, long before time was shaped by laws and limitations.
Ilan stood just outside its reach.
The grass beneath his feet felt alive, each blade moving slightly, reacting to his breath. Around him, the air wasn't heavy—it was aware. Like the space itself was waiting.
In his hands, he clutched the sketchbook. It no longer felt like paper and ink.
It pulsed.It guided.It called to something that wasn't lost—just hidden.
Behind him, villagers stood silently, their expressions confused, reverent, even fearful. None of them knew why they had followed Ilan here, or why their dreams had shifted in the past nights, all whispering the same name:
Erik.
The boy turned to them and spoke without raising his voice.
"This gate is a memory," he said. "But it's trying to become something more."
No one moved.
So Ilan stepped forward.
The moment his toe crossed the misty threshold, the gate reacted—not with rejection, but recognition.
Light spread outward in thin rings, like ripples on still water. The gate began to open, not with a creak or clash, but with a sigh.
And beyond it was not a hall, not a throne, not ruins—
But a field.
Golden. Endless. Familiar.
Erik's field.
Erik watched the gate open from where he sat beneath the great willow tree.
His hands were dusted with soil—he'd been planting again.
Not swords.
Not seeds of war.
Just flowers.
He smiled when he saw the boy step through the veil.
"You came."
Ilan nodded slowly. "Was I supposed to?"
"No," Erik said. "That's what makes it beautiful."
The boy walked up, eyes scanning the peaceful world.
"This place… it's not a dream, is it?"
"No," Erik said. "But it began as one."
He set the last flower in place and leaned back against the tree.
"I thought I gave it all up," he murmured. "The glyphs. The throne. The soul inside me. Even my name. But something held on."
Ilan's voice was soft. "What?"
Erik looked up at the sky, where stars were just beginning to blink awake.
"Hope."
The boy smiled. "That's what you left us."
"No," Erik said, glancing at him. "You brought it back."
Ilan reached into his sketchbook and flipped to the newest page. On it was a fresh drawing: Erik sitting beneath the tree. The same smile. The same sky. But behind him, barely visible in the sketch, stood shadowy figures.
Fragments.
Echoes.
Other versions of Erik.
"Why do I keep drawing them?" Ilan asked.
"Because they're not gone," Erik said. "They're sleeping. Waiting."
"For what?"
"For someone to believe their story still matters."
Ilan turned the page.
Now, it showed a city. One that didn't exist in his world yet—towers made of memory, bridges of light, people walking with peace in their eyes and no weapons on their backs.
A world that hadn't been written.
Yet.
"You're dreaming a new story," Erik said. "But the question is—do you want to write it?"
Ilan looked up. "Can I?"
"Dreams shape the next world," Erik whispered. "The Architects wrote laws, the gods enforced them, the devils bent them. But the Lockbreaker…"
He paused.
"…he made space for new dreamers."
Behind the gate, the mist thickened again.
But this time, instead of closing, it formed another doorway.
Smaller.
Younger.
Unfinished.
Ilan turned to it.
On its surface were dozens of sketches and symbols—some from his book, some he hadn't drawn yet.
Erik stood beside him.
"This door leads forward," he said. "Not back."
"What's on the other side?"
"A world that doesn't remember what came before—but still carries its lessons."
The boy hesitated. "Will I remember you?"
Erik crouched beside him. "Not everything. But enough."
He placed a hand on Ilan's shoulder, and for the briefest moment, a glow passed between them—like the echo of a torch being handed down.
"You'll forget my name," Erik said. "But you'll become the reason others remember it."
The villagers waited outside the gate as the boy turned and walked through the new door.
It shimmered.
Flickered.
Then vanished.
Gone.
But not lost.
The gate behind them folded inward once more—its purpose fulfilled.
And Erik?
He sat beneath the willow again, watching stars blink brighter with every heartbeat.
In the soil, the flowers he'd planted began to bloom in patterns—glyphs without language, meanings without shape.
Signs of what was still to come.
In a future not yet written…
A child stood in a marketplace filled with machines powered by light and thought.
He paused, eyes fixed on a mural painted on the wall.
A man beneath a tree.
No name.
Just a title.
"The One Who Made Space for Us."
The child turned to his father. "Was he real?"
His father smiled.
"No one knows."
The boy looked again.
And for some reason…
He smiled too.
Because somewhere deep in his chest, a quiet truth stirred.
Not from history.
Not from myth.
But from a dream that had never stopped breathing.