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Eyes alight, his hands wove a pattern of death; his wife was the reaper, and the people her harvest. Cogs shredded the night air, sparing no one. He hunted them all until the last cry faded into the wind. As the final soul stilled, the fire in Kru’s eyes flickered out, leaving only a cold darkness.

Kru, son of Apto, forced his eyes open with trembling palms. The darkness was total, a force against his sight. He clutched his skull, nursing a rhythmic, violent throb. He reached out to steady himself, but the world dissolved. His stomach surged into his throat—a sickening heartbeat of freefall.

Pain lanced his shoulder, scratches rending his face as he hit the floor, bounced and rolled. He slammed flat on his back, his skull snapping on the ground, that headache now surging front to back. A splash of water, a biting cold in his hand. He desired to move, but the will to do so was gone.

His eyes were open, but he could not see. Lying on the ground, one hand tested the water, feeling its cold surface as it gave way to the stony floor. His other hand explored cracks in the earth. Their grit, their jagged bite. He giggled, then he laughed, for he knew this place. Home. Cell number 9.

He crawled the cell, checking, he had to be sure. This was the real world, not another construct of Jur. Satisfied, he lay against a wall and smiled, for a thought had slipped his mind. His magic had returned. No longer was he confined; no longer would he endure the darkness. He let his mind bloom.

The darkness would not subside. Kru’s hands shook, teeth clenched so hard blood seeped from his gums. Eyes darting from hand to hand. Slamming them together, again onto the ground. He pushed violently—but the magic would not ignite. He shrieked into the void, and the darkness answered with laughter.

“Ava?” Kru croaked the words. “Is that you?” “No! Not Ava.” The darkness hissed back. Kru shook his head, digging his fingers into his brow, trying to focus his mind. Not Ava… but “Aza?” Laughter boomed through the cell, Kru clutched his ears curling up—the sound shaking his soul. “Foolish man.”

Images flashed like lightning in his mind. Magic with a best friend; a friend turned lifelong love. Then the tower—Ava’s face, no, Aza. A flash to the square: people dying by his hand, no, his wife’s. The same face repeating. His love, his equal, his wife… “Ana.” Around him the darkness laughed.

Kru sat up and drank. The water was metallic, bitter. Starving, yet too broken to even search for the bread. “If you are Ana, why do you torture me? Your illusion was guile. I saw through it. That’s not how it happened.” He whispered, knowing that it was a lie. The darkness answered with silence.

His mind was void, and his body followed, wasting away. Hunger had been ‌constant for so long that it dulled into oblivion. The darkness hammered at him—crushing him, shattering his will, unmaking his soul. He wanted only to save his people from the evils they could not comprehend—and he had failed.

He would have screamed, but lacked the strength. He longed for the final silent god, willed himself toward them—and failed. Instead, Kru waited, lost in darkness, for misery to consume him. A clunk at the door and a soft pat; it brushed against his fingers. Forgotten hope returned to Kru as bread.

The bread came like clockwork—Kru was sure. The chute clunked. A pat as the loaf hit the floor. Mere pittance to sustain him, but it was a wonder! Dough, a bit of greens, and a ghost of meat. He screamed at the guard; no answer ever returned. He loathed his own weakness. Never again. Never again.

He sat, ate, and pondered. This was surely just another of Jur’s tests, a puzzle he would master like all the rest. Unseen shadows stirred in the dark—wrapping, pressing, and driving him forward. Their whispers escaped his ears but reached his soul: “Your time will come.” They laughed and laughed.

The shadows whispering to his soul surged, expanding, clawing past his sanity to assault his mind. “Why do you haunt me? Release my bindings. I can still save us. Jur will kill us.” Kru shouted, his words rising. "Return my magic!" “Fool,” the dark spat back. “Nothing blocks you. Save yourself!”

The darkness yielded no secrets. Kru paced, stamping his feet and hammering the walls. He scoured every inch—again. Nothing. "Enough! Help me!" "Oh, Kru the mighty," whispers stung his ears. "The intellect. The willpower. The fool. For all your might, did you ever think to simply try the door?"

He stood there, fingers hovering a hair's breadth from the door. No handle on this side, nothing for him to grab. A push was all it would take. Everything he needed—everything he wanted—was right here. Without his magic, it was nothing. Reclaim it and come back. Simple. Yet his feet remained rooted.

He stared at the door in the dark—time lost all meaning. No sound of guards or food dropping. He strained his eyes, hoping to see—it wasn’t necessary. He knew every seam and crack, where the grain was smooth and where it was rough. Minutes or days might have passed before Kru finally pushed forward.

A deep creak that rattled his ears. A light that started like a flame and then blinded him like the sun grew before him. Tentative steps pushed him forward, hands shielding his face, eyes peeking out between his fingers. The light faded, and shadows formed into shapes. He didn't recognize any of it.

He remembered dim halls and cold, dingy stone. The staircase was gone. In its place: marbled floors and whitewashed walls, 40 feet wide and 100 feet high. No torches remained, yet the space pulsed with its own pale interior light. “More illusion,” he mumbled. “More reality,” a whisper shot back.

No doors. No windows. Only the endless, repeating veins of marble. Kru drifted through the halls like a ghost. He stopped occasionally, glancing back at the path—stark, curveless, and devoid of escape. A never ending void. Counting steps weighed on his soul. He abandoned the tally. Kru walked on.

Step after step, he forged ahead. The vague speck at the horizon remained fixed, unmoving in its resolve. He walked, rested, and pushed on again, measuring time by the ache in his legs rather than the tick of a clock. Gradually, the blur sharpened; its edges coalesced to reveal not a man, but a boy.

Kru stopped mere paces away, yet the boy didn’t look up. White, loose sleeves and faded brown pants cut at the shin shifted as he moved, a cord at his waist. His focus solely on a coin—snapped into the air, caught, and slapped against his hand. A silent shake of the head, and the cycle began again.

Kru cleared his throat, but the boy—perhaps ten years old—remained oblivious to the attempt. Kru called out, his voice coarse from long disuse, “Can you help me?” The boy caught his coin and stopped. He tilted his head, a shine in his eye, a smile on his lips. “Well, it’s about time you got here.”