Greece. I am in… Greece? I blink, trying to focus, but the world around me doesn’t make sense. I stand in the shadow of towering cathedrals, thirty stories high at least, each one intricately carved with figures both real and mythic. The air tastes bitter, heavy with sulfur, and something far worse I can’t name. I reach instinctively for my shirt and pull it up to cover my mouth, the fabric sticking to my skin.
Some of these structures are beautiful in their grandeur, others are shattered remnants, crumbling like forgotten dreams. There’s a weight here, like the ruins themselves are holding their breath, waiting for something. I turn around, and there’s Thorn, standing close enough that I can feel the heat of his presence, yet far enough away to make me feel small. Unlike the luxurious clothes he was wearing in my dream, he is wearing what I assume used to be a white tunic, torn in multiple places and blood and ash all over him. He is filthy, and I’m sure I look the same. His gaze is fixed on me, solemn and unreadable, as if he’s waiting for some kind of acknowledgment, like he knows something I don't, and it's tearing him apart. My head spins.
The sky above is pitch black, but the sun is there, low and sickly, casting an eerie orange glow that stains the sky like fire in the ashes. The orange light doesn't feel right. It feels like decay, as if the sun itself is rotting. Along with the scent of sulfur, there’s a hint of something else. Death. The air reeks of death. My hands tremble as I look down at myself and instinctively wipe at the blood on my clothes I can't remember spilling. Who’s blood? I don’t want to know.
"Remember this place?" Thorn’s voice breaks through my thoughts. His words hit me like a cold gust of wind. I don’t know why they feel like a challenge, but they do. I take a deep breath, steadying myself, but my heart is racing. The ground beneath my feet is cracked and uneven, scattered with broken statues and debris. Some half-buried, some shattered like discarded toys. It’s as if the world itself is dying here. I shake my head, trying to clear the fog from my mind.
"No. Where are we?" He steps closer, his boots scraping the cracked stone as he moves. “This is reality, Athena." He says my name like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I look around again, my eyes darting from one ruined cathedral to the next. "No," I whisper under my breath. "This can't be real..."
“Everything you see,” Thorn continues, his voice dropping, “the ruined sky, the broken city... this is your doing. You’ve been living in an alternate reality for the last three years because of something you’ve done, and because of your disappearance, the world as we know it is decaying.” I blink. He mentioned that in my dream. All of this has to be one huge dream in a dream situation. I glance down at my hands, the dirt smeared across my skin, the matching scars on my palms. I feel sick. I feel so lost. My body feels foreign, like I don’t belong in it anymore. I look at my torn, bloody clothes and breathe in the smell of death that clings to me. I try to deny it, but it feels like it should be familiar. I open my mouth to speak, but my words catch in my throat. This can't be real. This can't be real.
“Thorn… “ My voice shakes, “What is going on?” I’m shaking now, my teeth chattering despite the oppressive heat around me. The pain in my head is so intense I can barely focus. The world feels like it’s closing in. “You have to stay calm,” he urges, moving closer with that same unsettling calmness. “Just listen to me. You’ve caused all of this, Athena. You. The destruction. The sky. This is real. But like I said, I will help you remember all of this and bring you back.” I step back, my knees threatening to buckle beneath me. No, this doesn’t make sense. No matter how many times he repeats how this is real, I can’t accept it.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to find some grounding, trying to hold on to something familiar. I think of my mother, her soft humming, her hands running through my hair. But that memory is slipping away from me, like sand through my fingers. “Who am I?” I whisper, my voice trembling with the weight of my own thoughts. "What am I?" Thorn’s expression softens, but it doesn’t bring me comfort. His eyes hold something that feels almost like pity, but worse. He looks as though he knows the answer to something I’ll never understand. He steps closer and raises a hand as if to touch my face, but I abruptly step back. “What are you doing?” I demand, my voice rising. “Sorry,” he murmurs, his tone apologetic but distant. “Old habit.” I don’t understand, but I’m too exhausted to ask.
Instead, I walk toward one of the intact cathedrals. Its stone pillars rise sharply into the air, the intricate carvings above the door framing a vision of gods and monsters frozen in time. As I approach the entrance, My gaze lingers on the words etched into the cold stone: Temple of Athena. It hits me like a blow to the chest. I step back, eyes wide with disbelief. This has to be a coincidence. Right? My mind is racing again, that old fear creeping up from the corners of my thoughts.
My mother used to tell me stories like this. Legends about gods, about an ending, a reckoning. A final battle where only one god would remain standing. The last one standing. Only she would be worshiped, only she would be remembered. Just like the book from earlier. I start to speak, but no words escape my mouth. I simply retrieve them from my memory and recite them in my mind.
There will come a time in her life when she loses control. The demon inside her will rise, consuming her mind, her soul. She will show no mercy, no compassion, only destruction. She will become the storm that tears everything apart. And once it's unleashed, nothing and no one will survive the desolation. The words feel so foreign, but somehow right, like they’ve always been there.
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Thorn’s expression falters as he turns to me. “Athena, what was that?” As if I had said those words aloud. I look at him, confused. “It’s... a story my birth mother told me. A fairytale, I think. The same one from the book you gave me in my dream.” But even as I say it, I know it’s not just a story. It’s more than that. “Did you not know that that’s what it said?”Thorn is quiet for a moment before he pulls a piece of cloth from his pocket and gently wipes my hands, his touch surprisingly tender as he responds, “I assumed it was something like that, but you were the only one that could read it.” I have no words to respond with. His touch is light, as if I might break beneath his hands.
“Sorry,” he murmurs again as I wince, his voice softer now. “I know you don’t think you know me, but I’m just trying to help you.” He still seems taken aback by what I said aloud, even thought I’m sure I repeated it in my mind. I don’t know what to say. How can I trust him? How can I trust any of this? He finishes wiping my hands, then grips them tightly, almost painfully. "Athena, I need you to come with me. But you can’t ask any questions right now. You have to trust me." I stare at him, my heart racing, my mind scrambling to process everything, but I nod anyway. There’s no other choice.
As we walk through the ruins, the ground beneath my feet cracks and crumbles with every step. The world is somewhat familiar, and that makes it all the more unsettling. It feels wrong here, like I shouldn’t be part of it, yet deep down I know I belong here. We reach a field, and I feel the crunch of the scorched earth beneath my bare feet. The smell of burned grass and fire lingers in the air. The air feels thin. The sky above is bruised with that same decaying orange hue.
Suddenly, a sound rattles my brain: screeching, distant and haunting. My body goes cold, but Thorn doesn’t react. He keeps walking, pulling me forward, as though the world around us is normal to him. When we finally reach the shore of the lake, I feel a strange sense of relief. The water is pure, glowing with an unnatural white light. It’s so stark against the black sky above it. I stop a few feet from the shore, noticing that the rocks beneath my feet are pale blue. It’s colder here, the chill sinking into my skin. My feet are bare, but I don’t feel the cold.
There’s only the strange hum in the air, like static before a storm. My eyes meet Thorn’s, and for the first time since I saw him in my dream, I take in his features: dark, wavy hair, ocean blue eyes, and a dark red tattoo, harsh lines that cover his neck. The more I look at him, the more familiar he begins to feel, but I realize I’ve been staring at him too long. His eyebrows are raised at me as I slowly turn my gaze back down to the water, ignoring the fact that I was admiring him.
“Is that seaweed?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the awkward tension. I focus on the strange glowing threads in the water, noticing it isn’t the lake itself that is glowing, but the threads in the water producing their own light. “No,” Thorn answers, his voice distant. “Those are memories.” I stare at the lake, trying to wrap my head around it. But nothing makes sense. Not the sky. Not the water. And especially not Thorn.
“This lake,” Thorn says softly, “is infinite. Every memory ever made is here.” I take a step closer, compelled. But Thorn places a hand on my arm, stopping me. His fingers are firm, his eyes dark with a warning I can’t quite read. “You can’t touch it,” he says. “Not yet.” I feel the sting of rejection, like an unanswered plea. But it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I feel... empty. I stare at the lake, trying to process Thorn's cryptic words. Memories? In the water? The idea feels impossible, yet… I can’t shake the feeling that I’m in a place where nothing makes sense anymore.
“Memories…” I repeat softly, my voice thick with disbelief. “How can all memories be in there? How does something like that even exist?” Thorn watches the lake, his gaze distant, as though he's seeing something far beyond its surface. The eerie glow of the water seems to pulse with an otherworldly rhythm. “Every memory that has ever existed is here,” He repeats, “From the first breath of life to the last dying thought of every being, it's all woven into the threads in that water.” I feel a shiver crawl up my spine. “That’s impossible,” I whisper. I take a step closer.
"But if... if every memory is here, why won’t you let me see my own to spare me the pain of not remembering who I truly am. I turn to him, desperate for answers. Something in me wants to believe it’s a dream. A nightmare. But the weight of it all feels too heavy. Too real. His expression tightens at my question, and his jaw clenches. He’s holding something back, but he’s not ready to tell me. Not yet. I can see it in his eyes. I wait for him to speak, but the silence hangs between us like a thick fog. Finally, his voice breaks through, low and heavy.
“You’ve lost almost all of your memories, Athena. And the ones that you have? You created them for yourself. None of it was ever real.” I take a step back, my head swimming. “What do you mean? I have a life. I have memories…” I remember going to NYU. My scholarship at Harvard. Adopting Zeus. I know these things. I remember them. He takes a long breath, as though he’s gathering the strength to say something he’s been dreading. “You think those memories are real because they feel real. You created them to be that way, but that’s not the full picture.” He looks at me, his blue eyes a storm of conflicting emotions: regret, sadness, but also something darker, more intense.
“You’ve been living in a lie for the last three years, Athena. There was a tragic incident that caused you to give up on yourself and your life here, so you created a new life for yourself. None of it is real.” I shake my head violently, feeling the ground shift beneath me. "What are you talking about? My whole life, my whole identity, it's all fake?" The words feel wrong, coming out of my mouth. I’ve always known who I was. Haven’t I?
The more I think about it, the more I realize my memories are distant, foggy. Some are vivid, but those of my adoptive parents? I can’t seem to picture their faces. I have no memories of friends or graduating college, it’s all a blur. “It’s time for you to remember who you really are.” Thorn’s gaze burns into my eyes as he says those words. I’m just now realizing that my life is a lie, and now I’m supposed to accept my real identity?
His words feel like an anchor, dragging me deeper into a pit I’m terrified to fall into. “No. No, no, no,” I mutter, stumbling back toward the water's edge. The shimmering threads in the lake seem to pulse with my panic. "You’re not the person you think you are, Athena." He steps forward, his voice growing more intense. “I need you to snap out of it, Athena.” He says with an anger I have yet to experience from him. Without further warning, he shatters my mind by saying, “You’re a god killer, Selene.” My breathing stops, my heart slows, and my mind swirls with emotions. Those words bring my back to a sense of reality. “You’re a god killer.”