Chapter 14: The War Inside His Mind

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Scene 1: The First Nightmare.

The first thing I notice is the warmth.

It is soft, wrapping around me like an old memory—familiar, safe. The scent of fresh bread lingers in the air, mingling with something sweeter. Cinnamon. The faint creak of the floorboards as I shift my weight brings back echoes of another life, a time when things were simpler, untouched by war, by death.

I am home.

The realization settles in gently, like a whisper rather than a jolt. The walls are bathed in golden light, the evening sun pouring through the window, painting long shadows across the wooden floor. A table stands in the center of the room, the same as I remember, worn but sturdy.

And then I see her.

She stands in the doorway, her posture poised, hands folded in front of her as if waiting for something.

My mother.

A rush of emotion swells inside me, threatening to undo me. It has been so long since I last saw her—too long. My breath catches, but when I try to move toward her, hesitation claws at the edges of my mind. Something is wrong.

Her face.

It is blurred.

Not shadowed, not hidden by distance—just… wrong. As if someone smeared the details away, leaving only the outline of a woman who should be familiar. The warmth in my chest turns cold.

I know this place.

I know this feeling.

But this is not real.

A flicker. A shift.

The world jerks, and suddenly, I am somewhere else.

Cold. Silent. Unforgiving.

A long corridor stretches before me, lined with steel walls that hum with an artificial presence. The air is stale, lifeless, and in my hand—

A gun.

My breath hitches.

I know this place, too.

I know what happens next.

I try to drop the weapon, but my fingers remain locked around the grip, unmoving. The weight of it is real, heavier than it should be, pulling me into the inevitable.

Before me, a figure kneels.

Bound. Helpless.

Solomon.

The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp exhale. No. No, this isn’t right. I remember this moment—but not like this. Solomon was executed. He was taken from me.

I did not kill him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But my hand moves on its own, the barrel of the gun rising, locking into place.

My finger tightens around the trigger.

No—

The shot rings out, sharp and final. Blood splashes across the cold steel floor. Solomon crumples, his body folding unnaturally as he collapses.

A hollow scream builds in my chest, but it never escapes.

The world flickers.

I am back in the corridor.

The gun is in my hand.

Solomon kneels before me.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The shot echoes, over and over, an endless loop that I cannot break.

Each time, my hand moves faster. The hesitation fades.

My mind whispers, turning against me.

What if I was never the rebel?

What if I was always loyal?

The thought sinks in, deeper than the bullets tearing through my past.

The world shatters.

Darkness swallows me whole.

A voice drifts through the void, soft, insidious.

“You’ve always belonged to The Order.”

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Scene 2: The Master’s Voice.

Silence.

A breathless, suffocating void.

The nightmare lingers, a phantom pain in the recesses of my mind. The weight of the gun, the recoil of the shot, the cold finality of Solomon’s body hitting the ground—it is still there, coiled in my thoughts, waiting to strike again.

But it is not real.

Is it?

I try to hold onto something—some fragment of reality that feels solid, but my memories shift like sand slipping through my fingers. I can’t tell where the nightmare ends and I begin.

Then I hear it.

Not a sound. Not an echo.

A presence.

Deep. Inescapable. A weight pressing down, not from above, but from inside.

The voice does not come from the world around me.

It comes from within.

"Your suffering is irrelevant."

The words do not lash out or strike. They do not carry anger or cruelty. They are simply… fact. Cold, absolute, inhuman.

I recoil.

Except I do not move.

I try to shut it out, but it does not leave.

The voice does not wait for permission to exist. It simply is.

"You exist to serve."

The weight tightens around my thoughts, coiling like iron bands, squeezing against my mind with a slow, methodical certainty.

I try to push back, to think against it, to fight.

But the presence is unyielding.

It does not argue. It does not threaten.

It only states what it knows to be true.

"You are One."

No.

I am Lucian Graves.

I try to summon the thought like a shield, force it into existence, but the words stick in my mind, heavy and wrong.

The name—my name—does not feel as sharp as it once did.

Something inside me shifts.

An obedience that is not mine.

A submission that feels foreign.

But it is creeping closer.

I grit my teeth, trying to hold onto something, anything that is still me.

The voice does not shout. It does not demand.

It only waits.

It is patient.

Because it knows.

Because it is already inside me.

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Scene 3: The Last Thought of Lucian Graves.

I try to think.

I try to remember.

But the thoughts are fading.

They slip away like whispers in a storm, blurred at the edges, unraveling thread by thread. What was I thinking about? The harder I reach, the faster they scatter, dissolving into the void that stretches endlessly around me.

I am still here.

But I am not alone.

The presence lingers, constant, unwavering. It does not intrude, does not force its will upon me.

It simply waits.

And that is what terrifies me the most.

I feel it—something foreign creeping into my mind, slow, insidious. A whisper that is not mine.

Obey.

The word slithers through me, subtle at first, a flicker of something unfamiliar. Then it grows. Expands. Like a seed taking root, pushing deeper, feeding off the silence.

I try to resist, but my thoughts are dulling. My past, my name, my rebellion—it all feels distant, like a dream that never belonged to me.

I know I should fight.

But the urgency is fading.

A quiet certainty settles over me, smooth, effortless.

This is easier, isn’t it?

A part of me recoils. No. No, I am Lucian Graves.

The words come slower now, thick, heavy. My own name sounds unfamiliar, as if I am speaking someone else’s history.

I grasp for a memory—something to hold onto before it is too late.

The scent of cinnamon. My mother’s voice.

Solomon’s blood on cold steel.

The shot.

The whisper.

You’ve always belonged to The Order.

The truth lodges itself inside me, a cold weight pressing deeper into my thoughts.

I try to push it out, but there is nowhere to push.

I am drowning in myself.

"You are One."

The voice does not command.

It does not need to.

Because it already knows.

I try to scream.

But the last thought of Lucian Graves is swallowed by silence.

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