Suddenly, I found myself in a pure white void, empty and limitless. It didn’t take me long to realize that this wasn’t real at all for my hand. My arms were still there attached to my body.

This must be a dream, one in my head.

Besides that, there was a sense of unrealism attached to this world, like in a dream. To be honest, all this world felt so wobbly that I felt that a simple sudden movement would be able to shatter it apart.

And I in a way, for my own reason, was quite afraid of that. As such, I stood completely still in fear of accidentally shattering it.

"Hello there." A familiar voice greeted me.

A human silhouette appeared in front of me. There was no color to it, just that, a silhouette.

"..."

"… What? Do you not recognize me like this? Well, I must admit that after that day, you never imagined me in a human silhouette, only in monster’s. It’s me Han, your old and loyal companion."

"..."

"Why so silent?"

"What is this place?"

"Oh, good question. This... this place is, let’s say, this… that it, this place is my house, my home. Beautiful, isn’t it? "

"I'm not sure if beautiful would be the right word to describe this, but I guess yes."

"You don’t seem very convinced. Maybe a change of scenery would change your opinion. "

With a snap of the finger, the pure white void shifted into what I would describe as the perfect depiction of what anyone would imagine Eden to be like.

"Oups, that’s not it." With yet another snap, the scenery shifted. "Now that’s what I’m talking about."

The scenery changed from a verdant garden to a large room illuminated by the radiance of the chandelier attached to the ceiling.

This room…

"Ringing a bell, isn’t it?"

Something in particular caught my attention.

A cradle. Or two, to be exact, two cradles.

I approached them, and soon noticed that both were empty.

Why did I do that, I don’t know, but the next thing I did was approach one of the cradles on the left and knelt, lowering myself to the level of where a baby would be within the cradle. On the ceiling, just like that day, I saw that same scenery, shadows dancing on the ceiling, and then the ghastly figure of a woman appeared, looking from above something within the cradle.

She neither noticed me nor felt my presence.

This was only a mere illusion.

Then a scene unfolded in front of me.

It happened when all I did was witness the event, I was a mere witness to what was unfolding.

"Why are we doing this?"

"I guess this wasn’t enough." with a snap of the finger.

The scenery once again shifted.

This time we were in the same, standing beside a bed, on which a woman, visibly the same as the previous one, was taking care of a sickly child.

Again, fingers snapped.

Once again, the scenery shifted.

This time, we were no longer in the same room. We were indeed in a room, but this one was different, classier, and wider. I saw in front of me, was once again the ghastly figure of three people.

A child, and two men.

The said child was kneeling on the ground once again, clearly gasping heavily for air.

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Once again, fingers snapped and the scenery changed.

This time the scenery had nothing in common with the previous one.

This one was more chaotic. It displayed a group of clearly old people against a child, and at its side, a figure very different from the others, yet somehow familiar as it resembled the one of the man from the previous scenery.

Their battle raged, and as it went on, I felt my heart churning in pain.

It was as if it was about to burst open.

I even closed my eyes, and even that didn’t seem to have changed things a bit, for that scenery somehow continued to unfold on.

"I guess this should be enough."

With a snap, we returned to our void-like world.

"Why are we doing this?"

"I don’t, I sincerely don’t. But if I were to give one, it would be to be honest with you. "

"To be honest with me?"

"Yes, no lying anymore between us. Only the truth, no matter how painful it may be.So do you want to see the next and last sequences of scenes? "

It took me a short moment of indecision, but I eventually accepted.

"I do."

"Perfect."

With a snap, we shifted into a foggy, blue crystalline. My first reaction was to think that this place was completely foreign to me, but what happened next reminded me that yes, this place was indeed familiar.

With a sudden push on the back, I was tossed into the depths of an almost bottomless abyss.

The Frozen Hell.

This was familiar, for this had really happened once.

I even remember what I thought and felt back then.

I saw what happened that day, and how I was saved from the fall that was about to get fatal for me that day.

It was not all. Memories of everything that happened thereafter till today came back to.

Scenery, the equivalent of five years' worth of memories, came flooding back to my head.

The giant turtle.

The siblings.

Heon’s meeting.

Kiady and Aurora

The Giant Bear

The cryptid snake

Solomon and finally, Nia.

Things were just as they all should’ve been. Yet there were two details that made them seem out of place.

One, those memories weren’t seen through my perspective, but rather Han's.

One person was missing from those memories.

Or to be exact, it was simply never there, in the first place.

"Did it finally get clearer for you now? In all those years, I’ve been lying to you, and you too have been lying to yourself. In the end, all we did for five years together was to lie to ourselves.

"You did ask me, what were we here for? This is why we’re here. The truth, you’ve seen it, those memories, haven't you? "

"Those aren’t mine! "

"Exactly, those aren’t yours, for they were seen through my perspective. Yet they were yours, for they were seen through your eyes. Eyes that you’ve set yourself to keep closed for you. "

At the hearing of these words, I snapped out of the dream.

"I know, of course I know. Hon, we need to-"

"Shut up!"

"You’ve seen it, haven't you? You already know it. But the fact remains that you must hear it from me."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!."

"Open your eyes, Hon, open them."

"I SAID, SHUT UP! AAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!"

"OPEN THEM!"

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! N-"

Rambling over and over for that nightmare to end, a pitiful sound snapped me back to reality.

Opening my eyes, for the first time, I saw again after a long time.

Years have gone by, since I last saw anything, yet the first thing I saw was the only thing I didn’t wish to see at all.

"I'm so sorry, Heon; this is entirely my fault."

"For all the suffering you now endure."

We both cried as the last spark of life left her.

Just like that, I lost the first real semblance of company I managed to find in all those years in those woods.

All gone because of me.

All of this, for an illusion.

There was never a Han or a Hon.

There was only me, my delusions, my magic, and me once more.

Han and Hon were the same person, they were us.

"This might be our fault, but we were all alone. For half a year, we waited. No-one, no help came for us. We were only a child, and somewhere, what we really wanted was someone to come for help, but that never came, so to find company, the identity of Hon and Han was our only escape boat from loneliness and disappointment. No one comes from us, no help, no friendly mysterious creature coming for help. Those scenarios only happen in stories. There were only us, and no one else. "

"By continuing to lie to ourselves like we did for years, maybe we pushed things too far, and didn’t know when and where to stop. All we wanted was safety, not strength or power.This is not worth it anymore. "

Not so far away, maybe a couple of hundred meters away, a loud drum-like sound reverberated..

Glancing up toward the source of the sound, I saw the Primordial Dragon Amira descending toward the ground, from the sky upon a nearby mountain, with its immense fiery wings, looking like an angel of death, dragging the heavens with her.

At this sight, I really wondered at what moment we fought that we had a chance to beat this thing?

"Our journey, this madness of a journey we embarked on, met its end today. But before it ends, we, as Han and Hon, have a last duty to accomplish. So stand up."

With the meager force I had left, I stood up.

Past this point, I didn’t know if it was me who made myself stand or him.

It was like I was doing everything halfly.

Then suddenly, just like that night, a burst of smoke completely engulfed the area.

Suddenly, from Heon’s lifeless body, a foggy but pure white substance emerged, along with two other shades, black and red.

They spiraled on me, before completely disappearing.

A strange feeling that I wouldn’t know how to explain evaded my heart. It was both heart-tugging and calming.

As it all happened, the primordial beast suddenly reacted, uttering yet another earth shattering roar. It prepared itself to unleash yet another breath attack.

"Today, it is given to us the chance we were not given that night. Today, there are only the two of us and the dragon.No matter how expensive the price may be, may it be death, but this time let’s end this properly. "

"And once it is done, we shall journey together, not as Han and Hon, but as our true self, Ronandt, once more."

The dragon fired a powerful breath straight at us from a distance.

"Heon, it has been a pleasure to meet you in this life, and may we meet again in the next, but before we part ways, let us enjoy our last ride together."

The next instant, it was Heon’s body that completely disappeared in a burst of light.