Kael sat by the campfire, his knees drawn up to his chest, staring into the flames as they flickered and crackled. The night was heavy, the air thick with tension. His body felt restless, as though his very skin was stretched too thin. He hadn’t been able to sleep, not truly. His mind kept spiraling back to the vision, to the fire he could summon with a mere thought, and to the reflection—his darker self—who had mocked him and taunted him with the truth he wasn’t ready to face.
Siris lay nearby, pretending to sleep, though Kael knew better. His friend’s eyes were always open when Kael’s back was turned. Siris had grown quiet, distant in the past few days, her usual encouragement replaced by unspoken worry. It was like the bond they once shared had started to fray, and Kael didn’t know how to repair it. He didn’t know if he could anymore.
His fingers twitched involuntarily, and he looked down to find them glowing faintly with a pale, fiery light. His stomach tightened. Was this the power of the fire inside him? Was he starting to lose control?
A voice whispered in the back of his mind, a voice he could never escape, no matter how hard he tried to drown it out. You can’t hide from who you are.
Kael squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the thoughts away. But they didn’t leave. They never left.
Suddenly, a sharp crack broke through the stillness of the night. Kael’s heart lurched, and he jumped to his feet, ready to defend himself, only to find nothing but the dimming embers of the fire and the shadows of trees swaying in the wind. Siris stirred beside him, but he didn’t speak. The moment felt wrong—unnervingly so.
The ground beneath Kael’s feet shifted. It wasn’t a tremor or a natural movement; it felt deliberate, as though the very earth was responding to something. He took a step back, but before he could move further, a ripple of energy spread through the air around him, distorting the space. The world seemed to bend, warping like a reflection in water.
In a flash, Kael’s vision blurred, and suddenly, he was no longer standing by the campfire. The landscape around him had completely transformed. The once quiet forest was now a vast, ruined battlefield, littered with the corpses of warriors dressed in ornate armor, their faces frozen in grimaces of death. The air was thick with the stench of smoke, and the sky above was darkened, streaked with flashes of violent, uncontrolled lightning.
Kael’s heart raced. He turned in a circle, confused and disoriented. “What is this?!” he gasped, but his voice echoed strangely, as though the very fabric of reality was distorting around him.
“Kael!” a familiar voice called.
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He spun to see Siris, but something was wrong. Siris wasn’t looking at him with the same concern she had before. Instead, Siris’s eyes were filled with an intensity Kael hadn’t seen before, as if the other woman knew something Kael didn’t.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Siris said, her tone heavy with finality.
Kael’s chest tightened as he took a step forward. “What’s going on? Where are we?”
Siris didn’t answer. Instead, her gaze turned to the horizon, where a massive rift in the sky opened, a shimmering portal that seemed to bend time itself. From it, figures began to emerge—warriors, but not like any Kael had ever seen. They wore armor forged of strange, gleaming materials, and their eyes glowed with an eerie, unnatural light.
Kael’s breath caught in his throat. “Who are they?”
“They’re from a different time,” Siris said, her voice grim. “A time you’re not supposed to know.”
Before Kael could ask more, the air around him shimmered again, and this time, the world didn’t bend. It cracked.
The sky fractured like glass, and a jagged tear opened in the fabric of time. A vision—no, a memory—flooded his mind. He saw himself, standing before the ruined Crystal of Time, the same one that had shattered to cause all this chaos. But in this vision, Kael was different. He wasn’t a confused, uncertain young man anymore. His eyes were filled with cold purpose, and in his hands, the very flames he had struggled to control burned bright, consuming everything around him.
“You did this,” Siris’s voice came from behind him, but it was not the voice Kael remembered. It was a harsh, accusing tone. “You destroyed everything.”
Kael spun around, his heart slamming in his chest. Siris was standing there, but her appearance was distorted—her face twisted with grief and rage.
“No,” Kael said, backing away. “This isn’t real. It can’t be.”
But the vision didn’t stop. The future Kael—this version of himself—was wielding the fire without hesitation, burning everything in his path, and Siris was fighting against him, desperately trying to stop him. The sight of it made Kael’s heart shatter. Was this what he was becoming?
“Kael,” Siris said again, but his voice wasn’t accusatory now. It was full of desperation. “You don’t have to go down this path. You can fight it. You can fight him.”
The vision shifted again, and Kael found himself standing alone, surrounded by the burning ruins of a destroyed world. The fire he had once wielded now raged out of control, scorching everything in its path, and Kael realized with horror that he was the one who had set it all aflame.
He woke with a gasp, his chest heaving, the taste of smoke still lingering in his mouth. The campfire crackled softly beside him, and Siris was still asleep, lying on the ground a few feet away. The quiet of the night had returned, but Kael’s mind was racing, his thoughts spiraling. Had that really been a vision? Or had he somehow glimpsed the future?
His hands shook as he looked down at them. No fire. No heat. Only cold. But the memory of the flames lingered, burning brightly in his mind.
He was terrified. Terrified of the power within him, terrified of what he might become. And most of all, terrified of what he might have already set into motion.