“Here, Severen does not exist. Salvatore does not exist. Amara does not exist. Here, there is only what you have always longed for—Peace. Safety. Family. Stay, and this will be your eternity.”
The vision shimmered, rich and whole.
I saw myself older now—seated at a worn wooden table, laughter rising around me. Brothers and sisters leaning close, a mother smiling, unbroken, alive.
Bread passed from hand to hand.
A life untouched by cruelty.
There was no hunger here. No mockery. No pain.
Only warmth. Only belonging.
And gods, I wanted it.
The ache tore through me—deep, primal, endless.
I wanted to fall into it. To let it swallow me whole. To forget the pit, forget the cold, forgethim.
But the shadows’ voices sharpened, slicing through the dream like glass dragged over skin.
“But if you ascend… you will never feel this again. You will never taste it. Never touch it. No family. No peace. No love. Ever again. Break the boy’s neck, and you will rise.”
The perfect world trembled.
My mother’s smile flickered.
My siblings’ laughter fractured into static.
The scent of warm bread thinned into the sour tang of ash.
And then the boy appeared again.
The boy I had been—the one who still believed goodness meant something, who prayed to gods that never answered. He stared up at me with terror and hope woven together, his voice as thin as smoke.
“Please,” he whispered, reaching for me. “Don’t kill me. Don’t kill this. Don’t throw it away. You’ll never get it back. If you do this, you’ll never be good again. You’ll never be loved again.”
My chest ached. My ribs screamed. Tears blurred the light around me until my mother’s face, my phantom siblings, the house itself—all of it wavered like a dying flame.
And then came the roar.
The shadows’ voices, vast and thundering, shattering the air?—
“Choose, Lazarus. Stay in the dream forever—and deteriorate in the pit with your false family. Or tear the boy apart, and rise. You cannot have both.”
They circled me, tightening, their whispers as cold and damp as hands trailing down my spine.
“You have seen the dream. You have tasted what could have been. A family. A home. A mother unbroken. A boy loved instead of being shamed. Stay, and it will be yours forever. But if you would leave this pit, if you would ascend… you must understand the cost.”
The golden world flickered as their words sank into the marrow of my bones.
“When you rise as a Shadow Lord, you will never feel again. All that is soft will be stripped away. Every warmth, every gentleness, every trace of innocence will die here with the boy. You will be colder. Hollow. Empty. The good you clung to will be gone. You will never again be the man you were.”
My chest heaved. My ribs felt like they might snap beneath the weight of it.
I forced the words out through blood and breath.
“Then what’s left?”
