The Name That Was Not Forgotten

The black door stood open. Just a crack.
But it was enough.
Lucen didn’t breathe at first. The whisper still hung in the air, curling like smoke:
Now you’re ready.
He took a step forward.
The ground beneath his feet no longer felt like stone. It was softer—more fluid. Like stepping across the surface of a memory. His boots didn’t echo. The air didn’t move. The courtyard behind him had vanished.
The Veil was silent.
Lucen pressed his fingers to the edge of the black door.
A thread of silver light curled along his knuckles.
Veren.
His name. Not just spoken, but known. And now, with the door open, he could feel it resonating—somewhere beyond. Not like a destination. More like... a beginning.
He stepped through.
The crack widened as he passed. Not like a door opening, but a wound splitting. And the world beyond it—
Wasn’t a world at all.
It was a sky made of mirrors. A thousand Lucens stared back at him—some older, some younger, some… inhuman. One was cloaked in gold, seated on a silver throne. Another was shackled, hands bloodied. A third stared back with hollow eyes, mouth stitched shut.
Lucen walked forward. The mirrors rippled, reacting to him. They weren’t just reflections. They were possibilities. Echoes of who he might have been—or still could become.
"This is what memory does," a voice whispered. "It shows you the price of choice."
Lucen turned sharply.
Someone stood behind him.
The girl?
No.
A man.
No—not a man. A shape like one, cloaked in dusk and shadow, with no face to speak of. Only a presence. A hum in the chest. The air around him warped, like heat off pavement.
"Are you—"
"The One Who Waits?" the figure finished.
Lucen’s breath caught. "Are you?"
The figure tilted its head.
"I am the memory of who you were before forgetting. The breath before the first lie."
Lucen stepped back.
"You knew my name."
"No. You gave it to me. When you gave it up."
The mirrors began to hum. One cracked. Another flickered. The gold-cloaked Lucen stared harder.
"Why show me this?"
The figure gestured. The mirrors dissolved into ash.
"Because you’re becoming what you were meant to be. And that means I can no longer remain hidden."
Lucen’s heartbeat echoed in his ears. The Veil wasn’t stable anymore. He could feel it—reality bleeding around him. The silver threads in his skin burned now. Not in pain. In recognition.
The name Veren wasn’t just a truth. It was a key.
And now the locks had begun to turn.
"What do you want from me?" Lucen asked.
The figure’s presence pulsed.
"Nothing. What I want no longer matters. The Veil chose you. I merely prepare you."
The ground cracked.
From it, a tree rose—made entirely of silver veins, pulsing like a heart. At its base lay a staff.
Lucen stared.
It was the same one he had seen in the garden-that-wasn’t-a-garden. The staff that had felt like home.
He stepped forward and picked it up.
It felt heavier now. Rooted. Ancient.
The figure nodded. "The staff knows your hand. As it did before."
"Before what?"
"Before Lucen forgot he was Veren."
The mirrors exploded.
Light poured from every direction. And suddenly—
Lucen was falling again.
But not downward.
Inward.

---
He landed in a familiar place.
His bedroom.
But wrong.
The lights flickered. Shadows moved where they shouldn’t. The edges of the walls curled like paper left too close to flame.
Lucen stood slowly.
Everything around him felt like a memory—but not his own. The bed, the desk, the window—all slightly... off.
Then he saw it.
On the mirror above his dresser.
A name scrawled in fog.
Veren.
He stepped closer.
His reflection didn’t move.
Then—
It did.
But not in sync.
Lucen stepped back. His reflection grinned. And the room shattered.

---
He stood in the void.
Nothing beneath his feet. Nothing above.
Only sound.
A heartbeat. Not his. Louder. Rhythmic. Deep.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The silver-haired girl appeared beside him, blinking into being like starlight.
"You crossed," she said softly.
Lucen nodded. "I had to."
"I know."
She looked down.
Lucen followed her gaze.
His arms were glowing.
Not just threads now. Symbols.
Ancient, curling like roots beneath his skin.
The spell wasn’t cast. It was awakening.
"He can see me now, can’t he?" Lucen asked.
The girl didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
The sky around them turned gold.
And high above—
An eye opened.
Not metaphor.
Not dream.
A real, burning, golden eye.
Watching.
Lucen whispered, "What happens now?"
The girl looked at him, her voice barely audible:
"Now, Lucen... you begin to disappear."
Lucen closed his eyes, but the golden light still pressed through his lids. The symbols on his arms pulsed to the beat of that unseen heartbeat.
"You said the Veil chose me," he whispered.
She nodded. "And it will demand everything in return."
"Even my name?"
"Especially that."
He opened his eyes. The girl was gone. The void was gone. He stood in a new space now.
A hallway made of dream-glass.
Not mirrors. Not memory. But dreams that had forgotten themselves. They twisted in shape, flickered in color, rippled like ink dropped into water.
He walked.
Every step whispered a different name.
Veren. Lucen. None. All.
He passed a vision of himself asleep at a school desk. Another—kneeling in a tower, crowned in vines. Another—bleeding onto snow, laughing.
"Each is true," a voice whispered from the walls.
Lucen stopped.
"But only one will survive."
The golden door stood at the end of the hall.
Alive.
Waiting.
He approached it.
His hand hovered just above the surface.
Then—
A second door appeared beside it.
Black.
Cracked.
The first door he had opened.
Now it waited, too.
The Veil was offering a choice.
Lucen lowered his hand.
Two doors. Two paths. Two names.
He turned.
Behind him, the Veil twisted.
The girl’s voice echoed one last time:
"Whatever you choose... you won’t be Lucen anymore."
He looked down at the silver-gold veins in his arms.
He smiled—tired, certain.
"Good. He was never meant to stay."
He stepped toward the golden door.
And vanished.

______