🕯️CH 3 Awakening

#Aiden

They always say the world changes in an instant.

I once thought they spoke of heartbreak, of death, of fortune’s wild favor—of winning the fairest maiden in all the Dominion..

Turns out, they meant this.

I was shaking.

Not from fear—at least, not exactly. Something deeper moved through me like lightning with nowhere to go. My fists were clenched. My knees locked. My mouth dry. I couldn’t blink.

I’ve always hated the Dominion. Not at first. I was a kid; all I cared about was games, food, and getting away with trouble. But after enough nights hearing Dad rant across the dinner table with that sharp voice of his and mum quiet, her spoon frozen halfway to her mouth—I started to see it too.

“This will be the death of one of the greatest Dominions the world has ever seen,” he used to say.

“Unless someone breaks the pattern.”

I believed him. Worshipped that idea. Promised myself I’d be the one to reform it. The new architect. The great revision.

Because he’d discovered the Eleven Mana Sides. Mapped the Wildworld; the sage paths with a ragtag team of wanderers, misfits, and mathematicians. Where others feared Awakening as a death sentence, he dragged it into the light and showed it could be trained, controlled, rewritten.

For centuries, Awakening meant ruin. Then the Wildworld wasn't understood in any detail. People didn’t even know what exactly they were trying to beat or overcome, but if they failed, they would turn into sanctioned and have to put out. Even if they succeed they was no scroll teaching how to control it. You would be killing people accidentally every day. People prayed against it, buried children for it.

But Dad proved it didn’t have to be that way with just mana and suddenly a group of people that were being hunted down and killed where now sought after around the world.

I didn’t just want to follow him. I wanted to surpass him.

I studied reforms like scripture. Pored over theories until my eyes bled. Skipped sleep for days, living off bitter coffee and equations scratched on walls. Where other kids skimmed I corrected footnotes. Where others begged to see miracles, I memorized flaws in old designs.

My teachers said I wasn’t gifted—just dangerously obsessed.

But I didn’t care. Because I believed him. I believed we were on the edge of rewriting history.

And now—

Now I am here.

Watching my father kneel on an execution scaffold.

They didn’t even realize who they were killing. Not really.

The crowd was silent. Not out of respect. Out of terror. Even the wind seemed afraid to breathe. The priest began the rites. His voice was flat. No mercy. The executioner’s sword gleamed beside him, sharp enough to split the world.

My legs buckled. I gripped the rail so hard the wood cracked under my palms. My breath came too fast, ragged, drowning me in air.

This isn’t happening.

But it was.

And Mum—she’d been strange all day. Eyes distant. Her face unreadable. Just like the last time I left. Just like she’d already given something up.

I should’ve known. Should’ve said something.

Instead, I stood there. Shaking. Watching. Waiting for them to take my father’s head.

Ternion shifted in the distance, blades crossed against his back. Two more guards at either side. Shadows swallowed the scaffold steps.

And my thoughts fractured.

---

My body shook. Rage burned in my chest, wild and directionless.

“Is this how they repay him?!”

My mind screamed it. My jaw locked so hard it hurt.

Maybe if I moved—if I did something—his death wouldn’t be meaningless.

But I didn’t.

I just watched.

Watched the priest raise the blade.
Watched Dad lower his head—calm, unshaken.
Watched Ternion step forward like stone.
Watched the smoking sword fall.

My lungs forgot how to breathe.

“Please—”

The word never made it out. It just echoed inside me.

The sword hit.

A sickening thump.

His body dropped—
AND THEN IT HAPPENED.

Reality didn’t shatter. It peeled.

The scaffold. The guards. The priest. The murmuring crowd.
They melted like wax, folding back into shadow.
The world thinned—
And I fell.

Not through space. Not in a dream.
Just falling—deeper, deeper—until falling itself ended.

A sudden halt.
No impact. No wind. Just stop.

Something unseen caught me—endless, weightless, alive.

I stood in a place that wasn’t.
No color. No sky. Just white.

Sound without source.
Light without heat.
Pressure without wind.

Then, a pulse. Like something breathing beneath the white.
A whisper in reverse.
My thoughts echoed before I could think of them.

Dad's body was suddenly there kneeling.
Then staring at me. His mouth moved, yet no sound came.

Words tried to form, but none reached me.

Then the body twitched.

Too fast. Too wrong.

Its head tilted. Eyes blinked sideways.
Mouth stretched too wide.
And from its throat came—

A scream that wasn’t human.

I stumbled back.

Something unfolded behind him.

Pale fingers. A smile. A shape without shadow.

White robes. White eyes. Not glowing—clouded, like drowned glass.

He didn’t walk.
He just was closer.

With a flick of one long, jointless finger—

The corpse. The scream. The false light—gone.

He sat cross-legged, like gravity had given up.
Tilted his head. Murmured:

“Ah. A D-sharp.”

I flinched.

He smiled. Unsettling. Delighted.

“That’s what you sound like. Sharp. In pain. I like that.”

Then, softly—almost tender:

“Your name?”

“Aiden,” I whispered.

“Ahh.” He exhaled. “Say it again?”

“Aiden.”

“Once more. Louder.”

“…AIDEN.”

He blinked. Paused.

“What a shame. I’ve already forgotten it. But you are related to one of them, so…”
A dry chuckle.
“Names are so slippery.”

He tapped his temple.

“Don’t worry. I’ll remember your song.”

My legs trembled. I was standing before Tharozh.
A being the old texts said devoured gods.

He leaned forward, and the white grew whiter—until my outline began to fade.
The smile vanished.

“You’ve earned the right to stand here, D-sharp. Your grief... hums true.”

“I will give you your truth,” he said.
“And something else. A gift. Don’t forget it.”

He tilted his head—listening to something I couldn’t hear.

“Here is your truth: ReVenGe!”

The grin returned—playful, hungry.

He raised a finger, slow, like a conductor summoning silence.

“Something extra to remember is she is called.”

The world bent.
Time stilled.

“—”

And I was back.

Stone beneath me. Blood drying in my nose.
Light burning my eyes.

The world didn’t feel right anymore.

Shapes were humming.
Every person shimmered—threads of mana weaving through their bodies, pulsing to heartbeats I could see.
Symbols bled from walls. The air crawled with sigils.
Every color had a voice. Every sound had a shape.

I tried to blink it away—
but the symbols clung.
They whispered. Beckoned.
Each one tugged at something inside me, naming it.

My head split with too much truth.
The world folded inward.

And then—black.