Standing in the dark ocean of his worst memories, Nova's arms tightened around Annelie's legs, anchoring himself to the present. Each small movement of the waves threatened to pull him deeper into memories he'd rather forget.

'I dream of this place too often to mistake it for anything else. But seeing it while awake...'

The cold spray chilled his face as another wave rolled beneath his feet. In his memory, the water had been warmer, heated by hundreds of bodies slowly cooling in the depths.

"What the hell is this?" Annelie whispered near his ear.

"The time I failed as a doctor." Nova's voice came out steady despite the tremors running through his small frame. "The reason for my obsession."

"...You fought against a rift all alone? Without any powers?"

"Fought?" Despite his attempts to stay calm, his voice turned into a self-deprecating sneer. But he collected himself, pushing back the bitterness that threatened to overwhelm him. "That was no fight... I was an ant trying to stop the river from flowing."

Annelie turned quiet, seeming unsure of what to say. The silence stretched between them, filled only by the gentle lapping of waves against floating bodies. "I know you did your best. Like you always do."

"Being the right man at the right place, but at the wrong time..." Nova's feet carried them forward mechanically as he spoke. "It doesn't feel great. It actually feels fucking terrible."

He slowly started moving toward the coastline, knowing well that whatever had conjured this place would make the way forward as difficult as possible. Each step felt heavier than the last, like the water itself resisted his progress.

"All these bodies… It's awful."

"I know them all," he whispered, barely carrying over the wind. He looked down at the once so familiar faces, now twisted in madness and lifelessness. "Gunn, Inga, Tore, Leif, Ingvar, Solvei, Hjalmar, Petter, Haakon... Little Jenny..."

His throat tightened around the names as they spilled out. Each one carried the weight of a failure he couldn't forget. "I've been here many times before..."

"What?" Annelie's voice cut through his dark thoughts. "I thought you hadn't—"

"In my dreams." Nova's words came out rough as he forced his eyes away from the bodies in the water. "I've been here more times than I can count."

Annelie was quiet, but her hands tightened warmly around his neck.

"...It started just like in Damascus. Only slower. The rift was far below the ocean surface, which reduced the effects, I think. First, there were just headaches. And everyone came to me to figure them out."

His feet carried them forward across the water's surface, slowly passing the floating bodies.

"I noticed they were less cooperative than usual, as if they were afraid I was the cause of the damage in the first place. Classic signs of paranoia."

A cold wind swept across the water, carrying the bitter scent of decay. "Then the first murder happened, and everything changed. No one knew who did it. Suddenly, people who had been good friends their entire lives started leering at each other through shut windows and behind barricaded doors."

Nova's grip tightened on Annelie's legs as memories flooded back. "The more I tried to help and figure out the problem, the more they suspected me. Shouts of hatred and fear came from every house I tried to approach."

His voice softened, taking on a gentler tone. "But one day, little Jenny came to my lighthouse. I thought someone had finally come to let me try and help… She seemed sane compared to the others, so I saw a glimmer of hope. But of course…"

"...She was possessed?"

"...I noticed she wasn't behaving like usual." Nova's steps slowed as they approached the shore. "She never cared about my methods before, and she seemed totally uninterested in helping anyone else on the island. Which struck me as weird because she was the kindest..." His voice caught for a moment. "...She always cared for everyone else. But not this time."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

When they reached the lighthouse entrance, the tower loomed before them. Nova stood motionless, staring at the worn steel door. The sound of waves seemed to grow distant, replaced by the thundering of his heart.

"She attacked me with a scalpel. I restrained her and bound her to the operating table. The others came out of their houses to attack me, carrying torches and gaffs. I had to... I had to…"

"Nova?" Annelie's arms tightened around his neck, trying to anchor him to the present.

"...I had to figure out why she acted like this." His voice cracked around the words. "If it was a disease, or if it was… anything. If I could find anything. Anything at all. I was so desperate…"

The lighthouse door creaked open on its own, as if pulled by invisible hands. Warm lamplight spilled out across the threshold, illuminating the circular room within. An operating table dominated the center, holding a bloody white cloth on top, hiding a small body.

A weathered man sat slumped beside the table, head buried in his hands. His white hair caught the lamplight like fresh snow, and between his trembling fingers, where there should have been a piercing blue, two voids stared at nothing.

"You broke the rule," the man mumbled. His voice carried decades of pain compressed into each syllable. "The one rule you swore on. The one thing that would keep your mind intact after all those lives. AND FOR WHAT!?"

The hoarse shout struck Nova like a physical blow, driving him to his knees on the weathered boards. Try as he might, he couldn't tear his gaze from the scene before him. Hot tears welled up, blurring the edges of this memory made manifest.

Suddenly, he no longer felt the weight of Annelie on his back, nor the bomb on his front. The dark night exploded into a ring of flames as villagers emerged from the shadows outside, holding torches up high. Faces he'd known and loved were twisted with hatred and fear as they surrounded him.

"And you go around preaching these ideals to others…" The seated figure's voice dripped with contempt, with his face still hidden behind trembling fingers. "'I am justice, I am righteousness, I am the judge of what is and what should be.' Your rulebook, consisting of a single rule, has been tainted with so much blood."

The voice deepened, holding a heavy weight of judgment. "But never the blood of the judge. Never your own, despite what hypocrisy you drench yourself in. Will that be your final act? To complete the justice you preach every day?"

Nova pressed his hands against the cold wooden floor, searching for something real to hold onto. The boards felt solid beneath his palms, but the heat of approaching torches made even that certainty waver. All around him, the faces of those he'd failed watched his judgment with burning eyes.

"I had to know." The words scraped out of his throat, broken and raw. "I had to understand what was happening to them..."

"And did you?" The other Nova's hands fell from his face, revealing eyes filled with a void deeper than the one outside. "Did her entrails whisper secrets, Doctor?" He gestured to the table, peeling the cloth back to reveal—

'No! Not again…'

Nova recoiled, but the vision held him: small hands splayed like starfish, chest pried open like a locket. His scalpel glinted in the lamplight, still clutched in Jenny's fist.

The white cloth on the operating table rippled as if caught in a wind that shouldn't exist. Nova's eyes locked onto its movement, unable to look away as his past self judged him.

"Or maybe you just wanted to know." Each word fell like a hammer blow. "Maybe your obsession with understanding everything was more important than your one rule. Your desperate need to solve every problem, to fix what can't be fixed..."

'Stop. Please stop. I know what I did. I live with it every day...' But the words stayed trapped in his throat as the flames drew closer.

"... This is just an illusion." Nova's voice steadied as he pushed himself up from the floor. "You're trying to break me down, because you're unable to affect my mind directly."

The specter smiled. "Does that make it any less true? Does the fact that this place is nothing but blackness change what happened—what you refuse to acknowledge? An idea is no less real if it rises from a lie."

"I have confronted this." Nova's hands curled into fists at his sides. "This is the only nightmare I see. I've been here thousands of times, and nothing has ever changed." His fists slammed into the doorway. "I've atoned for this! Every night, I—"

"Liar." The world shuddered. "Better than anyone, you know that isn't true. What atonement can a man whose justice is steeped in blood attain without the final sacrifice?"

"...I'm not dying for some damn illusion."

The older Nova's lips curved into a smile as he pointed a long finger at the torches surrounding Nova. "Did it ever occur to you that this place is more real than you think?"

At his words, every torch winked out simultaneously. But the villagers remained in place, standing completely still. Bodies bulging from the ocean water, skin covered in barnacles.

"Where do you think their bodies all ended up?"

A chill unlike anything Nova had ever felt raced through his small frame, turning his blood to ice. He turned slowly, seeing the vacant stares of the corpses with new understanding. Details that he had lost to time could be seen everywhere.

The red lipstick Gunn used to wear, but that she had smudged on that day due to the chaos. The hat Ingvar wore way too tightly, now backwards. Petter's constantly neat and tidy shoelaces, tied like the first attempts of a child.

Details he should never have been able to remember appeared before him with crystal clarity. Small things that time should have eroded away, preserved here in perfect, terrible detail.

'...They're real…'

It was overwhelming.

But in that moment of despair, Nova's mind made a connection. One that shattered everything else around him.

If the people he had lost that day were here, then the one who took them would be as well.

And rage turned everything else to ash.

[Mythic trait Absolute Intent has started to evolve.]

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.