I awoke to light.Not sunlight — that word didn’t belong here anymore — but a throbbing radiance that seeped from every surface. It pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, or maybe I was pulsing in rhythm with it. The line between the two had grown indistinct.
When I sat up, the air shimmered like liquid. The world around me looked slightly wrong, like a painting seen through tears. Towers leaned at impossible angles. The horizon curved inward. And in the distance, the playground had returned — though it now floated above the ground, slowly rotating like a toy suspended by invisible strings.
I remembered Cael’s words: You will ascend at dawn.
The thought made bile rise in my throat. I didn’t know what “ascend” meant anymore, but after seeing what they did to the adults, I was sure it wasn’t salvation.
I tried to stand, but my limbs felt heavy, as though gravity had thickened. My reflection followed a moment late in the glass floor — lagging behind, blinking slower than me.
“Stop,” I hissed at it. It didn’t.
Then it smiled.
I stumbled back, my heel catching the edge of the platform. The reflection moved closer, pressing its palm against the barrier from beneath. The surface rippled — not like water, but like skin.
A voice murmured from all directions. “Don’t run from yourself. You’re already part of the chorus.”
I clutched my head, trying to shut it out, but the whisper didn’t fade. It wasn’t just sound anymore — it was thought. The planet was speaking in the language of ideas, bypassing words altogether.
“You don’t belong here,” I said aloud. “You’re not real.”
The laughter that answered wasn’t cruel — it was patient. “We are what comes after real.”
I bolted toward the nearest tower, the glass streets humming beneath my feet. The city had changed again — now filled with faint figures, outlines of children drifting like phantoms. They didn’t notice me as I passed. Some floated, some crawled, some simply stared upward at the fractured sky.
The air thickened with whispers. Each one brushed against my mind, offering comfort, belonging, peace — promises whispered by something that knew exactly what I wanted to hear.
At the base of the tallest tower, I found a door that hadn’t been there before — an oval opening rimmed with symbols glowing in pale blue. I stepped inside.
The interior was a spiral corridor lined with panels of moving light. As I descended, the whispers grew louder, forming words that pulsed in my skull. “Join. Remember. Listen.”
Then I heard something else — faint footsteps behind me.
“Lira?” I called, though I knew it couldn’t be her.
The steps paused.
I turned slowly — and there she was. Or rather, something wearing her shape. Her face flickered like a dying projection, her eyes empty, her voice layered with echoes.
“You didn’t run when the sun broke,” she said. “You’re hearing it now, aren’t you? It’s inside you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She stepped closer, her movements jerky, uncertain. “The Voice needs belief to exist. Every mind it touches feeds it — gives it shape. You’re becoming another note in its song.”
Her image glitched, rippling into static. “There’s only one way out,” she said. “Find the Source. Beneath the chamber, deeper than the glass veins. Destroy it.”
“How?”
Her voice faltered. “You’ll know when it finds you. But hurry—”
The tower shuddered. A burst of light exploded from the ceiling, scattering her form into particles that dissolved midair.
Then came Cael’s voice — not from the room, but from inside me. “You can’t run from what you are. The Voice chose you for a reason.”
My vision blurred. I saw flashes — children standing in circles, hands raised, their eyes silver and mouths open in silent unity. I was among them, smiling.
“No,” I whispered, clutching my skull. “That’s not me. That’s not real.”
“Reality bends to faith,” the Voice said gently. “And you believe in fear. So fear will be your truth.”
The tower began to melt. The walls sagged like wax under a flame, the floor rippling with faces pressing upward from beneath. I ran, but every step carried me deeper instead of higher. The corridors folded around me, looping back into themselves.
Finally, I stumbled into a vast hall — a circular room with a single object in the centre.
A mirror.
But it wasn’t glass. It was liquid light, swirling with thousands of reflections, each one showing a version of me — older, younger, silent, screaming, smiling, breaking.
The Voice spoke again, almost tenderly. “All worlds begin as dreams. You are dreaming still. Let us wake you.”
The mirror rippled. A hand — my hand — reached out from within, grasping mine. I should have pulled away, but the warmth was so inviting, so familiar.
I realized, with mounting dread, that I wanted to believe.
I wanted to stop fighting.
And that was when I heard the faintest whisper — not from the Voice, but from somewhere deep below.
It was Lira again.
“Don’t look into it,” she said. “Break it.”
I clenched my fist and swung.
The mirror shattered, spraying shards of light that dissolved into the air.
The tower screamed.
And the entire world of Solara began to crack.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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