✦ ✦ ✦
—SEAN'S SUBCONSCIOUS—
Sean woke up alone within his subconscious.
He stood in a vast, silent darkness. Faint blue light seeped from towering crystal structures surrounding him. The ground beneath his feet was smooth and cold, like frozen glass. Each breath he took echoed through the space, as though the crystals themselves were breathing with him.
Then, a faint voice emerged.
"Every choice creates a new world," it whispered. "Here… you can see everything."
The voice resembled his mother's—layered, distant, as if it came from within the crystals themselves.
One crystal before him began to glow brighter, projecting an image of Sean standing on a ship's deck beside Arthur. But the reflection's face was empty—expressionless. Its eyes were pitch black, as though they didn't belong to him.
More crystals lit up, one by one.
The first showed him sinking into the depths of the sea, dragged into a bottomless darkness, never to return.
The second revealed a version of him saved by Arthur—lying weak, but still alive.
And the third displayed the most suffocating vision of all, himself standing upright, whole… yet completely overtaken by something else. A black shadow clung to him, slowly consuming what remained of his humanity.
"Where is this… am I hallucinating again?" Sean muttered hoarsely. "Am I… already dead? Damn it, my head…"
The crystals trembled. Their light pulsed unevenly, reflecting his unease again and again. The voice returned—still his mother's, but colder now. Distant.
"Dead? No."
A large crystal before him cracked.
Inside it, Arthur was kneeling on the soaked deck of the ship. One hand gripped the edge tightly, while the other reached toward the sea—toward the place Sean had disappeared.
Arthur's breathing was uneven. Panic filled his face, not yet turned into despair.
Sean froze.
"Look," the voice said softly. "There is still a version of you… that survives."
But another crystal shattered—revealing Sean being dragged deeper, toward the jaws of a creature lined with coral-like teeth.
"Here…" the voice whispered. "You are merely trapped between layers of dream and reality."
A shadowed figure raised its hand, shattering the surrounding crystals, letting the visions collapse one after another.
✦ ✦ ✦
—ON THE SHIP — REAL WORLD—
Arthur managed to pull Sean back to the surface.
But suddenly, black smoke began seeping from Sean's body.
Slowly, his body lifted, as though something within him was pulling him upward. The pendant around his neck glowed faintly—its colour nearly gone.
The smoke crept inward, piercing through his chest—entering through his heart.
When everything settled, Sean opened his eyes.
They were pitch black, with deep red pupils.
He rose to his feet, gripping his sword tightly. Shadows coiled around his body, and a crooked smile formed on his lips.
"Freedom…"
✦ ✦ ✦
—SEAN'S SUBCONSCIOUS—
The crystals shattered into countless fragments. Each piece reflected a truth far more terrifying than death.
One showed a woman he knew all too well—yet she was trapped in a place he couldn't name. Half of her face was consumed by shadow. Sean felt his chest tighten, though he didn't understand why. He knew it was his mother—but not how she had ended up there.
Another showed himself standing at the edge of a bottomless abyss, a black shadow smiling back at him.
Sean turned.
Something within him stirred—a sense that he should understand all of this. But his memory halted just before the answer could surface.
From the edge of his vision, the shadow approached.
It began to take shape—his shape.
It stopped a few steps away. Now fully formed. Identical.
Sean tensed. His hand instinctively moved to his sword, though he wasn't sure what he intended to do.
"What… is this?" his voice came out low. Controlled. "Why do you look like me?"
The shadow smiled faintly.
A wrong kind of smile.
"You don't remember?" it said flatly, like a statement, not a question.
"What am I supposed to remember?" Sean snapped back, irritation slipping through.
He gestured toward the shattered crystals.
"I've grown stronger. That's what matters, isn't it?"
The shadow turned.
A scene from the real world appeared—Arthur dodging a strike from a blade that no longer belonged to him. Blood spilled from a wound on his shoulder.
"You're repeating the same mistake," the shadow said. "And this time… you won't be able to stop me from taking over completely."
Sean let out a quiet chuckle and drew his sword.
"Taking over?" he said coldly. "I have full control. I won't let you take me."
The crystals shook violently. Blue light surged along his blade, splitting the darkness like lightning.
The shadow laughed.
"Control?" it sneered. "You're just a puppet that thinks it holds the strings."
The shadow expanded, reflecting another scene.
Arthur was now on his knees. Blood dripped steadily onto the wooden deck. A glowing blue blade hovered at his throat.
Opia's voice echoed through both worlds.
"Now listen carefully."
"One more step… and he dies."
Its voice lowered.
"Let me take full control of you… and protect him…"
A pause.
"…and accept the consequences."
This was no illusion.
On the ship, Arthur's blood truly fell onto the deck. And in the subconscious, the shadow began to crack—like glass eroding with time.
The fractures spread inward.
Sean felt the last fragments of his consciousness slipping away.
And then—the world fell from his grasp.