Ezra walked toward the waterfall, inhaling deeply before stepping beneath the relentless cascade. The water crashed down against his skin, cold and unyielding, but he held firm, grounding himself against the force. He closed his eyes, steadying his breath, willing the thoughts gnawing at his edges to fade.
The world around him dissolved.
When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer beneath the waterfall.
Instead, he stood ankle-deep in an endless expanse of still, black water stretching infinitely in all directions.
Sol was not here this time.
He was alone.
Ezra exhaled slowly, his heartbeat steady but wary, as he took deliberate steps forward. The silence pressed in around him, heavy and suffocating—until a voice called out. Soft. Sweet. Almost welcoming.
Too sweet.
The sound curled against his ears like honey laced with poison, sending sharp pinpricks racing down his spine.
"You are afraid of the light."
Ezra froze.
"The light that blinds… the light that pierces… the light that sears all it touches."
His breath caught, his pulse hammering against his ribs.
"You fear it, don't you?" The voice was silk and steel, a whisper laced with something deeper—something ancient. "You fear what it will make of you. What it will reveal."
The waters beneath him trembled.
Without warning, the surface split apart.
Light.
Blinding. Merciless. Unrelenting. A sunburst of radiance exploded outward, consuming everything in its path. It was not warm. It was not gentle. It was raw, all-encompassing—erasing every shadow, leaving nowhere to hide.
"You know the truth, don't you?" the voice murmured, threading through the brightness like an echo.
"Lightisnotkind."
Ezra staggered back, his vision seared as the world around him warped under its intensity.
"Light does not yield. It does not listen. It does not love. It strips away illusions, tears apart the veil of comfort, exposes every flaw, every weakness, every lie."
The radiance pulsed, and suddenly, images flared within it—fractured echoes of things he had buried deep. His own reflection, shifting and unstable, staring back at him from the abyss. Eyes filled with something unreadable. People turning away, their faces blurred, just beyond his reach.
The light surged.
"You shroud yourself in hesitation. You cling to your fears like a drowning man gasping for breath in the dark." The voice curled against his ear, both cruel and patient.
"Butthetruth, Ezra?Thetruthisthatlightwasnevermeanttocomfortyou."
The brightness twisted, bending into a shape.
A figure—no, a shadow of himself.
It burned too brightly, its form flickering between something human and something formless. Its eyes were endless voids, filled not with warmth, but with something cold. Something absolute.
"You were not made to see the light." The figure lifted a hand, fingers wreathed in white-gold luminance.
"Youweremadetobethelight."
The air thickened, pressing into his chest—crushing, suffocating.
"So tell me, Ezra… do you truly fear the light?"
A choice.
He could close his eyes. Turn away. Reject it. Keep running. Keep pretending.
Or he could open them.
He could accept it.
He could become it.
The light pulsed, waiting.
Ezra—slowly, deliberately—took a step forward.