The days passed in a blur. Patrol. Training. Like a well oiled machine doing what's needed to be done..direct, with purpose. But a robot is a man made machine with no sign of humanity, and that's what's slowly happening to Kael, losing his humanity, bit by bit, because of his regrets.
***
Three nights later, after another long shift beneath a sky that never slept, Kael finally gave in. His body collapsed into bed, muscles screaming, mind numb.
And for the first time since the incident
He dreamed.
The first dream was static.The world was black—sight stripped away, leaving only sound. Kael could hear it all. The soft hiss of water lapping at his boots. The deep, hollow thoom of a wave swelling and collapsing far in the distance. Gentle splashes echoed like footsteps from something unseen, circling him. The wind whispered across the endless sea, weaving through the silence with a low, mournful hum, like a voice trying to speak but forgetting the words. Beneath it all was a subtle, rhythmic pulse—like the ocean itself was breathing. Each inhale a rising wave, each exhale a quiet retreat. The air was thick, damp, and cold against his skin, and Then came no sound, like the ocean stopped, frozen in time.
And then came the vision.
Suddenly. Jarring. Like his mind had been yanked upward by invisible strings. Kael hovered, weightless, suspended in silence. From above, he saw it—Vanta's Edge.
The city sprawled beneath him like a living machine, flickering in fast-forward. Buildings rose, fell, and rose again. Streets filled with people—then emptied. Aether pylons sparked to life, humming brighter, pulsing faster, casting long shadows over steel and stone. He saw battles unfold like firestorms—flashes of steel, bursts of crimson. Heard distant screams swallowed by time. Watched the Wall stretch higher with each breach, its surface scarred by claw and flame. He saw her—Sera—alive again for a second, then gone. It was a timelapse of history. Of struggle. Of survival.
Then something flashed before him.
A flicker. A tremor. And suddenly—detonation.
The world below bloomed into light, not flame, but something deeper… like reality itself had fractured. The city crumbled in fast motion. Pylons collapse inward. Towers folded like paper. The skies, once tinted violet with aether, turned black—choked by storms that bled stars.
Kael couldn't move. Couldn't look away. It was like the planet sighed its last breath and imploded in slow, beautiful horror.
Not just the city. The world. Vanta's Edge—and everything beyond it—consumed in silence.
A great void swallowed it whole, as if time had snapped shut like a book too long left open.
And all of it—every flicker of destruction, every collapsing frame of time—made Kael squint, pain stabbing behind his eyes like glass. The light was too much. The vision, too vast. He tried to shut it out, clench his thoughts closed, but the sheer weight of what he saw pressed into him like gravity.
And then
Silence.
He opened his eyes.
There.
Standing before him, impossibly close, was the tower.
It hadn't moved. It didn't need to.
It was waiting.
A monolith of obsidian and ancient glyphs, reaching far beyond the clouds, untouched by the chaos he'd just witnessed. Kael stood at its base, heart thundering, throat dry. The stillness around him felt wrong—like the air itself was holding its breath.
The ground pulsed faintly beneath his feet. A distant ticking echoed from somewhere inside the tower's walls. Not mechanical. Not man-made. But inevitable. Like time itself had begun to count down.
Kael took a shaky breath.
and reached out, hand trembling toward the door —and woke up with blood on his pillow. Nosebleed. Sweating. Heart hammering.
***
He didn't tell anyone. Not because he was afraid but because he himself did not believe it, he was gaslighting himself
"It's just a dream," he muttered to himself. "Stress. Happens to everyone on the Edge. Nothing new."
***
The clang of steel echoed across the training yard, dulled only by the distant hum of aether pylons. Morning drills were in full swing. Dust swirled beneath boots, and the air stank of sweat, ozone, and old tension.
Kael moved like clockwork—blade up, stance tight, eyes locked ahead. But something was off. His movements were a second late, a beat too stiff. He wasn't slow, not exactly, but distracted. Like his mind was still somewhere else.
Sera circled him, eyes sharp beneath sweat-slicked bangs. "You're sluggish," she muttered, stepping into a low feint. "Did you forget how to fight overnight?"
Kael blocked the strike, barely. "Didn't sleep."
"Again?" she snapped, frustration flashing behind her blade. "You've been sleepwalking through drills all week."
Kael didn't answer. Just reset his stance, jaw tight.
Sera exhaled sharply and dropped her guard. "Kael. Talk to me."
He hesitated.
"It's just dreams," he said finally, voice flat. "Weird ones."
Sera tilted her head. "Weird how?"
Kael looked down at his hands. "Like… the world ending kind. Tower. Light. Time unraveling. Can't explain it. Feels real."
For a beat, she said nothing. Then: "Dreams in the Edge don't come from nowhere."
He met her eyes.
"I think something's coming," he said quietly.
And for once, Sera didn't argue.
The next night, after Kael's duty had ended and the weight of exhaustion pressed down on him like a silent tide, he collapsed onto his cot. Sleep claimed him quickly, pulling him under before he could even resist.
And once again, the dream returned.
He found himself standing knee-deep in still, obsidian water. It was as if the ocean had been drained of all color and warmth, leaving behind a vast expanse of darkness. The horizon was nowhere to be found—only an endless void stretched in every direction, broken only by the gentle ripples around his legs. The surface was eerily smooth, like a black mirror, disturbed only by his presence.
Despite the absence of any visible light source, Kael could see a few feet ahead, just enough to recognize the chilling truth: he wasn't alone.
Shapes lingered at the edge of that faint visibility, shifting like shadows submerged just beneath the surface. They didn't move with the natural flow of water but with purpose, circling. Watching. Waiting.
The air, if it could even be called that, was thick with tension—heavy and silent, like the world had paused to hold its breath. The space pressed inward, as though it wasn't meant to be walked upon, only endured.
He looked down at his reflection and saw not his own face, but fractured images of himself—some calm, others afraid, and one staring back with an intensity that made his pulse quicken. It was like peering into a fragmented mind, scattered across the surface of the sea.
He felt it then—the pull. Not from the water, but from within. A whisper threading through the silence, ancient and familiar, tugging at the core of his being. It wasn't language, not exactly, but something deeper. Instinctual. Primal. A presence that had been buried inside him long before he had ever walked this path.
And in that moment, Kael knew: this wasn't just a dream.
This was his soul sea.
And something within it was beginning to wake.
He then lifted his head up
Then, without warning, the darkness parted—just enough for something to emerge.
A faint glow materialized in the air before him, suspended like a dying star above the black water. It pulsed softly, casting pale light across the still surface in trembling rings. Within it, words began to form—etched not in ink or fire, but in thought itself. They settled in his mind like ancient truths, undeniable and weighty.
Enter. Or be forgotten.
The message wasn't loud. It didn't echo. It simply was—final, absolute, and cold as the depths around him. There was no explanation. No voice to offer comfort or clarity. Only that silent ultimatum, burning like a brand against the inside of his skull.
It wasn't a question.
It was a demand.
Kael stared. Confused. Hesitant. His hand rose. But before he could press it, he awoke again. Blood. Sweat. Silence.
***
The day after that strange dream, Kael found himself reluctant to close his eyes. Sleep tugged at him like a gentle tide, but he resisted, clinging to the waking world out of instinctive fear. He couldn't explain why, not fully — only that something about that place, that ocean of black, had left a residue in his mind he couldn't shake.
But he had no choice.
He needed the energy. The strength. The clarity to perform his duties — to patrol, to train, to endure the grind of their existence in Vanta's Edge. And so, with a deep breath and a quiet dread coiled in his chest, Kael finally surrendered to sleep.
When he opened his eyes again, it was morning.
No sweat clinging to his skin. No blood from his nose. No trace of the strange presence that had haunted him just a night ago. Just the mundane silence of his quarters, the muted light spilling across the floor, and the heaviness of an ordinary sleep.
Relief came slowly, thinking, Maybe it had just been a dream — a twisted vision brought on by mental fatigue and stress. He told himself that as he went about his day. Training. Patrolling. Breathing a little easier with each passing hour.
Days passed.
The tension faded, gradually replaced by routine. By the third day, Kael had almost convinced himself that whatever he saw had never really happened.
And then, without warning… it returned.
Sleep claimed him without resistance, and when his eyes opened, he wasn't in his cot.
He was standing once again before the tower.
He could feel the grit beneath his boots. The static air. The impossible sky above.
The tower loomed, covered in glyphs that shifted when you didn't look. It pulsed like it was alive—breathing. Waiting.
Kael stepped forward. And the moment his foot touched the ground—The world shattered.
When he woke, he was somewhere else. Dark. Frozen. Endless.
A voice rang out—not spoken, but imprinted directly into his thoughts.
"You have been chosen."
"You stand before your Nightmare Trial."
"Survive… and awaken."
"Fail… and be devoured."
Kael stood, disoriented. His hands trembled. His vision swam.
The world around him looked like the ruins of a thousand realities crushed together—floating castles, shattered Earth, twisted physics. Fragments of the past and future clashed and burned above him like fireflies in a storm.
It was beautiful.
It was horrifying.
And it was only the beginning.
This was the first step toward becoming a Sleeper.
And the tower would not make it easy.