I wish I could say I made it that day.
I wish I had gotten to Earth earlier.
But—
I didn't fall.
My memories were erased.
With a single snap of the Divine's fingers, the world went dark.
It was not like sleep. There was no drifting, no gentle surrender. One moment existence roared around me—light, pressure, resistance—and the next, it vanished. Not collapsed. Not faded.
Gone.
No pain.
No struggle.
No death.
Just silence.
Not the silence of peace, but the silence of absence. A void so complete that even the idea of sound felt distant, theoretical. As if the universe itself had inhaled and forgotten how to breathe out again.
When I woke, Haven was whole.
The sky stretched above me in endless gradients of gold and pale blue, light cascading like a living thing across the heavens. The air was warm, weightless, untouched by wind yet never stale. It brushed against my skin with a softness that felt intentional, as if Haven itself were reassuring me.
The forests breathed.
I could hear it—the slow, rhythmic creak of ancient trees expanding and settling, leaves whispering without wind, branches humming faintly with life older than memory.
Light filtered through their canopies in sheets, illuminating drifting motes that shimmered like dust caught in a sunbeam, except each mote carried warmth, purpose.
The Pond was still.
Perfectly still.
Its surface reflected the sky so precisely that it was impossible to tell where water ended and air began. No ripples. No disturbance. It waited, as it always had.
My brothers and sisters moved through eternity as they always had—laughing softly, conversing in murmurs that carried meaning rather than volume. Their footsteps barely touched the ground. Their presence bent the air with calm assurance.
Unchanged.
Unburdened.
Flawless.
And I was the same.
Clueless.
Grateful.
Obedient.
I felt no alarm at the sight of the Pond. No pull toward it. No memory of fear coiled in my chest. When I looked at the Divine, there was only reverence. When I looked at Adam and Dawn, there was only warmth.
I had no memory of defiance.
No memory of fear.
No memory of wanting to leave.
Whatever had burned inside me before was gone—scrubbed clean, smoothed over like stone polished by centuries of water.
Nine years passed like a single breath.
Time in Haven did not move forward. It simply accumulated.
Nine years of ignoring Earth's very existence. I wasn't even allowed to watch it from a distance.
Nine years of hearing wars as faint echoes instead of screams, their violence softened by distance and divine detachment.
Nine years of upholding the peace I had already broken.
I returned to being what Haven needed me to be.
A son who never questioned.
A presence that never disrupted the stillness.
A power that never tested itself.
And for a time… it worked.
But...
My memories were triggered again.
Ironically, the pond was my first hint.
The Divine had left it frozen.
Not shattered.
Not sealed.
Just locked in a state of suspended denial. The surface had become opaque, clouded with frost that radiated cold so sharp it prickled the air around it.
Light bent strangely near it, refracting into pale halos that never quite touched the ice.
Not even the Immortals used it anymore.
They walked around it. Their conversations dimmed when they passed. Their eyes slid away as if trained not to linger. No laughter ever echoed near its edges. No footsteps lingered there.
It was avoided.
I didn't bother asking anyone why.
Something in me already knew the answer, even if I couldn't name it.
Subconsciously, my memories were still there.
Buried deep. Pressed down. Waiting.
I went to the frozen Pond alone.
The closer I got, the colder the air became. It bit against my skin—not painfully, but insistently. The light around the Pond felt thinner, stretched taut like glass. My reflection appeared warped in the ice, fractured, unfamiliar.
I reached out and touched the surface.
The cold was absolute.
It did not merely chill my hand—it invaded it, raced through my arm, sank into my chest. The ice did not resist me. It accepted my touch too easily, as if recognizing me.
And then—
"Arinthal."
The voice did not come from Heaven.
It did not come from the Immortals.
It came from within.
Not heard with ears, but felt—vibrating through my bones, echoing inside my skull.
"Remember what they did to you."
Pain exploded.
Not sharp. Not dull.
Wrong.
My head split open with agony so pure it stole my breath—true pain, impossible pain, pain that should not have existed in a being like me. It felt as though something ancient and sealed had been ripped open without warning.
I staggered backward, my feet scraping against the stone. My vision fractured, light breaking into jagged shards. The world tilted, stretched, folded in on itself.
The air screamed.
The ground pulsed.
"Son of Light," the voice continued, urgent now, burning.
"Don't forget."
Memory returned like a flood breaking a dam.
The chase.
The restraint.
The frozen air.
The pressure is crushing my limbs.
The Divine's absolute denial.
Every sensation slammed back into me at once—the fear, the fury, the realization that Haven would rather cage me than let me choose.
And with it came something far worse.
Understanding.
I saw myself—not as Haven had named me, but as I was.
I felt my power not as a limit… but as an absence of one.
There was no ceiling pressing down on me.
No boundary defines what I cannot do.
No final measure waiting to be reached.
My strength did not end.
The reason the Divine had crushed me with such brutal certainty was no longer a mystery.
She hadn't stopped me because I was weak.
She had stopped me because I wasn't.
I finally understood why she had erased my memory.
Why did I have no Eternal Light to guide me?
Why had no star ever answered my presence?
Why was I not made of flesh like my brothers and sisters—but of gold, crystal, ore, the hardened beauty of the Earth itself?
I was not an Immortal.
I was not an Eternal Light.
I was not a vessel.
I was something else.
Something stronger than both.
Maybe that terrified Haven.
Maybe that terrified the Divine Light herself.
Honestly, I had never noticed how different I was.
I had never needed to.
The Immortals loved me as a brother.
Adam and Dawn raised me as their son.
Belonging had wrapped around me like armor, thick enough to hide the truth.
And now—
I had more questions than answers.
With my newfound clarity came the second attempt.
This time, there was no running.
No frantic breath.
No desperate calculation.
Something inside me had changed—not memory, but instinct. A pressure behind my ribs. A pull beneath my feet.
As if the world itself was misaligned—and only I could feel where it was wrong.
As usual, my intent was felt.
The air tightened.
Light shifted.
Before long, I stood before the Divine again.
Before Adam.
Before Dawn.
Before the Immortals—
and their Eternal Lights.
Their presence pressed down on me like gravity.
I didn't beg.
I didn't plead.
I attacked.
Bare hands. No weapon. No borrowed Light.
My fist cut through the air, aimed straight for the Divine.
Shock rippled through Haven.
The Immortals recoiled. The Eternal Lights flared, stars igniting in alarm. Dawn shouted my name, her voice sharp with fear.
The Divine responded instantly.
Or she thought she did.
Her hand closed around my throat—
—and grasped nothing.
I dissolved into an afterimage, my previous position hanging frozen in space like a scar in reality.
I had led them as far away from the Pond as possible.
Even as the Divine realized what had happened, even as she turned—too late—I was already at the Pond.
I reached for it, pouring all my power into my touch.
The ice shattered like breaking glass.
Cracks spidered across the surface, light pouring through as the frozen water collapsed into motion.
The Divine appeared behind me, her presence bending reality as she moved.
But I did not care.
Again, she reached—
Again, she grasped nothing but my fading image.
The Pond became sky.
This time, no hand could reach me.
From high up, I plunged forward, diving headfirst towards the pond, gravity roaring into existence around me.
Cold tore against my body. Wind screamed past my ears. The world flipped, spun, and accelerated.
I was leaving.
Not as an exile.
Not as a traitor.
But as freedom is unleashed.
Then—
Pain.
Projectiles ripped through the air.
One struck my ribs. Then another.
Blood burst free, hot and sudden, spilling across my side.
For the first time in my existence—
I was bleeding.
Shock stole my breath.
I looked back.
Crystal Ash.
The remains of Mikael, the Eternal Light Sitan had destroyed.
I had walked past them countless times without thought.
Funny how my most ignored observation became fatal.
This was the Divine's final move, her last attempt to stop me.
Still, I fell through.
The pond swallowed me whole.
My vision dimmed, edges darkening as air rushed up to meet me.
Blue skies filled my sight.
And then—
Against my own will, I fainted.