"Every fear has a doorway hidden inside it, waiting to be walked through."
The terrain east of the temple didn't look wrong at first.
That was the unsettling part.
The hills rolled out in soft green curves, dotted with low shrubs and white stones. The sky, though washed pale by the fracture, held a quiet stillness. The wind skimmed across the grass in gentle waves.
Almost peaceful.
But Aarav felt it deep in the hum behind his ribs—
that quiet wasn't calm.
It was _listening._
The land knew who walked across it now.
Arin led with a pace faster than usual, urgency threaded into every step. Amar kept scanning the horizon while balancing the hollow man over his shoulder. Meera kept the boy close enough that his small hand never left hers.
Aarav walked the center again, the place Arin insisted on putting him, like he was a piece of unstable equipment being transported through a hazardous site.
The ground shifted unexpectedly.
Not physically—
resonantly.
Aarav stopped. "Something's ahead."
Arin glanced back. "You feel it?"
Meera answered for him. "We all feel it. My spine has decided it hates this place."
The boy pointed toward a cluster of stones in the distance. "That place whispers."
Aarav stiffened.
Because the kid wasn't wrong.
The hum inside him aligned with something coming from the stones—
slow, heavy, ancient.
Amar frowned. "Arin. Did we just enter some kind of haunted field?"
Arin didn't answer immediately, which was not encouraging.
When he did, his voice carried a weight that made Meera stop mid-step.
"This is the Prelude Plain."
Aarav blinked. "That means nothing to any of us."
Arin tapped his staff against the ground. "This is the place where Anchors first sensed resonance. The first land that ever responded to them."
Aarav's stomach knotted. "So it's responding to me now."
"Correct."
"Why?"
Arin's silence dragged a little too long.
Amar muttered, "Cool. So the land itself is sentient and obsessed with Aarav. Great."
Meera narrowed her eyes at Arin. "What aren't you saying?"
Arin finally turned to face them.
His expression was careful. Controlled.
Dangerous.
"Aarav isn't the only thing waking," Arin said. "The world around him is waking _with_ him."
Aarav felt the air thin. "Meaning… what exactly?"
"The land remembers Anchors," Arin said. "And it remembers the King. The Vale isn't just a birthplace—it's a mirror. The closer we get, the more the land tests him."
Aarav swallowed. "Tests me how?"
"Through resonance reflection."
Aarav frowned. "Like the mirrors?"
"No," Arin said. "The land reflects what you carry. Your doubts. Your truths. Your fears."
Meera groaned into her hands. "Amazing. The ground is doing psychology experiments on him."
Amar pointed at the stone cluster. "Whatever that is, it's reacting."
Aarav felt it too—
a tug at the back of his mind,
a pressure in his breath,
a recognition he didn't want.
The stones pulsed once.
Then again.
Then the ground shimmered.
Aarav stiffened. "Something's forming."
Arin put his staff between Aarav and the stones. "Stay back."
But it was too late.
The shimmer thickened.
Light bent.
Time warped.
And a shape emerged, rising from dust and memory and resonance—
A child.
About Aarav's age when his earliest memories formed.
Hair messy.
Eyes wide.
Expression scared.
Meera stepped forward on instinct, but Arin blocked her with one arm. "Don't touch it."
Aarav took a shaky breath. "That's… me."
Amar swore under his breath. "The land just conjured baby Aarav."
The boy Meera held whispered, "It's him… but small."
Aarav stared at the apparition—
because it wasn't an illusion.
It was a memory.
His memory.
The version of himself before life cracked open, before resonance hummed under his skin, before fear had a name.
"What is this?" Aarav whispered.
"Your first echo," Arin said. "The land is showing you the piece of yourself you've forgotten."
Aarav's throat tightened. "Why?"
Arin's eyes softened with a quiet sorrow. "Because Anchors aren't forged in power. They're forged in pain."
The child Aarav looked up at him, eyes filling with tears.
He reached out a small hand.
Not toward Meera.
Not toward Arin.
Toward Aarav.
Meera whispered urgently, "Aarav—don't. You don't know what happens if—"
Aarav took a slow step forward anyway.
The echo didn't attack.
Didn't twist.
Didn't distort.
It simply held a hand out—
waiting.
Trusting.
Aarav crouched to eye level. "What do you want to show me?"
The echo's voice came out tiny, trembling.
"I'm you… the part you tried not to need."
Aarav felt his heart twist.
Amar muttered behind him, "This place is cruel."
Meera wiped her cheek. "He doesn't have to do this alone."
But Arin shook his head. "Yes, he does. The land won't speak to anyone except him."
The echo stepped closer, lowering its voice.
"You forgot why you hid.
You forgot who you lost.
You forgot what broke you."
Aarav felt tears sting his eyes.
He whispered, "I didn't forget. I buried it."
The echo shook its head gently.
"No.
It's still breaking you."
And before Aarav could respond—
the echo placed its small hand against Aarav's chest.
And every buried memory snapped open inside him.
Pain.
Fear.
A voice calling his name from somewhere dark.
A hand reaching for him—
then slipping away.
A fracture years before any physical fracture.
A childhood wound that shaped everything.
Aarav fell to his knees.
Meera tried to reach him—
but Arin held her back.
"He has to remember," Arin said, voice trembling. "If he doesn't face this now, the Vale will tear him apart."
Aarav gasped, chest tightening.
The echo—child Aarav—whispered:
"Please… don't leave me here alone again."
The world around them pulsed.
The fracture on the horizon brightened.
The land trembled.
Aarav looked into his own younger eyes—
saw the truth there—
and whispered back:
"I'm not leaving you."
He reached forward—
and touched his echo's hand.
Light burst from the ground.
The echo dissolved into him—
memory, fear, pain, all flowing back—
and the resonance inside him roared.
His body convulsed.
Meera screamed his name.
Amar grabbed Arin's arm.
The boy hid his face.
Aarav collapsed to the grass—
breath gone,
vision white,
mind flooded—
as the land accepted him.
Not as he was.
But as everything he had been.
And the world whispered back:
Anchor.
"He stepped past the edge of his dread, and the world softened its stance."