Not a moment too late, you throw a thin, fragile cloak of energy over yourself.
It settles like a sheet of glass. Barely there, barely holding, but enough to bend the light around you. Enough to make you invisible.
You hold your breath.
Bradley and Trida don't turn.
They don't sniff the air.
They don't react.
For now, you're hidden.
But what now?
You need to go home. You want to go home. The thought pulses through your mind like a heartbeat.
But how?
What can you even do in this strange world after everything you've learned? After seeing its cracks, its illusions, its impossible rules?
Is this even real?
Or are you trapped in a dream so vividly realistic that you can even feel pain?
"Ugh…" you groan softly, pressing a hand to your head. A strange pressure builds inside your skull, like gravity itself has thickened. It pushes down on you, heavy and suffocating.
It reminds you of AOE attacks in video games—an invisible force spreading outward, affecting everything in its radius. 'Area of Effect'.
You scan the room.
And realise…
Everything around you is wavering.
The walls ripple like heat haze.
The floor shimmers like water.
Even the air bends and twists, as if the world is melting.
A mirage… Like in the desert!
It was all just a trick.
An illusion.
Your gaze snaps to Therley—only to watch his outline flicker. His body fades at the edges, dissolving like mist caught in sunlight.
He isn't real.
None of this is real.
The exhaustion hits you all at once. A bone-deep tiredness. A longing so sharp it almost hurts.
You just want to go home.
How much longer must you wait?
How much more must you endure?
A crackling sensation bursts around you—like lightning exploding outward from your skin.
But it isn't painful.
It's energizing. Electrifying. It is a huge surge of raw emotion… So great…
Anger rises in your chest, hot and overwhelming.
Enough…
Enough…
"ENOUGH!"
Your scream tears through the illusion like a blade.
The world around you fractures—splintering into shards of colour and sound. The walls break like glass. The floor splits like cracked ice. The ceiling collapses into a thousand floating fragments.
Everything shatters.
And you stand at the center of the storm, invisible cloak flickering, power crackling at your fingertips, as the false world collapses into nothingness.
The illusion is gone.
What remains…
is the truth waiting beneath it.