Artor Conan Davil rose without truly waking.
He was not startled.
Nor was he confused.
The first thing he became aware of was not the place, but pain, a pain that did not ask permission, did not wait for full consciousness, and could not be ignored. Not a pain that destroyed, but a pain that affirmed existence.
If this is a dream, he thought, then this dream is too disciplined.
The ground beneath him was hard. Not excessively cold, not deceptively warm. It supported his body with an unfamiliar certainty. When he moved his fingers, the joints responded without delay. When he breathed, the air entered with consistent weight.
He sat up.
The world did not waver.
The sky was there, blue, yet not a welcoming blue. As if the color was not created to soothe, but to observe. The clouds moved slowly, too slowly, as if aware that time itself was being watched from elsewhere.
Artor waited for something to happen.
Nothing happened.
He stood, and his body obeyed.
He stepped forward, and the ground did not turn into smoke or light.
There was no sign that the laws of the world had been suspended.
On the contrary, everything felt too obedient to law.
He touched his own arm. The skin was his. Old scars were still there. A small ache answered his touch. This was not a foreign body. This was the body he knew, with all its old habits.
And that was what disturbed him.
He had dreamed before.
Everyone had.
But dreams were always light, or chaotic, or filled with fragments that refused to unite. This world was not like that. This world was too orderly to be called an illusion.
He walked along streets he also knew. Buildings stood where they should. They did not collapse. They did not change shape. They did not glow. They did not prophesy.
People were there.
They walked.
They spoke.
They lived.
Yet there was something they did not do.
They did not hurry.
There were no panicked steps. No loud laughter. No busyness meant to be seen by others. As if everyone had accepted something unannounced, and chosen not to speak of it loudly.
Artor caught fragments of conversation.
Not shouts.
Not prayers.
Only short sentences about time, endings, and completion, spoken the way people speak about weather that cannot be prevented.
He looked for a clock.
There was none.
He looked for a screen.
There was none.
He tried to count his steps, but distance felt deceptive. Time moved, yet refused to be measured. It was not fast, not slow, only pressing, like something constantly approaching without quickening its pace.
Artor realized something that made his chest tighten:
He did not remember how he had arrived here.
There was no transition.
There was no memory of passage.
He simply was.
His first thought was not fear, but defense.
Maybe this is only a dream.
Maybe the brain is playing tricks.
Maybe the body is still in a hospital bed.
But that defense felt weak, even to himself.
He pinched his arm harder.
Pain answered honestly.
He spoke his own name softly.
His voice sounded right, not echoing, not distorted.
If this is a dream, he thought, then this dream is not working to comfort him.
He stepped into a place of worship. The building stood as usual, yet its doors were open without invitation. Inside, people stood, sat, and prayed, not excessively devout, yet not careless.
The prayers felt heavy.
Not because they were long,
but because every word seemed to carry a weight that could not be hidden behind habit.
Artor stood among them.
He knew the movements.
He had memorized the recitations.
His body followed, but something within him lagged behind. Not because of doubt, but because of an unfamiliarity with the seriousness suddenly demanded.
He did not feel holier.
He felt more visible.
As if this world did not care about hidden sins, because everything was now on the surface.
When he lowered his head, he did not see the floor.
He saw himself, not as an image, but as an awareness of being.
And for the first time in a long while, he found no defense that felt convincing.
He stepped outside.
The sky felt lower now.
Or perhaps, he thought, he himself had grown heavier.
There was no voice saying this was the apocalypse.
There was no sign pointing to a final date.
Yet every breath carried one unspoken conclusion:
This world was not preparing to continue.
It was preparing to close.
Artor Conan Davil stood in the middle of a street he knew, in a world that should have been ordinary, with a body that was fully real.
And there, the first honest fear appeared, not the fear of death, but the fear that all his justifications no longer applied here.
If this was a dream, he did not know when he would wake.
If this was real, he did not know whether he would be given time.
And for the first time in his life, Artor Conan Davil realized that not knowing might be the most fitting punishment.