THE REALM WITHOUT A NAME

Part 23: Not Me.

As I woke up and looked around the room that hadn't changed but it felt changed.
Like someone had opened a window inside my chest and forgotten to close it.
I wasn't in my world.
I sighed in relief.

The bed was too soft, the air was too still.
And the light that trickled in from the crimson sky was dimmer than I remembered.

He wasn't here, Ash wasn't here.
But something was.
Watching.
Waiting.

I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and took one long breath.
And then- I saw it.

A door.

Where there had never been one.
No markings, no knob. Just smooth black stone, embedded into the farthest wall like it had always belonged.

I stood. The floor was cold.
A quiet curiosity pulled at me, like invisible threads sewn into my skin.

Approached it.
The closer I got, the louder my thoughts became.

My own thoughts.
But scattered-disjointed-like I was remembering things I hadn't lived.
My hand hovered near the door.
I didn't touch it...Didn't need to.
It knew I was there and slowly...without sound or warning-it opened.

A long corridor, Narrow, Dim, Walls lined with black mirrors that reflected nothing.
Not me, not the realm, not even the light.

"Don't go there." His voice.
Behind me, but not close.

He stood near the bed, still dressed in black, hair slightly tousled as if he'd been resting too.

But his eyes-his eyes were sharper than ever.

"I didn't go looking," I said.

"No," he replied.
"It came to you."

I turned to face him fully.
The corridor still yawned behind me.
"Why?"

"Because the realm listens," he said.
"And lately, it listens to you."
The silence between us cracked like old paint.

"What's behind it?" I asked.

He didn't answer...Not immediately.
His hands were at his sides.
Relaxed-but only just.

"Something old," he said finally.
"Something... that remembers."

"Remembers me?"

"Remembers what I was-before you came."

His eyes were turning gold.
Terrifying gold.

I stepped back from the doorway.
He stepped forward.

The mirrors behind me shimmered faintly.
Not with images.
But with emotion.

Fear.
Longing.
Grief.

He reached for my wrist, not trying to pull me away but to steady me.

"Not now," he said.

"But someday?" I asked.
He didn't reply.
His silence was an answer
I wasn't ready for.

The door began to close.
With a soft sigh of something losing interest.

When it vanished completely, he turned to me.

"I think I dreamed of a place like that," I whispered.
At this moment when I looked into his eyes...he was unapproachable.

"You remembered it" he said

---

The door was gone.
But the feeling it left behind wasn't.

It hovered in the air like smoke from an unseen fire-
unsettling, quiet, persistent.

He stood near me still. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel.