Alex hit the stone hard enough to crack ribs. He landed a few steps from where Iris stood. Motionless.

  "Iris…"

  The name left his lips before his eyes fully understood what they were seeing.

  A bright white single edged sword, slick with blood, protruded from her chest. Behind her, silhouetted against the bruised sky, floated the Wingless Angel.

  Alex froze. Breath caught between heartbeats.

  ‘No.’

  He could not believe it. Could not even imagine it. But there it was.

  "IRIS!" The scream tore from him, raw. He stumbled, clawing at the stone, desperately trying to get to his feet.

  She didn't move.

  The Wingless Angel turned its gaze toward him. Light radiated from within its hood where a face should have been. It withdrew its blade from Iris.

  She fell to her knees. Eyes closed. A pool of crimson forming beneath her.

  "ALEX."

  The Wingless Angel's voice was a deep resonance that shook the air. It rose slowly, levitating toward him, light intensifying until the world itself seemed swallowed by its brilliance.

  Alex's jaw tightened. His fists clenched white-knuckle. "What do you want from me?!" he screamed.

  He was on one leg now, steadying himself. His gaze shifted, frantic and desperate, from the approaching Angel to Iris. Motionless. Kneeling in blood.

  He needed to act fast. But what could he do? No sword. No means to defend himself.

  ‘Damn it.’

  Alex stumbled back as the Wingless Angel swung its long sword, slicing the air where he’d stood. It paused and brought its blade low, and titled its head slightly. Though it had no face, it stared at him for a short terrifying moment.

  Amused. By his pain and helplessness. His desperation.

  Alex's breath was ragged. The world faded as the Angel raised its sword high. This was it. This strike would be the end of him. He couldn’t fight let alone move. He’d failed to protect himself. Worse, he failed to protect Iris.

  Alex clenched his teeth.

  Then the sword came down. A whisper, tearing the air.

  Alex closed his eyes. The inevitable had arrived.

  However,

  Nothing happened. He was still alive

  His eyes snapped open. No sharp pain or death. Just a blade, mere inches from slicing him in half.

  Something had stopped it.

  Wrapped around the Wingless Angle was a rope that held it in place. At the end of the rope, a hook-blade pulsed with its own shade of brilliance.

  And at the other end of that rope was Iris. still kneeling in the pool of blood, her good hand pulling. Holding on.

  The Angel jerked forward, caught off guard. She pulled and the Angel crushed down, its snapped its head towards her

  “Go!” Iris screamed.

  Alex stared. She was kneeling in her own blood, hand tightly holding the rope. Her face was agony, her eyes were fire.

  “ALEX! Go!”

  He couldn’t move. Hand tightly holding the half moon crescent pendant she had given him.

  Then her expression shifted. Through the blood, through the pain she… smiled. The same smile from the cliff. The same smile from the fall as she slammed into the creature.

  A silver light traced the edge of her face, peaceful and final. A silent farewell?

  Alex stood once more, then slowly he turned towards the stairs. Using his one leg to walk, the other was nothing but dead weight.

  Step. Step. Another step. Each one heavier than the last.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  His eyes were wide, breath shallow, vision blurry.

  ‘Don’t just leave her. DO SOMETHING’

  He paused, clenched his teeth so hard they might crack. He reached the bottom of the stairs, his good leg hovering over the first of many.

  “Iris” he whispered,

  The light behind him flickered brighter than before. He turned. The Wingless Angle Slammed left and right, trying to break free from her desperate grip.

  “GO Alex!” Her blade pulsed violently, its light crushing with the Angel’s own.

  Then in the haze of the light, she spoke, and for a moment Alex's heart slowed. Her lips moved but now words came. Yet somehow Alex understood every silent word.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  ‘Don’t forget about me, don’t forget about the promise you made.‘

  Alex screamed, clenched his teeth, and began to ascend. Each stair conquered was nothing but painful. His entire body screamed in protest, but that was nothing compared to the ache in his heart, compared to the guilt, the regrets slamming in his thoughts.

  The light below flickered bright again. Iris could not hold on any longer. She did not need to.

  Seeing its target get away, the Angel stopped fighting the hook-blade wrapped around it and went straight for its bearer. The white sword struck true. The rope loosed and the hook-blade's glow dimmed.

  Alex paused, sensing the calmness below. He understood such calmness would mean one thing or the other. But he was more certain of the worse scenario even though he hoped he was wrong. To his better judgment, Alex looked down below.

  The Angel was standing next to Iris. Its sword slick with crimson.

  "No. No, no, no."

  Alex wanted to go back. But he paused as he took a step back. The image of Iris's smile flooded his mind. Not just her. Roric. Malach. They all died. Trying to get him to the Archives. Which were just a few more steps ahead.

  He bit his lip and moved on.

  Tears began to trace down his cheeks. Sweat and blood clung to him, his black hair sticking to his neck. He could see it now, just ahead. A structure.

  Below, the Angel lunged at incredible speed, blade already raised. It ascended.

  And Alex ran.

  He didn't let himself stumble. Falling now would mean the sacrifice of the others were for nothing. His heart raced as light grew brighter. The wind shifted as forces beyond his understanding threatened to strike him down. For short, agonizing moments his numb leg shot up spikes of pain. His vision darkened.

  Still he ran.

  And just as the Wingless Angel's strike neared, Alex made it to the top. The blade nearly cutting him in half. He stumbled onto the stone. No time to breathe. Not yet.

  He rolled, arms shielding his face, expecting another strike.

  However…

  It never came.

  Moving his hands, Alex paused, eyes wide in disbelief. The Angel stood silent and watchful just at the edge of the last stair. Its bright brilliance seemed to have dulled a bit. It stared at him for a long moment. Then, as if tracing something unbeknownst to him, it looked left and right. It raised an arm covered in a white and gold leather glove.

  As it seemed to touch the air, something shimmered blue. Looking closely, an invisible wall erupted between them. The Angel raised its sword and struck it. Again and again and again. Its sword pierced, slashed, and screamed against the barrier.

  Nothing.

  Unlike Malach's barrier, this one held. Unbreakable and absolute.

  The Angel stopped. For the first time, it did not strike. Its featureless face tilted slightly, as though listening to something far beneath the noise of the world. The brilliance around it thinned, just a fraction.

  Silence stretched.

  Alex suddenly became aware of his own breathing. Too loud, too sharp. He tried to steady it and failed

  Then it spoke, its voice resonant and eerie.

  “…Dreamless.”

  The word resonated, low and heavy, sending a tremor along the shimmering barrier.

  Alex felt something in his chest, his fingers tightened unconsciously against the stone behind him.

  “An absence within the current, A still point where there should be motion.”

  The air tightened. A faint hum spread through the stairwell.

  “You stand within the stream, yet you are untouched by it. Dreams flow. They rise. They collapse. They return to the deep.”

  A pause.

  “Yet, you do not.”

  The Angel lowered its sword slowly, not in defeat, but in contemplation.

  “Once, such things were erased. Yet you endure.”

  The light around it flickered faintly. Its head tilted again, almost imperceptibly.

  “What is it that you seek here, Dreamless?”

  A question? An accusation? perhaps a measurement. Whatever it was, it caused the barrier to trembled once more.

  Alex almost answered, yet he did not know why. He remained quiet eyes fixed of the brilliance before him as light began together around the Wingless Angel. Blinding and consuming, it engulfed everything.

  Alex threw his arm over his face.

  When he looked up, the Angel was gone.

  Alex swallowed hard. Silence fell, heavy and all-encompassing. He lay still, trying to breathe. The pain was everywhere, yet he pulled himself to the edge and looked down.

  Iris lay in a pool of blood. Motionless.

  He gritted his teeth. Tears came, slow and hot.

  "Damn it."

  He stayed there a long time. Not counting, not thinking. Just letting the weight sit.

  Then slowly, he rose. Using nothing but his one reliable leg, he limped to the edge and gazed out at the distance. The sun was half hidden behind mountains. The sound of birds sang somewhere far off. The wind blew gently, warmly.

  It should have been a moment of peace and tranquility.

  Yet all Alex wanted was to reverse time. To the moment he woke in Bastion Castle. Maybe then, just maybe, things would have turned out differently.

  ‘I… made it.’ The thought felt hollow.

  Alex turned. And froze.

  The Sunken Archives stood before him, but it was wrong. All kinds of wrong.

  Glass panels, top to bottom, reflected the bruised sky in distorted waves. Steel beams, clean and geometric, nothing like the rough stone of Bastion Castle. Concrete walls, pale and smooth, rising in sharp, modern lines.

  Alex stared, his tired eyes refusing to understand.

  Then came the people.

  The doors slid open with a soft ting, automatic and seamless. They walked through dressed in modern clothes: jeans, hoodies, leather satchels. A young woman with a tablet tucked under her arm. An older man carrying a stack of books bound by nylon straps. Students. Office workers. People who did not belong to this world.

  They passed him like he was invisible.

  A whisper stirred in the depths of his mind. Not cold. Not mechanical. Ancient. Deep as roots.

  "You begin to perceive the threads of existence.”

  Light shimmered before his eyes. Symbols unfolded like liquid silver, arranging themselves into familiar words.

  [Dream Resonance: +110]

  He limped forward. A signpost stood before him, its letters crisp and modern. Words that should not exist here.

  ‘Sector 2, Fourth Avenue, 117… District 13.’

  The last syllable left his lips as a whisper. "Wha… what?"

  The air trembled. Another screen shimmered into existence, these ones burning with a deeper blue.

  [Realm Alignment: Lucid Realm (Ready to Ascend)]

  [You stand at the threshold. Ascension awaits your choosing.]

  The world tilted.

  Darkness swallowed everything. And from the depths, Morpheus spoke one final time, not a notification, but a gift. A secret passed from something ancient to something just beginning to remember.

  "Dreamer take now what has always been yours: Whisper of Memory."