Ashes of the Forsaken

The doorway swallowed him whole.

Kieran took a single step past the threshold, and the world dissolved.

There was no air. No stone beneath his feet. Only weightless nothingness.

His senses fought against the sudden loss of reality, his instincts screaming that he had stepped into something unnatural.

He had walked through doors before. Through thresholds hidden in time and shadow. But this?

This was not a door.

This was a passage.

A corridor between two places that should never have touched.

And something was waiting on the other side.

The first thing he noticed was the ground.

It wasn't solid, not in the way stone or earth should be. It was soft.

Like ash.

Kieran exhaled, watching as the dust beneath his boots swirled outward with each step, curling into the dark like dying embers.

The air was thick, unmoving.

The silence was absolute.

Then, from the void ahead—

A flicker.

Not of light.

But of memory.

The city was dying.

Kieran stood among the ruins, his breath sharp, his hands trembling.

Flames danced through the streets, but they cast no heat.

The spires of the great towers had crumbled, their stonework scattered like brittle bones.

But the people—

The people were gone.

No bodies. No screams.

Just shadows imprinted on the walls, frozen in the moment they had been erased.

The wind carried no sound.

Because this was a place where history had already ended.

And Kieran had been at its heart.

A figure stood at the center of the ruins.

Cloaked. Unmoving.

At first, Kieran thought it was another statue, like the faceless ones in the ruins above.

Then it turned.

His pulse stilled.

The face beneath the hood was his own.

But wrong.

Cracks ran across its skin like fractured glass, flickering in and out of existence.

A reflection caught between two worlds.

A version of himself that had already shattered.

And when it spoke—

Kieran recognized the voice.

"You took your time."

Kieran exhaled slowly.

"You're me."

The fractured figure laughed.

Not mockingly.

But tired.

"Once, maybe."

Kieran stepped forward.

The figure didn't move.

It simply watched.

"I wondered if you'd find your way back."

Kieran clenched his jaw. "Back to what?"

The figure tilted its head. "To the end."

A flicker of something unfamiliar, yet known, stirred in Kieran's chest.

"The war you lost. The war you started."

The city burned behind him.

The embers curled upward into the dark, vanishing like the ghosts of a forgotten past.

Kieran took another step forward.

And his past stepped toward him.

The space between them collapsed.

The broken version of himself moved first.

Not an attack.

A test.

Kieran barely had time to react before the first strike came.

A blade—curved, jagged at the edges, familiar and foreign all at once—appeared in the reflection's grasp.

Not steel.

Something else.

Something made from the same fractured energy that flickered beneath his skin.

Kieran moved on instinct.

He twisted to the side, avoiding the arc of the blade, feeling the heat of it pass just close enough to burn.

His past knew how he fought.

Because his past had been him.

Kieran blocked the next strike bare-handed.

Pain shot through his arm as the edge of the weapon cut into his skin.

Not deep. But enough.

The figure exhaled.

"Still slow."

Kieran grit his teeth. Not slow. Calculating.

He caught the hilt of the blade before the reflection could pull back—twisting with enough force to wrench it free.

The weapon dissolved in his grip, shattering into pieces of light before reforming in the reflection's hand.

Not physical.

A memory of a weapon.

The realization hit him all at once.

This fight wasn't real.

Or rather—it was a battle that had already happened.

A moment of the past, replaying itself over and over again.

Until someone won.

Kieran stepped back.

The reflection hesitated.

A flicker of recognition passed between them.

The way Kieran moved. The way his stance shifted.

The past had expected him to fight.

But not to stop.

The embers burning at the edges of the city flickered.

The world rippled.

A crack formed in the sky above them—not lightning, but something deeper.

A tear.

Kieran looked up, his breath steady.

The reflection's form flickered again. Fading. Breaking.

For the first time, it looked uncertain.

"You don't remember, do you?"

Kieran exhaled. "No."

A pause.

Then—

"Then you're already dead."

The reflection lunged again.

And this time—it didn't hold back.

Kieran moved, but the moment he did—the air turned solid.

The reflection wasn't moving faster.

He was moving slower.

Something pushed against him.

Not magic.

Time itself.

His movements felt delayed, like he was caught between two realities.

Like he was being pulled backward.

The reflection's blade drove forward.

And Kieran knew—this was how he had lost.

The memory wasn't just showing him the past.

It was dragging him back into it.

And if he let it happen—

Then this time, he wouldn't return.

Kieran clenched his jaw.

He had spent too long following the echoes of his past, letting the past dictate his path forward.

Not this time.

Not anymore.

The reflection's strike came for his chest—

And he stepped forward instead of back.

The movement disrupted the flow of the memory. Broke the loop.

The reflection's strike missed.

And for the first time—

Kieran saw fear in its eyes.

The reflection staggered.

It was the first sign of weakness.

Until now, it had moved with the certainty of someone reliving the past—a warrior fighting a battle it had already won.

But Kieran had broken that cycle.

He had stepped forward instead of back.

And that single action had shattered the rhythm of the past.

The reflection flickered, its form glitching, distorting like a fractured mirror.

For the first time, it looked unsure.

For the first time, Kieran was ahead of it.

And that meant this time, the past would not dictate the outcome.

The next attack came sloppier.

Not from lack of skill.

But because the reflection was adjusting.

Adapting.

Trying to regain control.

Kieran dodged, slipping past a wild strike that carved through the empty air.

His instincts screamed at him to fight back.

To retaliate. To land the killing blow before the past could reclaim its grip.

But something inside him hesitated.

Not fear.

Not uncertainty.

Recognition.

The reflection wasn't just an enemy.

It wasn't just an obstacle.

It was him.

And killing it meant killing a part of himself.

Kieran's breath slowed.

He wasn't here to win.

This wasn't a battle he could win.

It was a moment.

A test.

One that he had already failed before.

Kieran exhaled, loosening his stance.

And for the first time, he did not fight.

The reflection hesitated, its flickering form wavering as though uncertain whether to attack again.

Kieran took a step closer.

The reflection did not move.

Kieran took another step.

He was close enough to touch it now.

And instead of striking, instead of delivering the final blow—

He reached forward.

And placed his hand against its chest.

The moment his palm made contact, the world fractured.

The reflection gasped, its entire body convulsing as light erupted from its cracks.

Not destruction.

Not defeat.

Something else.

Something waking.

A rush of memories—not visions, but **feelings—**flooded Kieran's mind.

Fear.

Guilt.

Failure.

And beneath all of it—

A promise.

A promise made in a different life.

A promise he had broken.

Kieran's fingers tightened.

The reflection looked up, its expression one of pure shock.

"You... remember?"

The truth hit Kieran like a hammer.

The reason he had returned.

The reason he had been erased.

It had never been about winning.

It had never been about revenge.

It had been about redemption.

He had failed before.

Not just in battle.

Not just in war.

But in something deeper.

And whatever had been lost—whatever he had forgotten—

It wasn't just about himself.

It was about them.

The ones who had been erased.

The ones who had been left behind.

The ones he had sworn to protect.

And the moment he realized that truth—

The reflection stopped fighting.

The figure's flickering form began to change.

The cracks running through its body sealed.

The jagged edges of its presence smoothed.

And for the first time—it looked whole.

The city around them stilled.

The flames that had burned through the streets ceased to move.

The sky—once fractured, once bleeding with the weight of an unfinished war—began to mend.

Because Kieran had finally understood.

This wasn't just a battleground.

This wasn't just the past.

This was a wound in time itself.

A scar left by a decision he had once made.

And now—he had made a different one.

The reflection's eyes locked onto his.

"You have one more chance."

And with that—it stepped into him.

A shockwave ripped through the air.

Kieran staggered, his breath catching as the presence of his past self flooded into him.

Memories that had been sealed away for lifetimes surged through his mind.

The war. The city. The battle that had been fought not for power, but for survival.

The people who had depended on him.

The people who had died because of him.

And the one he had lost.

The one who had called his name as the world burned.

Kieran gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand.

The reflection was gone.

Because it had never been a separate entity.

It had been him all along.

And now—he was whole again.

The ruins shifted.

The air grew lighter.

The city of flames, the place where time had fractured—it was fading.

Not because it was being erased.

But because it had been acknowledged.

Accepted.

Kieran exhaled, stepping forward into the closing void.

The threshold was still open.

The real world—the world he had returned to—was waiting.

And this time, he would not walk forward blindly.

This time, he carried the truth with him.