Nothingness stretched in all directions. Riven floated in it, suspended in a void without stars, without horizons, without anything to mark the passage of time or distance.

  Only his thoughts existed here, adrift in perfect darkness, a consciousness untethered from physical form. His first coherent thought was simple.

  I'm dead. That corrupted knight finally killed me.

  Anger surged through him. At first it had no target—then it found one. The knight. Himself.

  Regret followed close behind—a hollow ache for everything left unfinished. He'd survived slavery only to die in this alien hell without accomplishing anything meaningful. Without fighting hard enough for the better life he'd barely begun to imagine.

  Then, a sensation broke through the void. Cold. So cold it burned against his skin. The contradiction puzzled him—how could he feel cold if he was dead? The sensation spread, sharpening his awareness.

  His fingers came next, tingling as if blood had rushed back after hours of numbness. The feeling crawled up his arms, into his shoulders, down his chest. His legs. His feet. Each part of his body reporting back, one by one, as if answering a silent roll call.

  His eyelids were heavy, reluctant to obey when he commanded them to open. But they did, eventually. His vision was blurred, unfocused. A dark stone surface filled his field of view, close enough that he could feel its rough texture against his cheek.

  He was lying on his side, face pressed to the cold ground.

  Riven attempted to move, bracing himself for the tearing agony that should come with a sword wound through his abdomen. His teeth clenched automatically, muscles tensing in anticipation of pain. His hand went instinctively to his stomach, expecting to find torn flesh, wet blood, exposed innards.

  But there was nothing. Only the ragged edges of his shirt where the blade had pierced it. His fingertips probed the skin beneath the torn fabric, seeking the wound that should have killed him. The skin was whole, unbroken. Not even a scar marked the spot where steel had burst through flesh.

  How is that... possible?

  He pinched his cheek hard, wincing at the sharp pain. Not a dream, then.

  The memory of the blade punching through his back, emerging from his stomach, was too vivid, too visceral to be imagination. He'd felt his internal organs tear, felt his own warm blood spilling over his hands. That kind of agony couldn't be fabricated by even the most creative mind.

  Riven shook his head, trying to dispel the confusion.

  He pushed himself up on his elbows. Something felt off about his movements—not painful exactly, but strange. Foreign. His body responded to his commands but with an odd heaviness, as if he were wearing someone else's skin. Certain parts of him seemed unfamiliar, though he couldn't have explained exactly why or how.

  One sensation, however, was impossible to ignore. A warmth radiated from the center of his chest—not the comfortable warmth of sitting near a fire, but something more invasive. More internal. As if someone had placed a hot coal inside his ribcage, just behind his sternum. It pulsed with his heartbeat in a place where he'd never felt anything before, where there had always been a certain emptiness, an absence he'd never had reason to notice until now.

  Like a new organ had grown where none existed before.

  The memory of the titanic corpse struck him suddenly, the image flashing before his eyes with nightmarish clarity—the corrupted tree, the impaled body, the single violet eye that had opened and seen through him completely. Panic surged through his veins like ice water.

  Riven twisted around violently, still sitting, pushing himself backward across the stone floor with his heels and palms. His eyes darted frantically to the spot where the monstrous tableau had been displayed.

  The wall was empty.

  Where the massive, corrupted tree had stood, with its spikes of obsidian impaling the titanic corpse, there was nothing but bare stone. The wall curved gently upward, roots clinging to it in places—the same blood-red roots that covered every surface in this place. The golden buds cast their sickly light across the chamber, illuminating nothing out of the ordinary.

  It was as if the titan had never existed.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Riven stared at the empty wall, his mind struggling to reconcile what he was seeing with what he knew he had seen before. The thing had been enormous—impossibly large, a mountain of corrupted flesh and bone that dominated the chamber. It couldn't simply vanish without a trace.

  Had he hallucinated it? Was it a fever dream, a vision born of fear and exhaustion?

  No. The eye had been real. He had felt it reaching into him, examining him from the inside out. And the knight had been real too—the sword through his gut had been real.

  Yet here he sat, whole and unharmed, staring at an empty wall.

  What the hell is happening here?

  Am I losing it?

  The panic rose higher in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him. He wondered if one of the parasites or corruptions that seemed to infest everything in this place had wormed its way into his brain, replacing reality with hallucinations. Perhaps the real Riven was still lying on the floor, bleeding out, while this version of himself was nothing but the last desperate fantasy of a dying mind.

  He pressed his palms against his eyes until he saw stars, trying to force his thoughts into some kind of order. When he lowered his hands, the wall remained stubbornly empty. The titan remained stubbornly absent.

  And the strange warmth in his chest remained stubbornly present, pulsing with each beat of his heart.

  Suddenly, a sound echoed in the distance.

  Riven's head snapped toward it, his body tensing instantly.

  Footsteps, growing louder with each passing second. His hand scrambled across the stone floor beside him, searching for his sword. Finding the hilt, he gripped it tightly, muscles coiling with tension.

  He wasn't ready for another fight—not now, not like this—but he would face whatever came regardless.

  The footsteps quickened, accompanied by a voice that bounced off the stone walls of the chamber. "RIVEN!"

  The tension drained from his shoulders immediately. He knew that voice—worried, familiar, and unmistakable.

  His throat felt dry, but he managed to call back, "Here!" The word came out rougher than intended, his voice unused and strained.

  The footsteps accelerated into a sprint.

  Moments later, two figures appeared at the upper edge of the chamber, where the natural stairway of roots and stone led down to the circular floor. They paused only briefly before racing down, taking the treacherous descent with reckless speed.

  Lya reached him first, dropping to her knees beside him with enough force to bruise. Her eyes were wide, lips parted slightly, face flushed from exertion and relief. "Riven!"

  Her voice trembled as her hands moved across his shoulders, arms, chest, searching frantically for injuries that weren't there. "You're... you're not hurt?" The question came out breathless, disbelieving, as she continued her inspection despite the obvious lack of wounds.

  Riven closed his eyes, letting the relief wash over him. A tension he hadn't recognized in his neck and shoulders—held unconsciously since waking—finally released.

  He was not alone anymore.

  "I was so worried," Lya continued, her voice still unsteady. "I thought you were attacked, or... I didn't think I'd find you alive."

  his voice still worried ,"But... what happened? What the hell happened here?"

  Riven hesitated, the memories flooding back. The titan. The corrupted knight. The violet energy and the searing pain as it had coursed through him. He clenched his teeth, choosing his words carefully.

  "I fought something," he said, his voice steady despite the chaos of his thoughts. "A monster. It nearly killed me." He paused, uncertain how much to reveal. "There was some kind of energy—chaotic, and violet. I touched it out of desperation." Another pause. "Then everything went black."

  I'm not telling them about the titan's corpse. I don't even know what it was, and it would only worry her needlessly.

  And, it's gone now—if I mentioned it, they'll just think I've lost my mind.

  Lya straightened slightly, settling back on her heels. She finally stopped searching for injuries, accepting what her hands had already confirmed—Riven was unharmed.

  But confusion and worry still etched deep lines across her face.

  "A week," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "You've been unconscious for an entire week!" Her eyes met his, shimmering with unshed tears. "I thought you were dead."

  Riven's stomach dropped. A week? His mind reeled, trying to process how seven days had simply vanished. His mouth went dry as he realized he should be severely dehydrated, starving—dead, by all logic—yet here he sat, feeling oddly refreshed.

  The questions came rapidly then, tumbling over one another as if she couldn't contain them any longer. "How did it happen? What was that energy? How did you survive a week without water or food? Where is the mon—"

  "Whoa," Riven opened his eyes and interrupted, raising a hand to stem the flood. "Don't overwhelm me. I'll answer what I can."

  As he spoke, Lya's expression shifted suddenly. The torrent of questions died in her throat, replaced by a look of pure shock. Even Aron, standing silently behind her, showed clear surprise on his face.

  "What is it?" Riven asked, unnerved by their reactions.

  Aron spoke first, his voice mellow tinged with confusion. "Your... your eyes." He leaned forward slightly. "They're different."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Lya moved closer again, her face only inches from Riven's as she studied him intently. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating as if trying to process something impossible. "Your pupils," she whispered, voice thin. "They're... violet. And glowing."

  Violet. And glowing. The words echoed in his mind, connecting immediately to the energy he'd touched, to the titan's eye that had fixed him with that same impossible color.

  He looked between them, searching for any sign that this was some kind of jest. Aron stood with one hand resting on his spear, the other at his chin, deep in thought. Lya remained close, her expression a mixture of fascination and concern.

  A heavy silence settled between them, broken only by the distant drip of liquid somewhere in the chamber. Riven felt the strange warmth pulse in his chest, stronger now, as if responding to the revelation.

  Aron finally broke the silence. "I don't know what this energy was that you encountered." He straightened his posture, as if preparing to deliver formal news, his tone taking on an oddly official quality despite his obvious discomfort.

  "I believe…you have bonded with a Fragment."