anwhile, Erend lived quietly within the rhythm of a mundane life, allowing the days to pass without much thought beyond what lay directly in front of him.
He worked at the military base, staying there for days at a ti, sotis a full week because of the distance from his ho.
Yes. It had been more than a week since he last contacted Eccar or Aesa, or anyone from that other world. The only exception was Aurdis. They still t often, always in private, away from curious eyes and unspoken questions.
The routine grounded and cald him more than he expected.
The absence of looming catastrophes, ancient gods, and fractured space and ti, and other world ending events made everything feel... normal.
He hated to admit it, but he liked it. He liked waking up without the weight of a world-ending threat pressing against his chest. He liked being just another officer among many, following schedules and orders instead of protecting the fate of many.
Yet a heavy thought lingered in his mind.
"Am I running away?"
Sotis it crept in during quiet monts. He was supposed to be a protector of worlds. A Dragonborn ant to stand against things that could threaten the wellbeing of the worlds. And yet here he was, choosing silence, choosing distance, choosing rest.
"Is this wrong? Because I’m just so damn tired."
The questions never stayed long. He pushed them aside as easily as he always had, burying them under routine and repetition. Thinking too much would only drag him back to responsibilities he wasn’t ready to shoulder again.
So he kept living like this.
On another morning, Erend woke in his living quarters within the military facility. The room was plain and familiar.
He washed up, changed, and stepped out to join the morning exercise with the other staff, guards, and candidates.
They ran together. They stretched together. They trained in silence but sotis also saying short comnts, light complaints, usual talk, and casual banter.
Nothing heavy. Nothing important. Just simple words exchanged between people who shared the sa task in this facility.
After that, everyone went their separate ways.
The candidates followed their schedules strictly. So focused on physical conditioning, pushing their bodies to the limit again. So trained ntal discipline, concentration, and stress tolerance. A few were assigned to recovery, guided rest, and controlled healing exercises.
Erend changed into his uniform and walked toward the familiar office space he shared with Adrien and Billy.
The corridors felt ordinary beneath his boots. No strange sensations or distant warnings.
For now, the world felt quiet. Erend let himself believe that it could stay that way just a little longer.
Erend entered the office and let the door slide shut behind him. The familiar hum of computers greeted him as he crossed the room and sat down at his desk.
He rolled his shoulders once, then powered on his computer. The screen flickered to life, lines of status reports and logs loading smoothly, almost lazily.
"This is working well," Billy muttered from his station.
Erend didn’t look up yet, but he caught the tone. It was not a tone of relief, but sothing else.
"Too well," Billy added, a strange frown pulling at his face as he stared at his monitor.
Adrien glanced over from his own desk and snorted. "Stop saying things like that, Brook. You’re making nervous."
Billy leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Captain, this whole project has been going too smoothly. No anomalies, or sudden complications. Nothing happening for weeks." He hesitated, then said it anyway. "It feels like the problem is just... brewing. Waiting to explode all at once."
Erend finally looked up, a small, tired smile tugging at his lips.
"You’re just paranoid," he said lightly. "We just dealt with Zerathul. Of course things are quiet after that."
Billy visibly winced at the na, his jaw tightening.
"Everything’s fine, Bill," Erend continued, waving a hand dismissively. "Stop ruining the mood."
Billy answered with a low grunt, the kind that carried more worry than words ever could. He turned back to his screen and said nothing more.
The office settled into its usual rhythm. Keyboards clicked. Reports were reviewed and approved. Systems ran clean diagnostics without a single warning flag. Everything functioned exactly as intended.
Billy couldn’t shake the tight feeling in his chest. His eyes kept flicking to secondary monitors, then tertiary ones, searching for patterns that weren’t there. He felt like every green indicator felt suspicious, and the stable reading felt wrong.
Adrien noticed but chose not to comnt. Erend noticed too and chose not to care as well.
If Billy wanted to worry, he could worry alone.
For Erend, the quiet was welco. Just work, schedules, and normalcy stretching comfortably ahead.
Erend stared at his monitor as lines of data scrolled past, when his vision suddenly blurred. The edges of the screen trembled, the text saring as if the room had begun to shake.
He blinked hard and shook his head but nothing changed.
A slow sigh left his mouth. He leaned back slightly in his chair, already recognizing the sensation.
"Great... so it’s you again." After weeks of silence, the ti power within him had chosen now to stir and drag him into another vision.
"Alright," he thought tiredly. "What are you going to show this ti?"
But sothing felt off.
The pressure behind his eyes was wrong. The familiar pull of distorted monts and fractured futures wasn’t there. Instead, there was a colder, more chanical sensation crawling through his awareness.
Erend stiffened. This didn’t feel like ti power. It felt like the System.
That was unsettling. The System had never shown visions, never invaded his senses like this. It only issued instructions in the form of text.
His blurred vision darkened, and translucent lines of text appeared before him, hovering just above the monitor. They flickered violently, the characters tearing and reforming too fast to read like it was glitching.
Erend stayed still. He forced himself not to react.
"So... what happened now?"
The text spasd, fragnts collapsing into unreadable symbols. For a mont, he wondered if this was Veyrun interfering again. But the distortion felt different, sloppier. As if sothing was trying to speak through a broken channel.
Questions crowded his mind, but he waited.
Then the text stabilized.
[Hello.]
Erend frown deepened.
Another line appeared, then froze.
[...]
A third line ford, letters assembling with visible strain.
[I’m the - - - - -]
The final word tore itself apart, dissolving into static before it could finish.
Erend frowned deeply, eyes narrowing.
"You’re what?"
The text glitched again, the screen trembling softly, as if whatever was on the other side was struggling.
"What is that..."
—
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