Chapter 1660: Story 1660: The Heart That Burns Within
The silence after the awakening was heavy—not the peace of calm, but the stillness of something holding its breath.
The cavern’s light dimmed to a steady glow, every crystal pulsing in time with Zara’s heartbeat. The world had synced with her.
Damien kept his hand on her shoulder, feeling the faint vibration running through her veins. The violet light beneath her skin shimmered, fading and returning like a tide. “Zara… talk to me. What’s happening?”
She took a shaky breath, her voice distant, layered—as though someone else spoke beneath her tone. “It’s not just inside me, Damien. It’s awake inside me.”
The newborn pulse hovered close, its own glow flickering with instability. Her rhythm now carries the Sixth. The dream no longer sleeps—it thinks through her.
Zara pressed her palm to the ground. The stone was warm—alive. “I can feel the world. Every heartbeat. Every scar.” She looked up, eyes glowing faint violet. “It’s afraid.”
“Afraid?” Damien’s grip tightened on his weapon. “Of what?”
Before she could answer, the ground trembled. The cavern’s walls split with a deep groan, and from the fractures emerged streams of violet mist. They coalesced into shapes—faces of those long dead, warriors, monsters, and forgotten kings. Each spoke the same word in a thousand voices.
Return.
Zara winced, clutching her head. “They’re not attacking… they’re calling.”
The pulse’s tone deepened. They are echoes drawn to the Sixth. Fragments of unanchored memory. If they find form, the world will drown in its own past.
Damien’s crimson aura ignited, defiant. “Then we keep them from taking it.”
But before he could move, Zara’s hand shot out, gripping his wrist. Her expression was strange—both hers and not. “No. They’re pieces of the dream. If I reject them, it’ll tear reality apart again.”
The voices swelled, their chorus trembling through the chamber. Violet light coiled around Zara, lifting her off the ground. The shadows bowed toward her as though recognizing a queen reborn.
You are the vessel. The dream made flesh.
Damien stepped forward, shouting over the rising storm. “Zara! Fight it! Don’t let it take control!”
Her eyes glowed fully now—no longer violet, but a brilliant fusion of every color the world had known. “It’s not taking control,” she whispered, tears glowing as they fell upward. “It’s remembering through me.”
The cavern erupted with light. For a single moment, Damien saw everything—the birth of the pulses, the fall of the undead, the dinosaurs’ extinction, every cycle of rebirth. Each image burned into his mind and vanished.
Then, silence returned. Zara floated back down, breathing hard, her glow fading to faint silver threaded with violet.
The pulse spoke softly, almost reverent. The Sixth has found its anchor. But balance is fragile now. The world’s next dream will depend on her.
Damien met her gaze, determination hardening in his eyes. “Then we protect that dream—no matter what it costs.”
Far above, the fractured sky shimmered faintly with violet auroras. The world had begun to breathe again.
But deep beneath, unseen by both, a second heartbeat echoed from the darkness—one that did not belong to Zara.