The air grew suffocating, thick with a power neither of them could see but both could feel sinking into their bones. The figure stood still, as if time bent around them, as if the very room had ceased to exist beyond their presence.

Her fingers tightened around his, and for once, he didn’t pull away.

The one who had cursed them.

The one who had watched them fall, life after life.

The one who had ensured their story never ended in peace.

“You’re… still alive,” he murmured, his voice dangerously low.

The figure let out a slow chuckle, their presence pressing down on them like an unseen weight.

“Alive?” the voice echoed. “Foolish boy. I was never truly gone. Just waiting. Watching. And now, here you are again — defying fate. Trying to break free.”

The air rippled.

And then —

Pain.

Like a thousand knives sinking into his skin.

He staggered, a sharp gasp escaping his lips.

“Stop!” she cried, reaching for him, but an invisible force yanked her back.

The figure tilted their head. “Ah… you’re still so naïve, girl. Always clinging to hope. Always thinking this time will be different.”

She struggled, fighting against whatever force held her still. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because it was never your choice.”

The words sent a chill down her spine.

“Your story is not yours to rewrite.”

A Past They Never Knew

His breaths were shallow, his vision blurring, but he forced himself to stand.

“You think you control fate?” he spat, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “You were never a god. Just a coward playing with lives.”

A slow, eerie smile stretched across the figure’s face. “You never did understand, did you?”

Dark energy crackled around them, shifting the space itself.

And suddenly, they were no longer in the room.

No walls. No floor.

Only darkness — endless and eternal.

And then —

A vision.

Blurry at first, then painfully clear.

A time before their first life.

Before the cycle of death and tragedy began.

A temple, bathed in fire. A figure standing at its center. And the unmistakable feeling that they had been here before.

“You never asked why,” the voice whispered. “Why I cursed you. Why I made you suffer.”

His fists clenched.

Because he had never cared.

Only about breaking free.

But now —

He wasn’t so sure.

“Look closer,” the voice urged.

And as he did, the truth hit him like a blade through the chest.

The curse hadn’t been out of cruelty.

It had been punishment.

For a betrayal he no longer remembered.

A betrayal that had set everything in motion.

“Now, tell me, boy.” The voice was amused. “Will you still fight fate, knowing what you’ve done?”

He stood frozen.

Because for the first time —

He wasn’t sure if he was the hero of this story.

Or the villain.