"The real Ikai Liu - Turned to Ashes."
"Ming Zhe - Came Out of the Ashes."
He recoiled sharply, as if he had been struck. His heart clenched with sudden realization, as if someone's invisible fingers were squeezing his chest.
It was his name - no doubt about it - but it sounded foreign here, as if it belonged to someone else.
"I am Ikai Liu now."
He whispered, as if trying to convince himself.
"That is my name in this world. This world must not know who I was."
His voice trembled, betraying his fear and confusion. He felt a cold sweat trickle down his back, and his mind was filled with questions that had no answers.
"Are you trying to bring me back to something I'm no longer? Or… erase both?"
There was no answer. Only the scratching of sand and, in the distance, a faint sigh of wind.
Ikai slowly rose to his feet, feeling the weight of the unknown pressing down on his shoulders. His movements were sharp, almost mechanical, as if each step was a struggle.
He moved away from his name on the wall, as if it had suddenly become foreign and dangerous. At the same time, he was moving away from the wall and from the person who had known him before, the person he had been before everything changed.
With each passing hour, he felt something inside him changing, transforming. It wasn't just a physical transformation; it was something deeper, more profound. Perhaps the star wasn't just erasing his past, but also creating something new out of him.
Something that was no longer human. Something... inhuman.
The thought frightened him, but at the same time there was something about it that was mesmerizing, like a dark abyss that he could not help but look into.
The path from the temple led into the void.
The sand was scattered, as if some giant hand had shaken the earth and left it in disarray.
The stone slabs had crumbled to dust, and the ruins of the dwellings were half-buried in the sand. It was not a village, but a shadow of one, a memory of the past.
Ikai walked slowly, feeling a strange tension in his chest with each step. It wasn't pain or itching, but rather an uneasy premonition.
It seemed to him that the space was watching him, creeping up behind him, changing shape as soon as he looked away.
And then he saw the well.
It seemed that time had forgotten about it, leaving it to decay in silence. The well was simple, its design unadorned and worn out by years of neglect.
The wooden crossbeam that supported the top of the well had almost completely rotted away from the elements. There was no bucket or rope, nothing to indicate that the well had been used recently.
Overcome with curiosity, Ikai approached the well and peered inside. The darkness within seemed to absorb the light, offering no hint of water or a bottom. There was no view of the sky or the surrounding landscape; only an abyss of emptiness and blackness.
For a moment, as he gazed into the void, Ikai thought he saw movement – a flicker of light in the depths.
He blinked to adjust his eyes to the darkness. Something stirred within, subtle but unmistakable.
A shiver ran down his spine, and he felt a strange mixture of admiration and unease.
"Who is this?"
Ikai Liu called out, his voice echoing in the darkness. The silence that followed was deafening, heavy with unanswered questions and the weight of the unknown.
The sand around the well was littered with symbols. They looked like small, carelessly scribbled marks. Each letter was probably created with the fingers, and at first glance, it seemed as if someone were tirelessly repeating the same message.
The repeated phrases sounded like a cry for help:
"I can't forget, I can't forget, I can't…"
Ikai fell to his knees, as if the earth itself could provide him with answers. His hand reached out towards the edge of the well, and he felt his fingers touch the cold stone. At that moment, a flash went through his mind.
Ikai Liu was standing by the well, but not with his own body. The feeling was strange and even frightening. The hands that reached out to the edge belonged to someone else.
They were thin, with childlike hands, full of childlike innocence. The voice that came out of his mouth was like a hoarse child's voice:
"He tells me not to sleep... He tells me that I am a window..."
The words sounded like a spell, immersing him in a world of fantasy and fear. The wind ruffled his hair like a living creature, adding an air of unease and mystery to the scene.
Behind them were the silhouettes of adults. Their images were blurred, but the details were clear: all of them had bandages over their eyes. It was eerie. Their silence was the most frightening part.
The child continued to reach out towards the well. A mix of curiosity and indifference to danger was reflected in his eyes.
He was already drawn to the emptiness and mystery surrounding this enigmatic object. The void beckoned like an unexplored territory full of possibilities.
Adults, unable to see what he saw, continued to remain in their own worlds, immersed in darkness.
Each bandage on the adults' eyes symbolized their own fears and worries. They couldn't bear to look into the abyss, while the child had already found solace within it.
This difference in perception deepened the gulf between the generations. The child seemed to already know what it was like to be a window into a world where darkness and light intertwined.
The well beckoned to him. He knew that there was more beyond its edges.
"I see. There, inside. It's... moving."
A voice, foreign and hoarse:
"Step back. If it looks back, you'll lose your name."
Ikai emerged from the vision as if freed from invisible shackles. His body was shaking with internal tension.
His heart wasn't just beating, it was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst through his chest. His chest was burning, as if a fiery spark was burning within it.
He recoiled, as if he could feel an invisible force pulling him towards the well. The well remained the same. It was quiet. But now he knew that it wasn't just a hole, as he had previously thought. It was a knot, a tangled web of memories.
A loop that he had created for himself. He had a feeling that someone was looking up at him from the depths of darkness, knowing more about him than he did.
Ikai stood up. Slowly and carefully, as if afraid of disturbing the fragile peace of this place. On the stone at the edge of the well, there was a new inscription that had not been there before.
Her words were simple, but full of anxiety and mystery:
"The window is open. He saw you."
This message left him in confusion. Who was he? And who was the one watching?
Now the well was behind him, but the feeling didn't leave him - as if someone was still staring at the back of Ikai Liu's head, making his heart beat faster.
The feeling was so strong that it seemed as if the shadow he cast had come to life and was now whispering in his ear.
"It's not just a place. It's a network. A world chewed up by time and memory. Where every step is not forward, but deeper. Into someone else's story."
Ikai walked across the scorched plain. The sand crunched under his feet, and the wind carried either ashes or dust, mixing them with memories of what had once been here.
At some point, Ikai Liu realized the strange absence of his shadow. The feeling was so strong that it made him turn around. The sun was directly above him, its bright disk hanging in the sky, but it didn't emit the usual light. It was a strange paradox.
He stood still, trying to make sense of what was happening. The sky around him looked faded, as if it had been sun-bleached. The shadows that were usually created by sunlight were absent, adding to the strange sense of unreality.
The sun looked like a mythical object, not shining but rather staring down like a demonic eye devoid of life and warmth.
In the pupil of this "eye," one could make out a shape resembling a star. It shimmered, as if calling out to something deep and inaccessible.
There was silence all around. This silence was not just the absence of sound; it was a reminder that the world had changed. Nature seemed to be waiting.
A round, perfectly flat disk. No rays. No glow. Just a shining void. And within it... he felt movement.
The star in his chest trembled. Ikai Liu placed his hand on his heart, which felt hot, as if someone inside had just opened their eyes.
Ikai took a step back, his body tensed involuntarily, and his gaze fixed on the sky light, which had changed.
The sun... it gave a strange flicker, just a little, as if a living creature had blinked one eye. It was imperceptible to others, but Ikai felt every detail of the moment, every cell in his body screaming with alarm.
His breath came in a hoarse wheeze, his chest felt tight, and his legs buckled beneath him. He fell to his knees, as if he had lost all strength and will. In a state of desperation, unable to confront his fear, he squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to shield himself from the world itself. .
His heart raced, pounding in his chest like a drum, shaking the silence within him with its weight.
"It is not the sun as I have come to know it. It does not warm the earth with its gentle warmth, nor does it bring a generous life to flowers and lands. It was something else –something deep, ancient, and frighteningly incomprehensible. It was… searching for something."
The reason for its existence was different: the search.
But what was it searching for? Or whom?
Ikai was frozen in horror by the thought:
"Is it really looking for me?"
And he covered his ears. The world disappeared in a white hum.
And through this hum, a quiet, slow, emotionless voice could be heard.
"You are a vessel... I am the flame... you are the seal. I am the eye. Don't hide."
Ikai opened his eyes. There was no sun. Only the faded, bottomless emptiness of the sky. A faint light, like the echo of a fading day, enveloped him.
Everything seemed like a dream. Or a ghostly vision, woven from the ashes of memories.
He slowly stood up on shaky legs. There was a ringing silence in his chest, but within that silence was a knowledge:
"The sun now knows where I am. And it wasn't just a fleeting glance. It was... his awakening."
He turned around and noticed his shadow emerging from nowhere. But it had its own separate life, refusing to follow his movements.