The sun was too warm. The breeze, too kind.
Rei opened his eyes to a sky he didn't recognize—a pale blue canvas without a single cloud. He sat up on a grassy hill, surrounded by the quiet hum of life. Birds chirped. A brook whispered nearby. But inside his chest... something was wrong.
He touched his head. No pain. No injuries. But no memory either.
"Where... am I?"
He looked down at himself. Plain white shirt, dark slacks, no wounds, no weapons. His hands were clean—too clean. Not a single scar. Not a drop of blood. Not even a trace of who he used to be.
He stumbled down the hill, walking toward a small village nestled between the woods and the river. People smiled at him. Children laughed. It was almost perfect.
Too perfect.
And yet... he felt nothing.
As the day passed, Rei tried blending in. He helped an old man fix his wagon. Ate food he didn't remember liking. Watched the stars at night. Still—nothing felt real. There was no weight to anything, no truth behind any moment.
But that night, something changed.
Rei had a dream—no, a vision.
Blood-red skies. Screams echoing through smoke. Shadows clashing in the void. A silver-eyed warrior standing in a crater of corpses. And in his hand… a blade made of memories.
He woke up gasping.
Sweating. Trembling.
And beside him, on the edge of his bed…
...was a shattered mask fragment, glowing faintly in the moonlight.
He picked it up with shaking hands. It was cracked down the middle, dried blood on its surface. The instant he touched it, a pulse surged through his head—
> "You are Rei."
"You were never meant to forget."
"They made you... to never remember."
Rei clutched the shard as his heartbeat raced. The world outside was silent. Peaceful.
But deep inside, something ancient had begun to stir.
Something that had slept for far too long.
The mask shard was cold to the touch, but the moment Rei gripped it tighter, his vision blurred.
For a second—just one second—he wasn't in that quiet village room anymore.
He was falling.
Crimson skies. A battlefield covered in bones. A colossal figure above him, cloaked in light and shadow, speaking in a voice deeper than time itself.
> "You were never supposed to return."
He jolted awake. Again.
The mask fragment lay in his palm, humming softly now. He placed it on the table and stared at it, as if it might whisper secrets if he waited long enough.
A knock came at the door.
Rei opened it cautiously.
A tall man stood there, wrapped in a brown cloak. His eyes were hidden under a wide hat, but his voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"You dropped something, Rei."
Rei's breath hitched. "What did you call me?"
The man smiled faintly. "Your name. The one you've forgotten. Or... had taken from you."
Rei's fists clenched. "Who are you?"
"Someone who remembers, when you don't." He pointed toward the mask fragment. "They left you here to rest. To forget. But forgetting doesn't last forever."
"Who are 'they'?"
The man turned, beginning to walk away.
But he left behind three words, thrown over his shoulder like a curse.
> "The ones above."
Rei stood there frozen. The world felt... thinner, like it was just a paper wall hiding something darker behind it. He looked back at the fragment. A red line had appeared along the table beneath it, like dried blood.
He picked it up again.
Suddenly, a flash of red—images slamming into his mind.
A woman screaming his name.
A sword plunging into a god's chest.
A throne made of writhing blood.
Rei fell to his knees, panting.
> "Who am I really?"
No answer came. Only the soft hum of the shard in his hand.
But the lie had cracked.
And the truth was bleeding through.