The next morning, Riven awoke to an eerie stillness.
It wasn't the gentle quiet of early morning, where birds chirped softly and the sun filtered lazily through the window. This silence was sharp, unnatural. It wrapped around the room like a shroud, pressing against his skin, heavy and still.
His eyelids fluttered open.
The ceiling stared back—same ceiling—but something was wrong. He couldn't tell what at first. It felt like waking up in a familiar place that had been... tampered with.
He sat up slowly. The sheets crinkled beneath him, soaked with sweat that clung to his back like a second skin. The moment his feet touched the ground, a strange sensation crawled up his spine.
The floor felt lower.
He blinked.
No, not lower. He was... higher?
His toes didn't dangle like they usually did. They touched. Flat.
Confused, he stood up. A strange heaviness shifted through his limbs. He wobbled slightly—his balance was off. His legs stretched farther than he remembered. His arms longer, shoulders broader. Muscles flexed in places he didn't even have last night.
He stumbled forward, almost tripping on the edge of the bed, and approached the mirror near his desk.
What he saw stopped his breath cold.
Staring back—
Was himself.
But not.
The boy in the mirror was taller—at least by half a head. His hair was messier, his jaw more defined, his face less round, more angular. And his eyes... they were still his, but deeper. Like they'd seen years in a single night.
"W-What the..." he whispered, voice cracking with disbelief. It sounded deeper. Not by much—but enough to be wrong.
He touched the mirror. The surface was cold, solid.
Real.
His breath quickened. His chest heaved. He spun around.
The room.
The room wasn't his.
At least, not the way he remembered it. The bookshelf that used to lean slightly to the right now stood perfectly straight. His childhood toys—gone. Replaced by a neat desk and school scrolls he had no memory of writing. Even the curtains weren't the same—they were a deep blue instead of forest green.
It wasn't just different.
It was wrong.
Everything looked set, as if this version of his life had always existed.
But it hadn't. He was five yesterday. Five.
And now?
A voice echoed from beyond the door.
"Riven! Breakfast's ready!"
It was cheerful, sing-song, and young—but not familiar. A girl's voice.
His legs moved on instinct, guided more by dream-logic than thought. The corridor outside the room felt stretched. Longer than usual, yet somehow... familiar.
He found the kitchen.
A little girl—no older than six—was bustling about, helping his mother set the table. Her laughter rang out like she belonged here, like she had always belonged.
As she saw him, she ran over, bright eyes shining.
"Good morning, brotha! Let's have breakfast!"
He stared at her, heart racing. "Brotha?" he echoed, throat dry.
"Don't be sleepy, now! You promised you'd sit next to me today!" She tugged at his hand.
From the stove, his mother turned, smiling as if nothing was wrong. "Yes, son, let's eat together. We've got to head out for your admission into the primary division of the Eclipsing Dawn."
The what?
He froze. "Eclipsing Dawn... what?" he muttered under his breath.
That wasn't a real place. Was it?
From behind him, a warm voice chimed in.
"You ready, son?"
Riven turned.
His father.
But younger. Not the tired, sick man from his fragmented memories—but tall, healthy, vibrant. His presence filled the space like sunlight. His smile was soft, kind.
Everything inside Riven shattered.
This couldn't be real. His father was...
The room warped.
Like the air itself recoiled.
His skin crawled. He looked at his hands—they weren't his. They were someone else's. Older. Different.
His mind screamed questions, but his lips couldn't form words.
Before he could even breathe—
The world blinked.
Everything—
Vanished.
Pitch black.
But not empty.
It wasn't a void. It was a presence.
And it saw him.
The silence here wasn't passive. It was alive. Breathing. Thinking.
It didn't speak—but it didn't need to.
Riven felt it. Something entered him. Not with violence, not with sound—but with pure knowing.
A message.
Carved into the marrow of his soul.
He jolted upright in bed, gasping.
The air was icy. The room—his real room. Familiar. Messy. Safe.
His sheets were soaked. His skin clammy.
He touched his face. Same. Younger again. Five.
He was back.
Back in the right time. The right body.
His heart raced as he scanned the room for any trace of what had just happened. But it was silent. Still.
Only the moonlight peeking through the window, pale and soft.
Was it a dream? A vision?
No.
It was something else.
He knew it. Deep inside, under the skin.
But before his thoughts could spiral further—
"Oh no… oh no no no—" Riven yelped as he noticed the soaked bedsheets. "Mom's gonna think I peed the bed. What do I do now?! I barely know basic magic—I can't clean this without making noise!"
He tried a weak drying spell. A puff of sparks.
The sheet just got warmer.
"Ugh, great... now it's warm and wet."
Morning came too fast.
He dragged himself to the kitchen with the dread of a condemned man.
"M-Mom... I kinda..."
His mother, Sera, turned from the stove, raising an eyebrow. She sniffed the air dramatically.
"Oh dear gods," she smirked. "Did you wet your sheets, Riven? You're five! That must've been a tsunami, not a sprinkle."
Riven's cheeks ignited. "Mooommm!! Please don't tell anyone—"
"Oh, I won't," she said, lips curling wickedly. "Unless I need a favor. Maybe you can fold laundry this week. Or do dishes. Or massage my feet."
"That's evil!" he pouted.
"Mother's privilege," she said smugly, ruffling his hair. "Now go wash up before your sister starts calling you Peeven again."
Riven groaned and buried his face in his hands.
"Can I just go back to the creepy void instead?"
"Nope! Real world's waiting, champ!"
And despite everything... he smiled.
A little.
But the blue moon still hung somewhere in his mind.
But what was it?
What was the message that silence carved so deeply into Riven's heart?
He never truly understood.
Not that night. Not the next. Not even in the days that followed, where dreams flickered like dying embers and every shadow held its breath. The presence hadn't spoken in words. It had burned something into him, something wordless, something alive.
It was a warning.
A reminder.
Or perhaps...
A summons.
Seven years passed.
In a blink.
And now, Riven—twelve years old—stood at the edge of Nhal'Syra Lake, which was located at the center of continent Valtherion cloaked in midnight mist.
The waters before him were glass, unmoving, whispering reflections of ancient stars. The trees that ringed the lake were silent and bare, twisted as if they had witnessed too many winters... or too many secrets.
And above him...
The Blue Moon.
It bathed the lake in a ghostly hue, softer than silver, colder than frost. It was no ordinary moon—it shimmered, pulsed, as if remembering him.
This night.
the myth Vaelir told. It was true after all that blue moon night existed.
The Night of Ten Thousand Years.
It came once every ten millennia.
A night when the sky bled secrets, and the veil between the living and the forgotten thinned.
The silence returned.
Not around him—within him.
That same silence.
Seven years ago, it had entered him like smoke seeps into stone. He had thought it was over.
But now...
He felt it again.
A vibration beneath his skin. A pressure in his chest. Not pain—recognition.
Like the lake, the moon, the night itself—had been waiting for him.
Is this what that meant back then?
Was this the message?
Is this what Vaelir... that old man talked about?
Not in words, but in presence:
"Remember this moon."
"Remember who you are not yet allowed to become."
"When the ten-thousandth night falls, stand by the lake. Alone. And you will see the truth that time forgot."
Riven swallowed, but his throat was dry. The air was colder here, unnaturally cold, but he wasn't shivering.
Something was about to happen.
He stepped forward, boots crunching lightly on frost-laced grass. He approached the water's edge.
The blue reflection rippled.
No wind. No movement.
Just a ripple.
And then—
A sound.
Not a voice.
Not speech.
But remembrance.
From deep within the lake, something moved.
The silence cracked open like a shell.
And what poured out—
Wasn't darkness.
But something that couldn't be described in mere words.
Something older than his blood. Older than the world he knew. Something ancient was waking.
And it remembered him.