The world fell away in silence.
Not the peaceful kind that graced the edges of sleep, but the awful, sucking kind — the silence that follows a scream too loud to exist. The void between realms was not dark. It was colourless, for even black had abandoned it. The higher being's curse had not only stolen their power — it had ripped away their sense of gravity, of up and down, of before and after.
Sora clutched his sister tighter as the nothingness swallowed them whole.
"Shiro!" he called out, but his voice vanished before it left his lips.
She stirred weakly in his arms, her small frame crumpled against his chest. He held her with both arms, ignoring the stinging burn that still marked their palms — the imprint of the celestial chains that had sealed away their magic.
Then, the void split.
Reality returned not gently, but like a blade — slashing at their senses, dragging them from a higher realm and slamming them into the dirt and blood of a new world.
They hit the earth hard, the air knocked from their lungs. Thunder cracked. Lightning flashed above them in unnatural shapes — not jagged bolts but geometric runes etched in light, fading as quickly as they appeared.
The sky was wrong.
It was too large, too red, and the stars shimmered like they were watching.
Sora gasped, his fingers sinking into cold soil. Shiro groaned beside him, trying to sit up. They were lying on the outskirts of a war-torn forest, trees broken as if by siege engines. Fires smouldered in the distance. The scent of ash, ozone, and iron choked the air.
"Where... where are we?" Shiro's voice was a trembling whisper.
"I don't know," Sora said, pulling her to her feet.
She leaned heavily against him, dazed. Blood trickled from her nose, but it was minor. The bruises were from their fall, not battle. He surveyed the clearing — twisted roots, shattered stone statues, strange glyphs etched in glowing blue on the bark of the trees.
Suddenly, voices.
Sharp. Harsh. Foreign.
Sora ducked, pulling Shiro behind a broken pillar just as a patrol passed through the trees. Five figures — cloaked in runic Armor, spears aglow with magical energy — moved in formation, their eyes scanning the area.
He held his breath.
The patrol muttered in a tongue Sora didn't understand, but he caught enough body language to guess they were searching for something. Or someone. One of them paused, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.
Shiro whimpered softly, pressing closer to her brother. Her skin was clammy, her eyes unfocused.
They need to move. Now.
Once the patrol passed, Sora grabbed her hand and slipped into the woods. His muscles screamed with the strain of their fall, and his mind reeled from the unreality of it all — but something primal drove him forward. Survival.
They ran until they couldn't.
The forest deepened — trees twisting into unnatural shapes, their roots pulsing with violet light. Here, the world felt old. The kind of old that came before gods.
Eventually, they collapsed at the edge of a crater filled with glowing stones.
Sora sat back against a rock, trying to slow his heart. Shiro curled beside him, her breathing erratic.
"We're... in a different world," she said slowly, eyes wide with awe and terror. "I can feel it. The air's... heavy."
He nodded, rubbing his wrists where the binding marks still throbbed. "Magic's everywhere. I can't touch it, but I feel it burning all around me."
She reached out, trying to conjure a flame — but nothing came. Not even a spark.
The curse held.
Sora looked out across the strange stars above them, knowing full well that wherever they were... they were not welcome.
In the distance, war drums began to beat.
The forest groaned.
And the sky, unnatural and red, offered no mercy…