He stood alone in the void.
White.
Blinding.
Endless.
No horizon.
No sky.
No ground beneath his feet — yet he did not fall.
There was no sound.
No air brushing against his skin.
No heartbeat pounding in his ears.
No weight.
No breath.
No time.
Only him —
and something else.
A figure.
It stood a few paces away.
Wrapped in flowing robes of shimmering white, the fabric rippling even though there was no wind.
Its face was hidden, swallowed by the folds of the cloak.
Only the eyes showed.
Two glass lenses — cold, flat, emotionless.
Reflecting nothing.
Absorbing everything.
The figure opened its mouth.
Static hissed from the air itself, like a broken radio gasping to life.
"Welcome."
The voice was dry.
Cracked.
Inhuman.
Sam blinked.
His body felt distant, disconnected — like he was dreaming from behind someone else's eyes.
He forced himself to step forward—
But nothing changed.
The void devoured even the act of moving, leaving him stranded exactly where he was.
The figure tilted its head, studying him with mechanical curiosity.
"You're dead,"
it said, voice detached, clinical.
"Almost.
But for now…
you are still needed."
The words floated through the air, heavy and cold.
Sam opened his mouth.
His throat burned.
His voice scraped out, rough and broken:
"What the hell…"
The figure's head tilted further — a slow, unnerving motion, like a marionette pulled by invisible strings.
"New game.
New life.
New purpose."
A long pause.
"You have potential."
Sam laughed.
A hollow sound.
Empty.
Wrong.
It hurt more than any wound.
"I just chose to die,"
he muttered, voice cracking under the weight of it all.
"You think I've changed my mind?"
The lenses flashed — a gleam of something almost… alive behind them.
"Yes,"
the figure said simply.
"Or rather…
you haven't yet realized why you'll want to live."
Sam's hands curled into fists at his sides.
The skin of his knuckles stretched tight, pale.
"I don't want anything,"
he spat.
He wanted to believe it.
But deep inside, something shuddered.
A fracture.
A crack waiting to split open.
The figure stepped forward.
No sound.
No movement of air.
Only inevitability.
It moved like a thought, not a body.
The voice changed — losing its static, deepening into something almost… human.
Something he could almost trust.
Almost.
"Liar."
"You've simply… forgotten."
"Forgotten what you lost."
The words hit harder than any accusation.
Sam's chest tightened.
A shard of something sharp and cruel twisted in his gut.
The figure's face shifted slightly under the hood —
and for the first time, it smiled.
A razor-thin line of cruelty.
A smile that belonged to no living thing.
"Victoria."
The name shattered the silence.
It echoed in Sam's ears, ripped through his mind like a scream.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Precise.
Sam staggered back.
His breath caught.
His knees almost buckled.
"…What did you say?"
The lenses gleamed — no longer dead.
Alive.
Watching.
Judging.
"Your little sister."
"Vanished the night your parents died."
"You never found her."
Sam's lips moved, but no sound escaped.
"I… I did. I—"
The void shimmered.
Reality bent — and between them bloomed an image:
A sunlit beach.
Waves crashing against golden sand.
A girl.
Barefoot.
Laughing.
Her hair a wild tangle in the wind.
Her eyes wide, shimmering with mischief.
Sapphire.
Sam's hand lifted on its own — reaching.
"This is a lie,"
he whispered.
The figure said nothing.
It simply… waited.
Patient.
Knowing.
"She's dead,"
Sam said, more to himself than to the entity.
"She's gone."
The figure's lenses glinted like knives in the false light.
"She's here."
"In the new world."
"But you will not find her easily."
"You are too weak."
Sam's fists shook.
Tears blurred the edges of his vision.
He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.
"Screw you,"
he hissed through gritted teeth.
"I'm no pawn."
The figure's voice dropped into a whisper, dripping with mockery:
"Too late."
A click.
Sharp.
Final.
Deep inside his chest —
something snapped.
Sam gasped, collapsing to his knees.
Pain lanced through his body.
A fire of a thousand needles burrowed into his veins.
He clawed at his chest, his throat, desperate for air—
And then he saw it.
Burning beneath his skin.
Glowing through the flesh of his forearm.
Three words.
Carved in light:
SAPPHIRE EYES
3 DAYS
The sigil pulsed.
Alive.
Hungry.
Sam's vision blurred.
"What… is this…?"
he croaked.
The figure's voice softened, almost tender.
Almost.
"A mark."
"Your new flesh."
"Your new purpose."
"Find the Sapphire Eyes."
"Until you do —
you are trapped."
Sam forced himself upright, though every fiber of him screamed to collapse.
"And if I don't?"
he rasped.
The figure smiled.
The cruelest smile yet.
"The mark will fill."
"Fifty marks."
"Fifty failures."
"And on the last one…"
a beat of silence
"Victoria dies."
The words broke something inside him.
Shattered it completely.
Still—
he stood.
Swaying.
Breathing hard.
But he stood.
"What do you want from me?"
he said through gritted teeth.
The figure paused.
The lenses flickered.
"Not yet."
Another pause.
Long enough to feel like the whole world held its breath.
Then, softly:
"You'll find out later."
A final word, heavy as stone:
"Welcome to the new world, Sam."
***
The void ripped apart.
Light exploded around him.
Not warm.
Not forgiving.
A tearing —
like reality itself had been clawed open.
Sam's body jolted.
He screamed —
but no sound came.
He was falling.
Falling through a place without walls, without time.
Through the haze of color and agony — he saw them:
Six figures.
Clad in silver hoods.
Faces hidden.
Watching.
And among them —
one turned.
A single figure at the back.
A glimpse of a face—
And eyes.
Not dead.
Not cruel.
But alive.
Sapphire.
The voice — not mechanical, not inhuman, but achingly familiar — whispered:
"Sapphire Eyes.
Three days."
The countdown had already begun.