Slave of Fate

The figure before Rudra had eyes that seemed to glow like the first rays of sunlight breaking through the darkness of dawn. They radiated warmth, seeping into Rudra's very being, as though the warmth of the sun itself was flowing through him. A strange sensation washed over him—a pull he couldn't quite explain. His body felt alive, as if reawakened. But as his gaze locked with the figure's, there was a deeper unsettling familiarity in those eyes—something that tugged at him, though he couldn't place it.

For a long, agonizing moment, Rudra stood frozen, trying to process what was happening, his mind too clouded by confusion to make sense of it. There was something about this person that felt… familiar, yet completely foreign. His heart raced with an unknown anticipation, his body instinctively aware of something larger unfolding around him.

The silence between them hung heavy, a pressure that seemed to stifle the very air. Finally, the figure's voice cut through it, but it was strange, fragile—almost like it had been unused for an eternity.

"Hey, what are you doing in here?"

The words were soft but laced with a deep curiosity, a trace of confusion. It wasn't a question asked out of concern—it was something else. The voice trembled slightly, as if speaking took more effort than it should. It felt like something lost, forgotten in the passage of time.

Rudra blinked, startled, not knowing how to respond. His eyes stayed fixed on the figure, who studied him with intensity, as if searching for something that he couldn't find. The silence stretched again, suffocating, before the figure spoke once more, his frown deepening.

"How did you get in here?"

His gaze flicked toward the door, his brow furrowing. "That door is locked. So how did you get in here…?" The disbelief in his voice was palpable, as if the very idea of someone entering without permission was unfathomable. The room fell back into a suffocating silence, but Rudra could only stand there, stunned. He didn't know how he got here. In fact, he didn't know how any of this was happening. But there was something inside him—an inkling—that told him he needed to understand.

The figure watched him closely, like he was reading every flicker of thought that passed through his mind. But then, a soft, almost imperceptible shift took place. His expression softened, just a fraction.

"Hey… can you talk?" The voice was quieter now, more insistent. The figure leaned forward, his eyes narrowing with a sharp focus. "Hey, can you hear me?"

Rudra could feel the pressure of the question, the weight of it. He couldn't explain why, but it felt like he was on the edge of something far larger than him—something that had been waiting for him to wake up, to finally notice.

Then, the figure's voice—so gentle yet filled with a knowing that shook Rudra—cut through his thoughts.

"Rudra asked… Do we know each other?"

Rudra was out of breath His breath caught, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to steady himself. Something deep inside him recoiled at the familiarity, and yet, something else whispered that this was a moment he could never turn back from.

Rudra's eyes widened, but he couldn't bring himself to answer immediately. The pull he felt toward this figure was undeniable, a force that seemed to transcend everything around him. *Why do I feel like I've always known him?* Rudra thought, a swirl of emotions he couldn't place building within him.

The figure smiled softly, a smile that held the weight of unspoken years, of something profound and distant. "So you can talk," he murmured, almost to himself, as if confirming a truth he had been holding inside. "As for your question…" He paused, eyes gleaming with a mixture of amusement and melancholy. "We don't."

The simplicity of the answer hit Rudra harder than anything. He was left stunned, his mind unable to accept the truth in the figure's words. His lips parted, but no response came—just a quiet, searching glance. The connection was too powerful, too real. And yet, the figure had just told him they didn't know each other.

Rudra finally broke the silence, his voice barely above a whisper. "Where am I?" The words spilled from his mouth before he could stop them. His gaze flickered to the surroundings, searching for any sign of familiarity. But everything around him felt alien, cold, and distant.

The figure sighed, his smile fading into something more knowing, more resigned. "Ah, now that's a question worth asking," he said, the calmness in his tone somehow both comforting and disorienting. "This is Eryndra. One of the main kingdoms of the entire continent. The Kingdom of Dreams."

Rudra's mouth went dry, and he blinked several times, as if trying to wash away the disbelief that had settled in his chest. Eryndra? The name struck him like a foreign tongue, the syllables cold on his tongue.

I've never heard of it...

"What?" he managed, his voice thick with confusion and a sudden pang of realising "Eryndra? I've never heard of it…"

The figure's smile faltered, just slightly, before it returned with an air of inevitability. His eyes sharpened, studying Rudra closely. "Don't tell me… it's the first time you're hearing that name?"

Rudra's voice was flat as he nodded. "It is."

A heavy silence settled between them. The figure sighed deeply, as though Rudra's answer wasn't a surprise at all. "Well," he said, his voice a little softer now, "I suppose it's not surprising. Eryndra is a place few mortals know of. And those who do, well, they don't typically find their way here by chance."

Rudra stood motionless, processing the weight of the information. He felt a creeping sense of being trapped, surrounded by pieces of a puzzle he wasn't meant to solve—at least, not yet. The figure's cryptic words lingered in the air, heavy with meaning.

Without thinking, Rudra moved toward the door, instinctively reaching for the handle. But as his fingers closed around it, he felt an unsettling resistance. The door didn't budge, no matter how hard he pulled. It was sealed from the outside.

"It won't open," the figure's voice sounded almost too calm, too knowing as he observed Rudra's attempts. "It's locked from the outside."

Rudra's confusion intensified. "Why… Why is it locked? Where am I?" The words escaped him in a rush, his eyes now frantic as they searched the room, the strange figure, trying to grasp onto something real.

The figure smiled once more, a soft, enigmatic curve of his lips that held layers Rudra couldn't yet comprehend. "This is Eryndra," he repeated, "The Kingdom of Dreams." His voice carried a weight, but something else flickered in his eyes—a subtle shift that Rudra couldn't ignore.

"But more importantly…" The figure paused, his smile slipping slightly into something more serious. "Let me introduce myself. I am the Prince of Dreams."

Rudra's entire world stilled, and for a long moment, he could only stare at the figure before him, disbelief still racing through his veins. "You're a prince?"

The figure nodded, slow and deliberate. "Yes. The second prince, to be exact."

The air around them felt charged, heavy with a truth neither could avoid. Rudra's mind was in chaos, still trying to process the gravity of the situation. He was trapped. In a place he didn't know. With a prince who claimed to be part of a world he had never imagined. The door locked behind him. His journey had just begun, and already, nothing made sense.