THE FRACTURED SOUL

Kael stood in the dimly lit ruin, his gaze transfixed on that weirdly glowing shard clutched in his hand. The faint light almost seemed hypnotic, alive, pulsating around it. There was something screaming in his belly for him to let go, yet years of fruitless digging and a burning feeling of curiosity locked the object to his hand. Turning it over, his gaze followed the strange markings lacing the surface-whorls of veinlike gold in fusion.

"What are you?" he whispered, the shard alight like fire in his wide eyes.

Scarcely had he time to really consider further, the shard just flared-madly bright. Kael stumbled backward, shielding his eyes, but the light didn't temper. It instead enveloped him whole.

He was smothered by a warmth without pain. He felt weightless, buoyed upward in sea of light, and then the pull hit-a feel unlike anything he had ever sensed. It dragged him forward or down, it no longer had a direction, as the world imploded onto itself into vacuum.

Then, panic kicked in, and Kael tried to scream. No sound escaped his lips. The falling sensation deepened, faster and faster, until—

He landed hard, the breath knocked out of him. Lying there for a moment, he gasped.

The world swirled in slowly around him. His first notice was that the sky wasn't quite like he expected, if he indeed could rightly call whatever this over his head the 'sky'. Shattered pieces of light and shadow lay scattered, shifting weirdly in what would better have fit the metaphor of a fractured mirror than the aspect of the skies.

"What the…?" Kael muttered sitting up and rubbed his aching head.

He was in some forest, he noticed, quite different from those he had happened to see. The trees were huge; their leaves seemed to shimmer across various shades of green and blue, and the smell of earth permeated the atmosphere with something closely bordering on metal. Thrumming far off, a rush of water and chirping of birds, all unfamiliar to him, reached his ears.

Kael straightened, dusting himself off, and turned slowly in a circle. "Where am I?" he said aloud, though there was nobody to answer.

He clutched the shard tightly; its glow was weak now but unwavering. The weird object felt warm against his palm, almost soothing in its unchanging rhythm.

He stepped forward cautiously, and in a second, he heard the rustling sound. Freezing, his heart started running. The sound was followed by louder snaps.

"Hello?" he called out, shaking.

Out of the underbrush stepped a creature he had never seen-small, fox-like in shape but covered in fur which shimmered like colors on oil-slicked water, its eyes glowing weakly in the dark. For just one second it regarded him, then burst into the trees.

Kael blew out a nervous breath, his mind registering: Great, just great, as he started off in one of the random directions he'd picked out. He didn't know where he was or how he got there, and standing around wouldn't solve a thing.

The deeper into the forest he had gone, the surer he was that someone had watched him. The shard in his hand pulsed with every step to lead him deeper.

Above, the fractured sky cast shifting patterns of light and shadow upon the ground-so confusingly that neither time nor direction was easily comprehended. It was hours or perhaps minutes later when Kael stopped walking, by which time this sense of disturbance in him seemed to have grown rather worse.

Suddenly, the silence was rent by a sound from someplace distant-a low guttural growl.

Kael had frozen, his breath caught in his throat. The growl grew louder and louder, heavy footfalls accompanying the sound.

"Okay, this is bad," he whispered low, clutching the shard tightly.

From the darkness stepped a huge wolf-like creature, his scales of metal flashing in the fragmented light, his eyes glowing a malevolent red as they fixed on Kael.

Kael took another step backward, his heart jerking hard inside his chest. The growl lowered, curling the beast's lips over a set of razor-sharp teeth.

"Good wolf," Kael whispered, palms up in supplication. "Let's not do something that neither one of us will want, all right?"

The animal charged.

Kael had barely enough time to dive sideways, the claws raking through the air where he'd been. He hit hard, the shard tumbling from his grasp.

Kael scrambled up, looking wildly about for the shard. The beast snarled, its attention turned again to him.

But before it could attack, a blur of motion whirred past Kael, and a loud clatter of metal into flesh resounded across the area.

A woman stepped between Kael and the beast. Her blade gleamed as she swung it with practiced precision. Tall and athletic, with dark hair tied back, her armor glimmered with the faint blue of tempered steel.

"Stay down!" she yelled at Kael.

Kael didn't need to be told twice. He hunched low, his eyes wide in wonder as he watched this woman take on the beast.

She was fluid, almost graceful in the way she deflected the claws of the creature and struck back with her sword. Sparks flew as metal met metal; the beast's scales were a formidable defense. But the woman was relentless, sure, and unyielding in her strikes.

It roared and sent its hot breath onto the scorched ground in an attempt to overpower her.

"Do something, outsider!" she yelled, her voice strained.

"Do what?" Kael yelled back, tones of panic laced in his voice, for he was no fighter-what would he do against this monster?

It was the shard that caught his eye, its glow suddenly intensifying. Without hesitation, Kael plunged for it, the crystal warmly against his palm as he clutched it firmly.

The shard began to pulse brighter, a surge of energy coursing through Kael. With instinct that was only pure, he turned and held the shard up to the beast.

A beam of light shot from it, striking the creature square in the chest, sending it reeling, the body convulsing before letting out a guttural scream.

Kael watched in stunned silence as the beast dissolved into a cloud of ash, the forest falling eerily silent once more.

The woman lowered her sword, her heavy breathing slowly dissipating. She turned to Kael, her expression unreadable.

"You have no idea what you've just done, do you?" she asked, her tone sharp.

Kael shook his head, still clutching the shard. "Not a clue. Care to fill me in?"

She froze, her bright sword glinting faintly in the fractured light as she watched Kael. Keen, ocean-blue eyes swirled across him in curiosity and skepticism. Sighing, she lowered her weapon.

"My name is Rhea," she finally said-quietly, though lined with weariness."Warrior of the Water Continent."

Kael blinked, still catching his breath. "Water Continent? What does that even mean? And what was *that* thing?" He waved a hand vaguely at the patch of ground where the beast had dissolved into ash.

Rhea raised an eyebrow, and her expression turned to one of mild disbelief. "You really have no idea where you are, do you?

"Not a clue," Kael said, shaking his head. He looked up at the weird, broken sky above. "But I'm guessing this isn't Earth."

She smirked slightly, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "No, this isn't your world. You're in Aetherion now. And if you're here, it means things are worse than I thought."

Kael frowned. "Worse how? What does me being here have to do with anything?"

Rhea sighed again, clearly debating how much to explain. She gestured toward the glowing shard in his hand. "That shard you're holding? It's a fragment of the Aether Crystal, one of the most powerful relics in this world. It shouldn't even exist in your realm, let alone end up in your hands."

Kael glanced down at the shard; the dull light pulsed on steadily. "Okay… what does it do? "

"It keeps you alive for one thing," Rhea said matter-of-factly. "That beast wasn't attacking randomly; it was drawn by the energy of the shard. Without it, you would be dead right now.

Kael's stomach twisted with her words. He clutched the shard more tightly, the warmth of it an inadequate balm in light of the situation. "Right. So, this thing has a lot of enemies?

"Enemies?" Rhea said with a hard laugh. "Try the whole world. That shard is hope, and power. And anyone that knows it's out there is going to either try to take it from you or kill you for it.

Kael's mouth was dry. "Great. Just great."

The hard lines in Rhea's face softened, for a flash of a moment; her voice was another matter altogether. "Look, I don't know how you ended up here or why the shard chose you, but if you want to survive, you're going to have to listen to me.".

Kael hesitated, the weight of the situation pressing down on him. He wasn't a fighter or a hero…he was just an archaeologist who'd stumbled onto something he shouldn't have. But what choice did he have?

"Okay," he said finally. "I'm listening."

Rhea nodded, seemingly satisfied. She pointed toward the horizon, where the jagged edges of the fractured sky glowed faintly. "We need to move. This forest isn't safe, especially now that you've used the shard's power. That light would've attracted every predator in the area."

Kael's heart sank further. "You mean there's more of those… things?"

"Enough," Rhea returned, her face grim. "But we will handle them when they do. For now, keep close, and whatever happens, don't drop that shard."

Kael's gaze fell upon the shining fragment in his hand, his light unwavering. He had no idea what he was doing, had no plan or any answers-just a strange world full of danger and an even stranger ally.

One thing was clear, and that was, well, no going back now.