Chapter 3: Visions of Ruin
Orion gasped awake, his body lurching upright as if wrenched from drowning depths. His breath came in sharp, ragged bursts, his chest aching with the phantom sensation of something tearing through it. His hands clutched at his torso, fingers curling over untouched skin, but the absence of wounds did nothing to banish the visceral certainty that he had been split apart, that he had felt the bitter finality of death.
It lingered in him, imprinted, as though his cells had carried the trauma back with him.
The darkness of his quarters felt oppressive, pressing down on him like a weight. The only sound was the steady hum of the environmental regulators, their rhythmic drone indifferent to his unraveling. Beads of sweat clung to his skin. His heart pounded against his ribs.
But it wasn't just fear—it was something deeper.
Something more real than any nightmare could ever be.
The memory was too vivid.
The snap of air as he moved, his footfalls near silent, each motion a practiced flow of deadly precision. The resistance of flesh splitting beneath his blade, the grotesque warmth of blood spraying across his arm. The thrill of battle clashing with the horror of what he had faced.
And the pain.
A phantom agony still clung to him, rooted in his bones, pulsing in the places where he had felt his own body torn asunder.
His breath hitched as he squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could block it out.
But the vision would not leave him.