I couldn't breathe.
The deeper I went into this cursed forest, the tighter the world became—as if the trees themselves were holding their breath, waiting for something to arrive. The air was thick, laced with something more than just dampness and rot. It was as if the world itself was preparing for a moment it could neither stop nor delay.
The wind was gone.
The birds were gone.
Even the insects no longer made sound.
But I felt something.
A vibration. Beneath the earth. Beneath my bones.
I stopped walking. My boot rested on the soft moss covering the forest floor. The moment I stilled, the world reacted.
The sky above me cracked.
Not thunder.
Not lightning.
But an actual fracture—like broken glass splitting the heavens apart. Long jagged lines of cold blue light tore the gray sky open, revealing a void far deeper than clouds or air.
I froze.
Was this the beginning of the Test?
The ground beneath my feet rumbled, sending tremors up my spine.
A system message—burning white—flashed suddenly across my vision.
---
<< SYSTEM MESSAGE – LAW TEST TRIAL INITIATED >>
Subject: Gerson
Classification: The Chosen – Unstable Evolutionary Potential
Objective: Survival and Choice
Warning: This Trial adapts to your inner fear. Deviation will cause Failure.
LAW Witness Active: Observation Imminent.
---
My heart stopped for half a breath.
It was happening.
A heavy ringing filled my ears, drowning out thought.
The light from the fractured sky spilled downward, falling like beams of frozen sunlight, forming shapes in the air. Five figures—faint at first, like memories burned into the void—began to take form.
I watched, helpless.
The first figure solidified—a man dressed in rags, holding a knife slick with dark blood. His eyes were empty, soulless. He stepped forward, grinning. I knew that face.
It was me.
A version of me—starving, feral, reduced to an animal.
He licked the blade slowly, eyes locked to mine.
The second figure appeared.
A Gerson dressed in royal armor, crowned, laughing as a hundred soldiers kneeled before him. Power radiated from his frame—but his smile was cold, merciless. A tyrant.
Me again.
The third shape was worse.
It was me as a corpse. Eyes wide in death. Face twisted in terror. A dagger buried in my chest.
The fourth figure was empty. A hollow shell of myself—gray, lifeless—standing without purpose, forgotten and alone.
The fifth figure never fully formed.
It flickered.
Shifted.
Dark tendrils writhed where a face should be. Hands too many, reaching outward, grasping, pulling at reality itself.
It whispered.
I couldn't hear its words.
But I knew.
It was what the LAW wanted me to become.
---
"Choose," the LAW spoke—not in sound, but in thought, pouring into my skull like cold iron.
Choose?
The five versions of myself moved closer, circling me like vultures around a corpse.
I stepped back.
"What kind of choice is this?" I whispered aloud.
The sky cracked wider. The system message burned again.
---
<< Choose Your Fate >>
1. The Beast – Lose humanity, gain savage strength. Survive at any cost.
2. The Tyrant – Rule without mercy. All shall kneel or die.
3. The Dead Man – Reject the LAW. Embrace oblivion.
4. The Forgotten – Wander alone. Unseen, unloved. Safe, but meaningless.
5. The Unknown – Accept the hidden evolution. The cost is unknown. The reward... limitless... or ruinous.
---
The choice was mine.
But every option felt like poison.
I clenched my fists.
The Beast grinned, stepping closer, knife raised.
The Tyrant laughed.
The Dead Man lay silent, bleeding.
The Forgotten stared with hollow eyes.
But the fifth... the Unknown... it simply waited.
Its flickering shape reached toward me, tendrils twitching, inviting.
Unknown... limitless... ruinous...
The words echoed in my skull.
I swallowed hard. My legs wanted to run, but my feet stayed rooted.
The voice of the strange man from before—Gael—returned to my mind.
"The LAW watches. When the sky cracks... your Trial begins."
He was right.
This was the Trial. And the LAW itself demanded an answer.
Every other version of myself—the Beast, the Tyrant, the Corpse, the Forgotten—felt like endings. But the Unknown...
It was possibility.
And risk.
Maybe death.
But maybe... something else.
I stepped forward.
Toward the Unknown.
The tendrils reached out, wrapping gently around my wrist. Cold. Heavy. Real.
The moment I touched it, the world exploded into white fire.
I screamed.
My body burned. My vision filled with spinning symbols—ancient runes—alien shapes that spiraled into my mind like blades. I felt my blood twist. My bones crack. My soul split.
The LAW's voice boomed.
---
<< SYSTEM RESPONSE ACCEPTED >>
Path Chosen: UNKNOWN EVOLUTION
Result: LAW Signature Unstable. Mutation Possible. Trial continues. Observer Active.
---
The fractured sky vanished.
The light died.
The five figures dissolved into dust.
And the forest returned.
But I was no longer the same.
I could feel it. A change inside. Something raw. Unfinished. Burning behind my eyes, coiling deep in my chest.
A quiet voice whispered in my mind.
"One has chosen the path forbidden... the Unknown walks again..."
I gasped, falling to one knee.
My hand trembled.
On my forearm, new symbols burned into the flesh—glowing faintly blue.
The LAW's mark.
But changed.
Twisted.
And far away... something noticed.
Something woke up.
I felt it.
Watching.
Waiting.
And I knew...
My Trial was only beginning.
Somewhere deeper in the forest, a low, distant horn sounded.
And beneath it, another sound—softer, ancient—like chains stirring beneath the earth.
Something else had been freed by my choice.
I stood, breathing hard. My heart thundered in my chest, wild and hot.
No turning back now.
"Gerson... the Unknown... has awakened."
The LAW's last whisper echoed in my mind.
And the world, forever changed by my choice, waited for what came next.
Far above, hidden behind the thin shell of the sky, something vast turned its gaze upon me—curious, hungry.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
And stepped deeper into the forest, where the real Trial waited.