I gasp awake in the dirt, lungs burning like I’ve been drowning for years. My hands tremble as I push up from the cracked earth, fingers brushing the broken base of the obelisk—my own name carved halfway through, then violently erased.

The sky pulses above me, colors shifting too fast—sunset to storm to dawn in seconds. I don’t remember dying. But the scar across my chest burns with cold fire, and the voice in my head whispers, You were never supposed to return.

Footsteps crunch on gravel behind me. Armored boots. The sigil on the breastplate—a black sun devouring a soul—marks them as Inquisitors of the Final Death. They shouldn’t be here. No one knew this ruin existed.

One raises a silver blade that drinks the light. "Anomaly detected. Terminate and purify."

I stumble back, tripping over roots that twist like veins. The obelisk hums. Power surges through me—not mine, but familiar. Memories flicker: a throne room bathed in blood, a woman crying my name, a knife plunging into darkness.

They charge. I have no weapon. No plan. Just this cursed second chance.

Do I run into the pulsating rift opening in the trees? Do I grab the shard of the obelisk and fight? Or do I let them take me, hoping death will finally answer the questions clawing at my mind?