The Aielind Chronicles: Journey

Chapter Four: Pyk

The darkness was absolute. Pyk stood motionless, his senses overwhelmed by the silence that pressed in on him from every side. He blinked into the void, trying to find some trace of light, some indication that he was still connected to the world he knew. "Where am I?" The question escaped his lips, but the emptiness swallowed it whole, leaving only a lingering, eerie stillness in its wake. Not even an echo returned to him.

The absence of sound unnerved him, the silence stretching into something almost suffocating. His thoughts began to spiral, and for a moment, he wondered if he had lost his mind entirely. But then, a faint gleam caught his attention. A pillar of light—distant, but undeniable—appeared in the blackness. It was no more than a speck, yet it beckoned him with a strange urgency. Slowly, cautiously, Pyk took a step forward, his feet making no sound against the ground beneath him. The eerie quiet seemed to deepen with every movement he made.

Curious. The thought flickered through his mind, but it barely registered. He continued toward the light, each step drawing him closer, though the world around him remained a void. As he approached, the light became clearer, sharper, revealing a figure standing at its heart. Tall, impossibly tall, the shape seemed to shimmer, as though it was both part of the light and separate from it.

Pyk stopped a few paces away and squinted, his heart racing. The figure in the light was not human, nor was it anything he recognized. It was a mirror—an ornate, ancient mirror, its surface gleaming with an almost unnatural radiance. His breath caught in his throat as he stared at the reflection.

The Elf in the mirror was unlike any he had ever seen. He stood proud and regal, his hair a brilliant white that seemed to glow, braided and cascading halfway down his back. It was so white that it was almost painful to look at, more brilliant than fresh-fallen snow. Pyk’s eyes traced the dark-blue skin that adorned the figure’s form, a midnight hue that shimmered with embedded constellations, as if the very night sky had been woven into the Elf’s flesh.

But it was the eyes that held Pyk’s attention. They were black—no, deeper than black, like the absence of light itself. Starless, endless. Pyk leaned in, entranced, but as he did, the figure mirrored his every movement. He reached out, his fingers grazing the cold surface of the mirror.

The moment his skin touched the glass, the reflection began to shift. The figure in the mirror blurred, the image flickering like a flame caught in a breeze. Pyk stepped back, startled, and watched in awe as the mirror’s surface rippled, changing. The Elf was gone, replaced by something—someone—else.

The next figure was a woman, and Pyk’s breath caught in his throat. She was stunning, her beauty unlike anything he had ever witnessed. Her skin was a soft olive, glowing with an inner warmth, and her dark hair—smooth and lustrous like onyx—flowed around her shoulders. But what truly captivated him were her wings. They were massive, feathered like a bird’s, but far grander. Shades of gold, purple, and green danced through the feathers, shifting and rippling with every beat, as if the wings were alive with color and movement.

Her violet eyes locked with his, and Pyk’s heart skipped a beat. He wanted to reach out, to touch the glass, to make contact with her, but as his fingers brushed the surface, her image began to fade, slipping away like smoke in the wind.

Pyk recoiled, his hand jerking back. But the next reflection was the most unsettling of all. The figure in the mirror was him—no, not quite. It was a version of him, but different. The same height, the same hair, the same gray skin and red markings. But the expression was wrong. Cold. Stern. As if he had seen too much, done too much, to ever feel warmth again. The eyes—his eyes—were gone. In their place, glowing gold orbs burned with a malevolent fire, and Pyk could feel the hatred emanating from them, thick and suffocating.