The Dissonant Lullaby

They tell us our world is a paradise. A perfect dream, a lullaby sung to a billion sleeping souls to keep the memory of a broken reality at bay. And for me, that paradise had a name.

Cael. My brother.

His laughter was the only melody that mattered in our perfect, placid world. His safety was the bedrock of my soul.

But a lullaby is only beautiful until you hear the notes that are wrong.

Now, the darkness that hides beneath the music has found him. It's a sickness they call the Dream Taint, a plague of the soul that is pulling him into silence, piece by piece. The lullaby has become a dirge, and my paradise is now a cage where I am forced to watch him fade.

They say there is no cure. They say I should let him go.

But they whisper of one chance. The Nocturnal Labyrinth. A brutal trial of the mind, an arena where you either ascend to the ranks of the elite... or your consciousness is shattered into nothing. They say a quiet girl like me, a nobody, doesn't stand a chance.

Let them.

To save him, I will walk into that nightmare. But my path is blocked by more than monsters. It's blocked by him. Kaelen. The system's golden boy, who sees the perfection of the lullaby in every unshakable rule. He looks at me and sees a flaw, a dissonant note that must be silenced. But when I look into his eyes, I don't just see a soldier. I see another cage. Another soul listening for a song that feels true.

I came here to fight for Cael's life. But I'm discovering that the real war isn't in the arena. It's with the truth itself.

What if the only way to save the one person I love... is to shatter the beautiful lie that holds everyone else together? What if, to save his soul, I must destroy paradise?

The lullaby is breaking. And I think I'm the one who has to sing a different song.