Kael collapsed where he stood.
No warning.
No pain.
Just weight.
And the sound of everything inside him pausing.
The bottle rolled from his side.
Glowed.
Then—
Opened.
Not physically.
Not with glass.
But with access.
Kael's mind dropped into something not quite sleep,
not quite memory.
A corridor of sound.
A hall of mirrors with no walls.
Each reflection a flicker of someone else's life.
None of them his.
And yet—
All of them watched him.
A child running through ashfields.
A woman screaming into a jar of light.
A hand drawing glyphs onto stone with blood.
A voice whispering from beneath water:
"We never meant to survive."
Kael turned—
or thought he did.
His body had no limbs here.
Only will.
Only sight.
Then—
A figure ahead.
Facing away.
Broad-shouldered.
Still.
Holding something.
A bottle.
Cracked.
Bleeding green mist into the air.
Kael tried to approach.
Couldn't.
The air was thick.
Not with pressure.
With command.
He heard the words again:
"You were not the only one."
"Your name isn't yours."
"He has walked it before you."
Kael gasped.
And the world fractured.
He was falling again.
No wind.
No weight.
Only one sound, rippling through the dark:
"Kael…"
Familiar.
Rough.
Tired.
Elric.
Kael turned toward it.
Saw the old man kneeling in a field of white flame.
Face buried in his hands.
Chains wrapped around his wrists—
not iron.
But code.
"Elric!"
Kael shouted.
His voice echoed too far.
As if the space around him wasn't real.
Wasn't present.
Elric looked up.
But his eyes were blank.
His mouth opened.
Moved.
Soundless.
Then—
Fragmented.
Kael's vision bled light.
His ears rang with a rising pulse.
The bottle's energy collapsed inward—
pulling him out.
He woke.
On stone.
Covered in dew.
Alone.
His breath hitched.
The bottle lay beside him.
Cold.
But no longer dim.
Symbols moved across its surface.
Not alphabet.
Not image.
A language of direction.
And one word that formed as his vision steadied:
"Locked."
Kael sat up slowly.
Something was missing.
A memory.
He couldn't name it.
Couldn't recall it.
But he felt it had been there.
Had been his.
He stared at the bottle.
"I'm being rewritten…"
He said it aloud.
And the bottle pulsed.
Once.
Not in denial.
Not in confirmation.
Just…
A signal.