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  “That he is…” Shay laughed. “Also the last hope of this realm to stop the invading Specters, cause who else will?” Shay’s posture turned to Luna as he saw the floor beneath them all hollow and covered in shadows. “This trial is of faith. Only one person may walk it. If both of you do, the Whispering Mother will punish you both. Only one person may go into the final chamber where they will be tested. It is where Elysium lies after all.”

  Omar shook his head. “Then Luna will be the one who goes forth. I cannot let that happen.” Omar gingerly shook up with tension. Shay angled his head in displeasure at Omar. “She can’t die.”

  Inside the cold malicious dungeon, the wind howled like a pack of feral wolves, biting around the three. The path behind them was narrow and the path in front expeditious, as the shadows loomed around them. The towering peak of where they were caught Omar’s eyes as despair neared. Every step forward would be harder than the road he already walked, and every step back would be a harder pill to swallow.

  The road to Elysium came to this one last climb forward. Luna clenched her fists and held Omar’s right hand. She held it elegantly with a gentle touch as she rubbed the palm of his hand. Her breaths became shorter in bursts, laboring each gasps, as she took her soft gentle touch to Omar’s chin. She smiled, shaking in fear, but letting her emotions control her to keep her steady enough to continue forth.

  “Listen.” She quieted the battle inside of him as always. “You were always born to do great things. Whether you believe so or not, I know the man I fell in love with is going to become a vessel of goodness that spreads around this dark world.” Omar quirked at her words, as she shivered, then toning it into brutal acceptance.

  “If not this lifetime, then the next. I need to see you again.” A tear fell down her cheek. “Never stop fighting for the world you dream of. Never slack off. I will always be here.” She pushed at his heart. “I will always visit you in your dreams to comfort you.” One last smile glimmered off her face, as she tugged away.

  Luna abruptly pushed Omar away, barely moving him as she rushed for the veil of shadows under them. “Luna!” Omar screamed. He rushed towards her to catch her arm.

  As he grabbed her arm, Shay wrapped his arms around Omar breaking his grip on Luna. “No. Wait. Shay! Shay, stop! No.” Omar screamed, begging Shay to let him go, but they dropped to the floor. Shay continued to cradle his friend who couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Luna made it to the edge of the bridge, she searched the hollow never-ending shadows beneath her feet, with a gulp of fear. She took off her onyx emerald necklace, placing it on the floor beneath her. She turned back to Omar, who was fighting Shay to stop her. But she couldn’t give him the chance to catch her this time.

  Her face flushed with fear and sorrow, as she waved to Omar one final time. “Goodbye.” She jumped, as Omar screamed out the top of his lungs calling to her. The shadows underneath the bridge rose creating a shadow bridge in front of the empty cavern. Awaiting for the last soul to enter the forbidden room of the Whispering Mother’s Elysium.

  …

  “I remember now… all those years ago, where Halluburg void made me watch the day I became a Diborn. It wasn’t about killing my father or being too late to save anyone. That wasn’t my biggest regret. It was being alive still and failing to just end it all that day. My dreams haunted me until I learned they were not so. My nightmares haunt me, because I am the shadow of the lotus wars, and I get no luxury in escaping this cursed life.”

  …

  “Father…” An hour after the Marshall villa was destroyed and Omar escaped by the skin of his bare teeth from the Specters came his reckoning. “Father. Jai. Omar. Mother. Maeve. Everyone.” Omar dropped to his knees in the middle of the secluded forest in the Pale. A winter blizzard covered his tracks, for he was lost himself. He lost himself inside his mind.

  The echoes of the flames from the villa traveled through the forest just to creep up on Omar once more. His body tingled, as he covered himself with a large scream. He retraced the moment everyone he loved burned in the flames. The evil eye of the blade laughed at him, along with its six Diborn followers. He clenched at his heart, where no heartbeat answered back.

  The remnants of his life were nothing more than a pile of bones and ashes all the way at the villa. He could never get that back now. Omar was alone. He has no one to turn to. No friends, no family, just him all alone. The fire inside of him burned out from all his mischief. Everything he knew became a rubble of memories in a couple of minutes.

  A block of ice underneath him reflected a monster he didn’t know. One was pushed into a corner where it was survive or conquer. “What am I?” he asked himself, widening those onyx ember eyes at the block's reflection. Disgust filled his mind, rubbing himself, like he was covered in filth. Only Omar saw himself as filth. He nagged at his tender being, cutting away at the monster he now was.

  “I am a monster. I am a monster. I am a fucking monster.” Omar demanded himself to understand. “I deserve to die. I need to die. I want to die.” Anxiety crept into his mind haunting him like the blurred visions of a massacre.

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  He tossed his backpack to the side, and out of it was a flintlock pistol. Omar turned his eyes immediately towards it like it answered his call. “Damnit. Forgive me.” Omar screamed. He rushed and grabbed it praying for forgiveness, as he put it to his temple and pushed the trigger without a thought. Everything went blank.

  …

  “I am a monster. I want to die.” Omar mumbled his words, opening his eyes.

  Shay tapped his temple with a couple of claps to wake up the delirious warrior. “Wake up, Omar. What the hell are you talking about anyways!?”

  The shadows underneath them were cold and unforgiving. Omar blinked rapidly, trying to rid himself of the shackles of his sleep. For the first time, he didn’t wake in Halluburg, yet he still was haunted by his past. His past clung to him like a heavy cloud, not going away, even if he lost his memory it would come back.

  Omar rose from the floor, seeing they were now on the shadow bridge between the cavern. Shay carried him slowly through the bridge. Omar looked down the endless void and searched for signs of her, but she was gone. She died, just as all the others he ever cared about did. He was alone again.

  “Omar.” Shay directed Omar’s attention to him with a shrug. “You have to move forward. If you stop now or turn back then everything anyone has ever sacrificed until now will have been for nothing.” Shay’s tone shifted from mysterious to the friend Omar needed.

  “No.” Omar responded.

  “No? I heard what you did, or tried to do.” Shay’s voice trembled with regret. “Just like Luna said, you have a chance to revolutionize the people around you. It’s why Dragni and the blade fear you. Cause even through all the hardship you have went through, you still have fought day and night to try and stop them. But the only person who is stopping you, is you!” Shay snapped.

  Omar turned unsettled, as Shay offered his hand. “This isn’t Kharon, or a Specter saying this. It is me, Shay. Wake up.” Omar took his hand.

  “I…” Omar sniffled, turning towards a large black metal gate. The writing across it were a foreign language to him. Natasha could easily decipher it, but she wasn’t here. Magnus bravely would find a way, but he had suffocated. Luna. Luna would find a way, but she brought their journey to the doorstep.

  Omar became nothing more than an ant at the doors entrance. His chest laxed and he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think I am capable of doing this.” Shay felt Omar’s confidence sliver away. His voice shattered into a million pieces as if nothing remained inside of Omar. He turned to Shay. “What good is going forward, if all I care about it die in the process?”

  Omar slumped in front of the door. His hand gracing the cold black metal shadow door. The whispers in the cavern dungeon toyed with Omar. Bringing out all his insecurities and formatting them against him. He discarded his heroic stature, for they called him weak. He began to believe it. His shining goal suffocated by the outside voices that now lived inside his head. Defeat weighed on his shoulders.

  “It’s over. Edindale is lost. My friends are dead. Most likely my family too. What good am I to live?” Omar whispered, his eyes shut from humiliation. “No matter what I do, they always find a way to one up me. All of the Specters are greater than me.”

  Shay hesitated to grab Omar’s shoulder. He only kneeled beside him, with a determined grin, also marked with concern. He nodded. “In truth, they are greater.” He sighed as the shadow fog began to take a hold around the cavern.

  The other side of the bridge now covered in a dense black smoke, where lanterns and tomb raiders slowly descended the cleared way. “Hurry!” Leonidas ordered, a couple other lanterns bounced off the sides of a platoon of men.

  “I thought the same of your father.” The statement caught the attention of Omar. His head snapped towards Shay. “I never understood why. But, he killed my parents, burned all of that Gaia village. For what?” Shay softly told. The truth lit up in his eyes. “I felt empty inside. For years, I searched for purpose, until I found one. Maybe we walk this life alone, but does that mean our light carries no one? We are gifted the power to change lives for the better, Omar. Our path never was to be simple. So, we get up and keep going, cause that is what heroes do. Soulless heroes, like ourselves.”

  The words struck a cord inside Omar. His eyes widened and jaw unclenched. Shay gripped his shoulders firm and steady. “I always believe you to be the hero the world needs. You just have to believe it now.”

  Shay grasped Omar’s hand and put it into the center tile of the door. It reacted, lighting up a shadow black glow. Suspense raised in Omar’s chest. He worried, looking to his friend for reassurance, receiving a small nod. Omar’s hand tightened into a fist, readying his sword. With the constant voices pushing him into the deeper waters of his subconscious. The Diborn should have sunk, yet he rose.

  In a silent confident stance, Omar rose to both his feet without Shay’s help. Shay stayed kneeled, watching his friend bulk his chest out in confidence. Omar didn’t say a word. The large black frame door opened to the final chamber. Its eerie creak of old Gaian ruins echoed to the other side of the cavern. Behind the fog, Leonidas and his party could hear it.

  Omar reached inside his pocket with his free hand, grabbing Luna’s locket. He stared into it, imagining her eyes gazing upon him again. He didn’t just see her. She smiled brighter than always of course, but he saw Magnus. The Viking bowed with a nod, impressed at where his friend lied in front of. Natasha peered behind Magnus, waving to Omar. Omar smiled seeing them.

  “A remembrance mirror…” Shay scoffed. “Impressive. That princess.” He smirked, shocked.

  Omar didn’t say anything. He opened the second side to the locket and saw everything he desired inside of it. He, along with his three siblings, all sat at a table with his mother and late father, happily enjoying a meal. His home. A place that rested inside of his dreams.

  He closed the locket and out of the corner of his eye, nodded at Shay. “I will defeat the demon inside here. After that, what comes next is what comes. Thank you. Shay…” Omar marched forth as the door stopped halfway open. “Perhaps this is my final chapter.”

  Omar walked into the chamber, within a couple feet darkness consumed him. On the outside Shay, managed to lose sight of him. He watched the door shut behind Omar, as the final trial now stood before the Soulless Hero, Omar Marshall.

  Shay whispered as the guard approached. “Until we meet again, my friend.”