Chapter 5 - The Shifting Realm
The blinding light didn't fade; it folded.
Julian felt a sensation of violent motion—not of moving forward, but of the space around him being torn open and re-stitched in a fraction of a second. The smell of rot, wet earth, and mildew vanished, replaced by the crisp, cool scent of ozone, jasmine, and polished marble.
The cold dirt floor beneath his bare knees was gone. In its place was a smooth, warm surface of polished white Italian marble, reflecting the brilliant light above like a sheet of ice.
Julian blinked rapidly, his eyes burning as they adjusted to the new environment.
He was no longer in his rotting cabin in Sector 9.
He was kneeling in the center of a gargantuan, high-ceiling luxury villa. Above him, a massive glass atrium opened to a clear, star-filled night sky—no rain, no black clouds, no smoke from the industrial fires of the city. Towering columns of white stone rose thirty feet to support intricate gilded archways. Soft, warm light emanated not from crude oil lamps, but from modern, hidden cove LED fixtures and a massive crystal chandelier that suspended over the room like a constellation of diamonds.
Julian looked down at his hands.
His dirty, calloused fingers were clean, smooth, and manicured. The dark grime under his fingernails was gone. His wrists, once thin and scarred from years of manual labor, were now strong and clean.
He reached down to touch his clothes. The tattered brown tunic had vanished. He was wearing an immaculate, tailored suit of deep midnight-blue silk, trimmed with delicate golden embroidery along the lapels and cuffs. The fabric felt cool, impossibly soft against his skin.
Julian gasped, staggering back onto his feet. He looked into a floor-to-ceiling mirror set into the marble wall across the hall.
The man looking back at him was not the broken, starved scavenger of Sector 9. He was clean-shaven, his dark hair neatly styled, his skin healthy and flushed with vitality. He looked like a prince of the Old Realm, a man who had never known hunger, fear, or the cold bite of black rain.
"Is this... a dream?" Julian whispered, his voice echoing off the high marble walls. "Am I dead?"
May you like
"You are alive, Julian," a voice answered.
Julian spun around. Standing at the top of the grand marble staircase, bathed in a soft, continuous stream of divine golden light—god rays slicing down through the glass atrium—was the God.
