Collide: The Ancestral Awakening Chapter 3

So here I am now falling.

Down a cliff face, plummeting toward what is almost certainly either a shallow stream that will hit like concrete or jagged rocks that will do the job even faster. Either way, my chances of survival are basically zero.

I claw desperately at the rock face, grasping at branches, anything to slow my fall. But the wood snaps under my weight. My fingers scrape against stone. There is nothing to hold onto. Nothing to catch me.

And then something shifts.

Deep inside me, something wakes up. I reach out not with my hands, but with something else toward a cave mouth impossibly far away. One second I’m falling, rushing toward certain death. Next, reality itself seems to bend. Space warps. Distance compresses. The cliff edge and that distant cave somehow draw near, as though the world itself has folded in half to bring me there.

I am no longer falling down. I am flying sideways across impossible space, and then I tumble hard onto cold stone floor, gasping, staring up at the rocky ceiling.

What the fuck just happened.

I scramble to my feet, heart hammering so hard I can hear it in my ears. Far above, I hear shouting, faint, distant voices from the cliff edge. But down here, all is shadow. I have no light, no torch, nothing. So I begin to walk, fingers brushing the cave wall, hoping to find… anything.

The rock beneath my hand changes.

One moment it’s rough, jagged stone. The next smooth. Warm. Almost soft, like polished stone that has been worn down over centuries. My fingers trace the surface until something clicks, a faint, almost imperceptible sound and the wall slides apart, revealing a hidden doorway.

I step through into a chamber that feels ancient beyond reckoning.

Round stone tables covered in maps and markers. Shelves upon shelves of books, scrolls, and carefully preserved manuscripts. Candles line the walls, somehow lit, casting a soft golden glow over everything. And hanging in the very centre of the room a sphere of pure, pulsating blue light, floating without support, illuminating the entire space.

I walk toward the table. As I draw near, I feel it, a breeze, or something like one. Not air, exactly. Energy. I hold out my hand and time itself seems to slow.

Blue fragments of light gather in the air, spinning and coalescing into figures. People. Elves. And something else metal and circuitry, beings of flesh and machine standing side by side. Voices echo around me, clear as day.

“Those near the Centre are building something twisting the very fabric of what is!” one voice calls out.

“There are those who wield false ‘Bend’ power, stolen, unnatural!” says another.

And then one voice rises above them all strong, booming, commanding. A figure steps forward: a man in leather armour beneath a heavy cloak, wearing a crusader’s helmet, broad metal pauldrons catching the light. He looks as though he walked straight out of the Wastelands hardened, weathered, unbroken.

“PEOPLE!” he declares, and the crowd falls silent. “Our enemies are weak! We must NOT falter! We will push them back from our fortress, from our sanctuary! WE WILL TAKE BACK THE CENTRE!”

A roar of cheers erupts. The man raises a fist.

“IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES! We will return! For WE ARE THE KEEPERS OF THIS REALM!”

The cheers swell and then the blue fragments begin to fade. The figures dissolve. The vision shatters like glass.

“Not many have that ability.”

I spin around, heart leaping into my throat.

Standing behind me is a figure made of swirling blue light. He appears elven tall, graceful, wearing robes beneath a long coat with a hood. His hair falls to his shoulders, and beneath the hood, his eyes are sharp, ancient, wise. He looks like a young man who has lived for a thousand years. Blue energy curls around him like flame, flickering and fading.

“Who are you?” I ask, stepping back cautiously.

He bows slightly, an old, formal gesture.

“I… am Enstelium. Great Head Priest of the Centre Monastery.”

“Uh…” I stammer, trying to process this. “A Keeper? Like the Guardian Keepers?”

“Why yes,” he says, as though this should be obvious. “Why would I be anything else? What other monasteries do you know of?”

“That’s the problem,” I say quietly. “There is no monastery. Not anymore.”

His eyes widen. Shock and something deeper, darker crosses his face. “What? That cannot be. I was laid to rest there. With my brothers. My body became one with the Centre itself.”

“Wait, are you saying this Monastery was… at the Centre?”

Enstelium tilts his head. “Why? What has happened?”

I fall silent. How do I tell him? How do I say: Your sacred monastery is gone. It’s Ground Zero now — the headquarters, the research facility, the power plant of the Central Powers Corporation. They built over your graves. They mined your sanctuary for energy.

“Never mind that,” I say instead. “What are you doing here? Are you… a ghost?”

He stands in silence for a long moment, then shakes his head as if waking from a dream.

“So much is lost,” he murmurs. “All I remember is this: I lay dying. My wounds were beyond healing. According to custom, I was lowered into the depths of the Centre, that I might become part of its eternal energy. And then… I awoke. And I saw you.”

He gestures toward where I stand.

“I followed you. I watched you interact with the Fragmentations.”

“Fragmentations?” I blink. “What are those?”

“The vision you just witnessed,” Enstelium explains. “Recordings of the past, woven from the Centre’s own energy. They freeze time preserve voices, faces, feelings so that those who come after may know what was.”

I stand there, stunned. And he’s right I did feel something during that speech. Pride. Defiance. A fire in my chest that wasn’t mine.

“Right,” I say, shaking myself back to the present. “Do you know the way out?”

“I do,” Enstelium nods. “But you will need to use what the Centre has given you.”

“Meaning?”

“Place your hand upon the door,” he says, gesturing toward a massive stone slab set into the far wall. “And do not force it. Feel the flow of the Centre. Let it move through you.”

I walk to the door, place my palm flat against the cold stone. I close my eyes. I try to push to force energy out and it feels strained, tight, wrong.

A hand rests gently on my shoulder.

“Relax,” Enstelium says, his voice soft. “Breathe. In… and out. Let it flow.”

I ease. I breathe. And suddenly it does.

Warmth spreads from my chest, down my arm, into my palm. It doesn’t feel forced. It feels… natural. Like something returning home. Energy seeps from me into the stone, and beneath my hand, the massive slab begins to move, gliding silently, smoothly, grinding softly against itself until it swings wide open, revealing the cave mouth and the twilight beyond.

I pull my hand back, staring. “What… was that?”

“That,” Enstelium says, stepping past me into the open air, “was the Centre. Lending its power to a Keeper.”

He pauses at the threshold, turning back to look at me blue eyes glowing faintly in the gathering dusk.

“Come, student,” he says, stepping out into the world. “Let us see what has become of the realm we swore to protect.”