Antem sat by the riverbank, breathing in the cool air of the new world. Everything around seemed perfect: the rhythmic rustle of the trees, the murmuring of the water, the soft glow that penetrated the space, filling it with warmth. The world had no boundaries. It was infinite yet complete.
But something had changed. A barely perceptible unease, akin to a quiet voice deep within his consciousness. Antem opened his palms, trying to recapture the harmony, but this inner voice did not quiet down. His sense of perfection began to crack.
Tick-tock.
At first, he thought it was just a memory, a remnant of the past that hadn’t vanished with the old world. But the sound repeated. Again and again. It resonated nearby, too close to be a figment of his imagination.
Antem looked around, searching for the source, but nothing had changed. The forest stood silent. The river flowed, leaving a silken sheen on the shore.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The sound seemed to come alive, dissolving in the air, filling the space around him.
“This can’t be happening,” — Antem thought.
He turned his gaze back to the river. At first, its surface appeared calm, almost frozen. But then he noticed the waves spreading across the water, rhythmic like a heartbeat. Antem leaned closer, trying to see the source, and touched the surface.
What he saw made him recoil. He did not see his own reflection. Instead, there appeared a clock face. Broken, without hands, yet so familiar that a chill ran down his spine.
Suddenly, everything around him shifted. The noise of the river fell silent.
The wind stilled. Antem felt his heart pound loudly once, then quiet, as if it too had surrendered to this silence.
The ground beneath his feet began to crack. The perfect landscape—fields, mountains, forests—splintered like the ice on a frozen lake. Light that once seemed eternal seeped from the cracks in the earth.
— This is an illusion, — Antem whispered.
Darkness crept into his reality. And from that darkness came a voice. Cold, emotionless, but undeniable.
— You thought you found the truth? You merely moved to the next level of our game.
Antem felt the ground beneath him become unstable. He wanted to run, scream, do something, but his body did not obey. He felt like a marionette suspended in the air, controlled by invisible strings.
The voice continued:
— Everything you saw, everything you believed, is just a part of the illusion. You sought freedom, but freedom does not exist. There is only eternity. And you—are its guardian.
These words struck him like the blows of a hammer, resounding in his consciousness. The world around began to disintegrate, revealing something mechanical, something familiar yet horrifying. Antem saw structures akin to the mechanisms of the towers that governed time in the old world. They rose from the ground, flooding his mind with dread.
“This is a trap,” — he understood. But who had created it? And most importantly — why?
A new purpose began to form in his mind. Now he knew that the illusion could be shattered. But at what cost?
Antem closed his eyes. He knew that what lay ahead would be a struggle. And not just against the system. He had to fight against himself, against those fragments of old beliefs that still lingered in his soul.
He took a deep breath, preparing himself for a confrontation not just with the external forces opposing him, but also with the internal shadows that haunted him. Each doubt, each remnant of fear, was an echo of the past he needed to face.
With renewed resolve, he opened his eyes and focused on the river. The clock face shimmered beneath the surface like a haunting reminder of the ties that bound him. He knew that in order to move forward, he had to confront the essence of this illusion, to unravel the threads of control that had ensnared him for so long.
Antem rose to his feet, feeling the ground shake beneath him—not with fear, but with anticipation. The path ahead would be daunting, but he understood that every step taken toward truth was a step toward liberation.
“I’m ready,” — he whispered to himself and to the world, knowing that the battle for his own freedom had just begun. It was time to reclaim not only the world around him but also the very core of his being.