I dreamed of falling.
Not the gentle kind of falling, the kind that makes you float in your sleep and wake up peaceful. This was different. This was wrong. I was plummeting through a darkness so absolute it felt solid, a weight pressing against my skin from all directions, and I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't even scream.
Somewhere below me—or above me, or all around me, I couldn't tell anymore—there was a voice.
Not the voice from the rooftop. A different one. Older. Deeper. A voice that felt like the bottom of the ocean and the heart of a dead star and the space between moments of time.
"Eren."
I tried to answer, but my mouth wouldn't open.
"Eren, find me."
The darkness swirled around me, forming shapes I couldn't quite recognize. Faces without features. Hands without arms. Eyes without bodies. They reached for me, brushed against my skin, and every touch sent a chill down my spine that wasn't cold—it was empty.
"Find me before the light fades."
I opened my mouth to ask where, to beg for help, to do anything—
And then I hit the ground.
I woke up screaming.
My body jerked upright, my hands flying to my chest, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. For a moment I didn't know where I was—the ceiling was wrong, the walls were wrong, the light streaming through the window was the wrong color, everything was wrong—
"Easy."
A hand pressed against my shoulder, firm and grounding. I flinched away from it, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps, and then I saw her.
Lyra.
She was sitting on a chair beside the bed, a cup of something steaming in her hands. Her silver hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, and there were dark circles under her eyes that hadn't been there last night. She looked like she hadn't slept.
"You were dreaming," she said. "The Void dreams. They'll get worse before they get better."
My throat was raw. "What... what time is it?"
"Afternoon. You slept for twelve hours."
Twelve hours. I'd slept for twelve hours. I'd never slept that long in my life, not even when I'd stayed up three days straight studying for exams. The thought should have been comforting—I was exhausted, after all, I needed the rest—but all I felt was a creeping unease.
"I dreamed about falling," I said. "And about a voice. It said... it said I had to find it. Before the light fades."
Lyra's expression flickered. Something crossed her face—recognition, maybe, or worry—but she smoothed it away before I could read it.
"That's the Void," she said. "It's calling to you. Trying to establish a connection."
"Establish a connection?" I repeated. "I thought it already had one. I thought I was—" I held up my arm. The markings were gone, faded to nothing, but I could still feel them underneath my skin, waiting. "—this."
"The markings are just the surface," Lyra said. "The body's reaction to the Void's presence. The real connection is deeper. The Void is trying to bond with your soul, to make you its anchor in this world. That's what the dreams are. The beginning of that process."
My stomach turned. "I don't want it to bond with me. I don't want anything to do with it."
"I know." She set down her cup and leaned forward, her eyes steady and serious. "But it's already happening. The only choice you have is whether to fight it or accept it."
"What happens if I fight it?"
Lyra was quiet for a moment. "You can't fight the Void forever. It'll wear you down, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but a shell. You'll lose yourself to the dreams, and then one day you'll wake up and realize you don't remember who you used to be."
"And if I accept it?"
"You might survive," she said. "If you learn to control it, to shape it, to make it obey you instead of the other way around. The Void is power, Eren. Raw, untamed, terrifying power. But power can be wielded. It can be used."
I stared at her. "You make it sound like a weapon."
"Because it is," she said. "The most dangerous weapon in existence. And right now, it's pointed at you."
I didn't know what to say to that.
So I got out of bed.
My legs nearly gave out the moment I stood. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I had to grab the bedframe to keep from falling. My muscles ached like I'd run a marathon. My head throbbed. My mouth tasted like copper and ash.
"The Void energy is draining you," Lyra said, rising to steady me. "Your body isn't used to hosting it. You need to eat, drink, and rest. A lot. For the next few days, at least."
"I don't have a few days," I muttered. "You said yourself—the Rift is still open. There are more creatures coming. I can't just lie here while people are—"
"Eren."
The way she said my name stopped me cold.
"You're not useful to anyone dead," she said. "And if you push yourself too hard too fast, that's exactly what will happen. The Void will consume you from the inside out, and there won't be anything left for me to save."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to say I can't just sit here, I have to do something, I have to help.
But the exhaustion was so deep it felt like it went down to my bones.
"...Fine," I said, sinking back onto the bed. "But I'm not staying here forever. As soon as I can stand, we start training."
Lyra nodded. "That's fair."
She handed me a glass of water. I drank it in three gulps, and the cool liquid was the best thing I'd ever tasted. When I finished, she handed me a plate of bread and fruit, and I ate so fast I nearly choked.
"Slow down," she said, a hint of amusement in her voice. "It's not going anywhere."
I forced myself to chew. To swallow. To breathe.
Outside the window, the scar in the sky had faded to a thin, pale line, barely visible against the blue. But I could feel it. That hum in my chest, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, reminding me that the wound was still there. Still open. Still waiting.
"What's going to happen?" I asked. "To Olori, I mean. To the people."
Lyra's expression sobered. "The authorities will say it was a gas explosion. A freak accident. They'll cover it up, blame it on old pipes or faulty wiring or something else ordinary." She paused. "They're good at that. The Order has people in the right places. By the time the news cycles are over, no one will remember what they actually saw."
"But they did see it," I said. "They saw the sky break. They saw those things. They can't just—"
"They'll tell themselves it was a dream," Lyra said. "A mass hallucination. The mind is very good at protecting itself from things it can't explain. That's why the Order has survived for so long. People don't want to believe in monsters. It's easier to forget."
I thought about that. About the people in the streets, screaming, running, watching their world shatter.
"They can't forget," I said quietly. "Even if they want to."
Lyra looked at me. There was something in her eyes—surprise, maybe. Respect, even.
"No," she agreed. "They can't. And that's why we fight."
The rest of the day passed in a haze.
I ate. I drank. I slept on and off, my body demanding more rest than I wanted to give it. When I was awake, Lyra told me about the Order—the Larkers who sensed the Rift's stirrings, the Supporters who healed the wounded, the Hunters who fought the creatures head-on, the Jokers who sealed the wounds in reality.
She told me about the ranks. The hierarchy. The way everything fit together.
And then she told me about the Voidwalkers.
"There have only been four in the Order's history," she said. "Including you. The first was a woman named Sera, who lived three hundred years ago. She founded the Order. She was the one who first understood the Rift, who learned to seal it, who taught the Jokers how to do the same. The second was a man named Kael. He saved the world from the Calamity, a hundred years later. The third was..." She paused. "Someone I knew. He died in battle, five years ago."
I looked at her. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "It's not your fault. And it's not his, either. Voidwalkers carry a heavy burden. It's rare for any of us to die of old age."
I thought about that. About the weight of three centuries of history pressing down on me.
"What happened to Kael?" I asked. "The second one. How did he save the world?"
Lyra's expression darkened. "He didn't. He gave his life to seal a Rift that would have swallowed the continent. He was the Joker, the Hunter, the Supporter, the Larker—all of them, combined. The Void's power flowed through him, and he used every ounce of it to close the wound."
I felt cold. "And you're saying I can do that? That I'm like him?"
"You're stronger," Lyra said. "Infinity resonance—the Codex marked you as something beyond even a standard Voidwalker. The readings weren't just high. They were impossible. You resonate with every rank at one hundred percent. You're the first person in history to do that."
"That doesn't sound like a good thing."
"It isn't," she said quietly. "Not necessarily. The more power you have, the more danger you're in. You're a target for the Void's influence, and the Rift will keep trying to consume you."
I swallowed hard. "So what do I do?"
"You learn," Lyra said. "You train. You build walls inside your mind to keep the Void from taking root. And you hope that's enough."
She looked at me—really looked, with those starlight eyes that seemed to see through everything.
"Are you ready for that, Eren? Because if you're not, if you can't handle it, then we need to figure out another path. There are ways to suppress your power, to lock it away. It won't be pleasant, and it won't be easy, but it might keep you alive."
I thought about the voice in my dreams. The calling. The pull.
I thought about my mother. About the bookstore. About the ordinary life I'd never get back.
"If I lock it away," I said, "what happens to the Rift?"
Lyra was quiet for a long moment. "It will grow. The creatures will keep coming. And without a Voidwalker to seal it, eventually the Rift will swallow the world."
"And the people?"
"They'll die."
I nodded slowly.
"Then I can't lock it away," I said. "I won't. If there's even a chance I can help, I have to take it."
Lyra studied me. Her expression was unreadable.
"You're sure about this?"
"I'm sure I don't have a choice," I said. "That's the same thing, right?"
She almost smiled. "Close enough."
That night, I had another dream.
This time, I wasn't falling. I was standing in a field of black grass, under a sky full of stars that weren't stars—they were eyes, hundreds of them, watching me with an ancient hunger. And in the distance, at the edge of the field, I could see a figure.
A silhouette. Human-shaped, but wrong. Too tall. Too thin. Its arms hung at its sides like dead weights, and its head was tilted at an angle that shouldn't have been possible.
It was looking at me.
"Eren."
The voice from before—the one I didn't recognize. It came from the figure, but the figure's lips didn't move.
"You came to find me."
"I don't know where I am," I said. My voice echoed strangely in the empty field. "I don't know what you want."
"You do."
The figure took a step forward. Its foot didn't disturb the black grass. It didn't make a sound.
"You feel it too. The calling. The need. The hunger."
"I don't want to feel it."
"But you do." Another step. "And you will. Because you are part of me now, Eren. The same way I am part of you."
"I'm not—"
The figure was closer now. Close enough that I could see its face—or rather, the lack of one. Where its features should have been, there was nothing but swirling darkness, endless and cold.
"You are," it said. "And the more you fight it, the worse it will get. But if you embrace it... if you let me in..."
It reached out a hand. Its fingers were too long, too thin, too wrong.
"We can save them, Eren. We can save all of them."
I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to wake up.
But I was frozen, paralyzed, unable to do anything but watch as the darkness reached for me.
"Just let me in."
I woke with a gasp.
The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of the moon outside. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. My arm ached, throbbed, the violet markings burning for a brief moment before fading away.
Lyra wasn't there.
I sat up in bed, my breath coming in short gasps, and tried to remember what I'd dreamed. The field. The figure. The voice.
"Let me in."
I pressed my hands against my temples. It was a dream. Just a dream. It wasn't real. It was the Void trying to mess with my head, like Lyra said.
But the dreams felt so real.
I forced myself to breathe. To calm down. To remember that I was in a safehouse, in the city, in the real world. The nightmare couldn't hurt me.
Except it could.
It did.
I looked at my arm again. The markings were gone, but I could feel them, lurking beneath the surface. The same way the Void was lurking beneath my thoughts.
"Let me in," I whispered to myself. "I'm not going to let you in."
But even as I said it, I couldn't be sure I was telling the truth.
End of Chapter Two