A jagged gasp tore through Abdul-Jalil’s throat, a sound raw and unused. His body, once a formless void, solidified around the pain, a familiar sting blossoming behind his eyes. He lay sprawled on something rough, something that grated against his bare skin. The sensation of dust, fine and metallic, coated his tongue. It was always like this. The abrupt return, the sudden, overwhelming memory of sensation, the phantom ache of a wound he couldn't recall receiving. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing a sky the color of bruised plums. Above him, motes of crimson dust swirled in a perpetual, silent storm. The air tasted of ozone and pulverized stone, a scent he knew intimately. This wasn't home. It was never home. Each awakening brought a new horizon, a new set of scars, and the crushing weight of a past he could almost touch but never fully grasp. He pushed himself up, his muscles protesting with a dull throb. The world spun for a moment, then settled into a stark, desolate panorama. A city. Or what remained of one. Columns of what might have been marble now stood as fractured teeth, jutting from a sea of crimson powder. Buildings lay flattened, reduced to geometric rubble. The silence was profound, broken only by the whisper of the dust. No birds sang. No wind howled. Just the rustle of a forgotten world. Despite the amnesia, a primal terror tightened his chest, a cold knot beneath his ribs. It wasn't fear of the desolation, but something deeper, something ingrained. A cold, bitter taste of betrayal. It clung to him like the dust, a constant companion. He remembered the feeling of a hand in his, a promise whispered, and then the sickening lurch as the ground fell away beneath his feet. Always the same. Always the fall. The details were gone, but the lesson remained, etched into his very soul: trust nothing, especially not connection. He slowly got to his feet, his new limbs testing the ground. His senses sharpened, picking up the faint hum of residual energy, the ghost of monumental power that had once ripped this place apart. He was here again. Alive again. And utterly, brutally alone. The raw sting of rebirth, a fresh page covered in ancient, invisible ink, began to recede, leaving behind the familiar, cold resolve. --- Abdul-Jalil scanned the horizon, his gaze sweeping across the pulverised landscape. The ruins stretched for miles, a testament to an unimaginable cataclysm. Not a natural disaster. He knew the signature. This was the work of immense, controlled power. His kind of power. Or rather, the kind of power that *was* him. He held out a hand, palm up. The air above his skin shimmered, a translucent distortion in the crimson-tinged light. It wasn't a visible aura, not a flashy display. It was subtler, a ripple in the fabric of reality itself, bending the world to his will, even unconsciously. This was 'Rwutuekuelteulteutl', his curse and his salvation. The power to reshape existence, to rewrite the very laws of physics. It pulsed within him, a silent, infinite engine, always active, always waiting. The ground beneath his boots felt wrong, too soft, too yielding. He focused, just a fraction. A faint tremor passed through the earth, settling the dust, firming the ground. He didn't have to think about it. The power simply *was*. It manifested as a whisper of change, a subtle correction to the world's imperfections. He often wondered if he was merely a conduit, or if the power itself was the true master, dragging him through endless cycles of existence. He closed his hand, the shimmering distortion vanishing. He felt nothing but a profound emptiness, a jaded weariness that no amount of rest could ever truly soothe. What was the point of infinite power if it couldn't erase the past, couldn't heal the core wound that bled through every rebirth? It only made the falls harder, the betrayals deeper, the solitude more absolute. This world, like all the others, was just another stage for the same tired play. He walked through the silent ruins, his boots crunching on what might have been broken glass or crystalline fragments of a forgotten civilization. His gaze was sharp, discerning patterns in the chaos. The way the buildings had collapsed, the direction of the forces involved, the lingering resonance of the energy. He saw a story of colossal might, a battle or a destruction on a scale that dwarfed mortal comprehension. He'd seen it all before. Every iteration of power, every rise and fall. He was tired of it. A shard of polished obsidian, still clinging to a fragment of an ornate wall, caught his eye. It reflected the crimson sky, a tiny, fractured mirror of this broken reality. He picked it up, tracing its smooth, cold surface with a thumb. Power. Infinite power. And infinite loneliness. He tossed the shard away, watching it disappear into the swirling dust. It was just another reminder of the cycle. --- As Abdul-Jalil crested a rise of rubble, a faint light pulsed in the far distance. It was barely visible against the bruised horizon, a tiny pinprick of pure, incandescent white. He stopped, his eyes narrowing. Not a star. Not a dying sun. This was a beacon. He knew these signals too well. It was the signature of an ♾️, a raw nexus of infinite energy, calling out across the wasteland. In his countless lives, these beacons had always marked the beginning of something. A new conflict, a new realm to dominate, a new source of power to claim, or a new target for his ruthless pragmatism. The pulse was rhythmic, slow and steady, like a cosmic heartbeat. His lips curled into a cynical smirk. Of course. Just when he thought he might finally find a moment's peace in the desolation, the universe decided to remind him of its cruel games. An ♾️ beacon meant others would be drawn to it. Others with their ambitions, their alliances, their inevitable betrayals. The thought was a dull ache, a familiar phantom limb pain. He'd seen countless forms of these beacons. Some were grand, towering columns of light. Others were subtle, a mere glimmer in the corner of his perception. This one was understated, almost shy, but its power hummed directly into his core, a resonant frequency only he could truly feel. It was a siren call for the powerful, a magnet for the ambitious. He hesitated for a moment, a flicker of something almost like reluctance. He could ignore it. He could turn his back on this new path, delve deeper into the ruins, seeking only solitude. But the thought was fleeting. His very existence was tied to these currents of power, to the flow of ♾️. To turn away was to deny his nature, to deny the ruthless pragmatist he had become. The smirk deepened, humourless. Another dance. Another charade of purpose. He began to walk towards the distant light, his steps measured and deliberate. The dust swirled around his ankles, painting the scene in hues of blood and rust. He didn't feel anticipation. Only a weary acceptance of the inevitable. The beacon pulsed again, brighter this time, as if sensing his decision. It wanted him. And he, in turn, would take what it offered, and nothing more. --- Abdul-Jalil picked his way through the skeletal remains of what might have been a grand plaza. The air grew colder here, a damp chill that seeped into his bones despite the dry dust. A faint, almost imperceptible vibration began beneath his feet, a low thrum that spoke of immense, buried mass. He paused, head tilted, listening. The tremor intensified, a low rumble that grew into a guttural groan from the very earth itself. Dust billowed around him, thick and blinding, stirred by the deep-seated movement. He watched, unmoving, as the ground cracked, long fissures spiderwebbing across the pulverized stone. What force could cause such an upheaval, even in this shattered world? It felt ancient, far older than the ruins around him. A section of the earth, perhaps fifty feet across, began to rise, slowly, ponderously, like a colossal lid being lifted. More dust erupted, a choking cloud of crimson particles that painted the air. The low growl deepened, vibrating through his chest. He could feel the immense pressure, the sheer, crushing weight of whatever was stirring beneath. He stepped back, his eyes fixed on the rising expanse. The movement was agonizingly slow, revealing a dark, impossibly smooth surface beneath the dust, polished to an unnatural sheen. It was too vast, too regular to be a natural formation. This was constructed. This was *made*. And it was emerging from an impossible depth, as if it had been sleeping for eons. The ground groaned one last time, a deafening shriek of grating stone. The rising slab shuddered, then settled, revealing a colossal, obsidian-like structure, perfectly circular, embedded in the earth. Its surface was devoid of ornamentation, a stark, unyielding presence. It pulsed with a faint, almost imperceptible energy, a cold, predatory hum that sent a shiver down Abdul-Jalil's spine. The dust began to settle, slowly revealing the full horror of the immense, featureless disk. He felt a profound sense of wrongness, an ancient malevolence radiating from it. This wasn't just a structure. It was something alive, something that had waited. And as the last of the crimson haze cleared, a single, obsidian eye opened within the swirling dust, not human, and fixed on Abdul-Jalil with an ancient, chilling hunger.

Echoes in Crimson Dust