The Twenty-Year Void

The darkness recedes like a tide, replaced by the blinding glare of sunlight through classroom windows. You stumble, blinking, your eyes adjusting to a scene utterly alien to the battlefield you were just on. Desks are arranged in neat rows, teenagers stare back at you with bewildered expressions, and the air is thick with an unfamiliar stillness.
Panic flares. Where are you? What happened? Your sword is still in your hand, its blade stained with the blood of a battle that feels like moments ago. A boy, Jason, demands to know who you are.
Twenty years, they say. Twenty years have passed while you were lost in the void. Alannah is dead, and your friends have lived an entire lifetime without you. The shock is a physical blow, leaving you shaky and nauseous. You are a ghost in a world that moved on, and the weight of that reality settles heavily upon you.
