It didn’t happen during a battle.
It didn’t happen because I failed a mission.
It happened because of knowledge.
One night, I was approached by another Dream Walker — a woman I knew well, or thought I did.
There was something different about her.
A crack in her spirit, a trembling in her voice.
Something broken.
She had been touched by something forbidden — some terrible truth about human existence that we were never meant to understand.
She tried to tell me about it.
I didn’t understand the words — not really.
But even hearing the edges of it, even brushing against that knowledge, changed me.
It was like a crack forming inside my mind.
A tiny flaw that hadn't been there before.
At first, I didn’t realize anything was wrong.
But soon after, everything began to change.
The others — the Dream Walkers — grew distant.
Not out of betrayal, but because something had shifted.
They could feel it too, even if they didn’t understand it.
They didn’t have the power to banish me, and I never blamed them.
I knew, even then, where the judgment had come from.
It was the Angels.
They had seen the flaw.
They had judged me dangerous — not because I had done something evil, but because I had been touched by forbidden knowledge.
A disease of the mind, a madness that could not be allowed to spread.
No explanations.
No forgiveness.
One day, I belonged.
The next, I was utterly alone.
NEXT - Part 7: Exile and Healing