Dark Light -

According to the legends of the old world, Dark Light was the inverse of the sun. It didn't reveal the world as it was; it revealed the world as it could be.

He realized the Dark Light wasn't just showing him a different world; it was swapping his reality for another. To bring the "Light" back to the Gray, he would have to give up everything that made him a part of it. Dark Light

The people of the Gray didn’t just use light to see; they used it to survive. Without a weekly "dosage" from the glowing canisters, the human body began to wither. Skin turned translucent, bones became brittle as dry chalk, and eventually, the "fades" would simply dissolve into the shadows. According to the legends of the old world,

When Elias looked through the violet haze of the sphere, the ruins of the observatory vanished. In their place stood a towering structure of glass and steel, bathed in a blinding, natural gold. He saw people laughing, their skin bronzed and healthy. He saw green things—vast, waving oceans of emerald leaves that he had only ever seen in tattered picture books. To bring the "Light" back to the Gray,

He didn't hesitate. He smashed the sphere against the stone floor.

In the center of the ruins, a man stood blinking at the brightness. He didn't know who he was or how he had gotten there. He only knew that for the first time in his life, his shadow was sharp, black, and perfectly clear.