It did not take long for Daedren to realize that something was wrong with reality.

  At first, it was subtle, moments of unease, the sensation of something unseen moving just at the edge of his perception. Shadows stretched in ways they shouldn’t, voices echoed with a slight delay, and once, just once, he caught the barest glimpse of a figure standing where no one should have been. It was there for a fraction of a second, a shape on the edge of his vision, and then gone.

  But his mind, tempered by the discipline of a Salamander and sharpened by years of battle, did not let go of the discrepancy. He knew something was wrong. Something deep, something fundamental.

  And so, he turned inward.

  For years he used meditation as a tool of focus, a means to refine the mind as one would a blade in the forge. But Daedren had never used it like this before, he had used it as a mean to stay focused during battles, but now... he needed more than discipline and focus. He needed truth.

  He began his practice alone in his quarters, seated upon the cold metal floor, his shields placed beside him like sentinels. He slowed his breathing, calmed his thoughts, and reached deep into himself. Not for the warrior’s focus before battle, not for the measured calm before the storm, but for something deeper.

  He meditated for hours. Days. His mind waded through memories, through moments that felt real and those that seemed… off. He replayed the battles, the way the Tyranids had flickered, the way time had felt uncertain. He thought of the Chaos anomaly, of the unexplainable shifts in reality, of Vulkan’s plea. The more he focused, the more he felt as though he were peeling away layers of existence, reaching past the surface of what he had always accepted as truth.

  And then, it began to work.

  At night, his dreams returned. But they were different now.

  Before, he had been an observer, a specter wandering through half-remembered battles, through visions of war replayed in unnerving precision. Now, he was something else.

  The first night, he saw himself asleep, lying motionless on his bunk, his breath slow and steady. He hovered above his own body, weightless, untethered. He could move, but the world around him felt distant, veiled. He drifted from his quarters, passing through walls and doors like mist through a battlefield.

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  And he saw things.

  Not just the corridors of the ship. Not just his brothers moving through their routines. He saw other things.

  Shadows slinking through the halls that were not cast by light. Faint echoes of laughter, whispers of voices that did not belong. He drifted past the bridge and saw something standing just behind the captain, something that was not there. It flickered in and out of existence, not like an illusion but as if reality itself was deciding whether it belonged or not.

  His vision darkened, his dream pulling him deeper.

  Now he saw war councils in distant places, figures that should not be visible to him. He saw demons plotting in hushed tones, he saw xenos manipulated by higher beings speaking in tongues unknown. The daemons watching, always watching, their hunger endless.

  And then, he woke.

  Heart pounding, mind racing.

  But it was not just a dream.

  It continued for days. Each time he meditated, his visions grew clearer. Each time he slept, he drifted further from his body. The dreams were no longer visions of past battles, they were glimpses into things he was not meant to see.

  And then, one day, it happened while he was awake.

  It was during a routine drill. A simple exercise in the training halls of the Pyre of Vengeance, sparring with his brothers. Bolters set to training loads, armor locked into restricted damage simulations. Normal. Routine.

  Until the flicker happened.

  It was a fraction of a second, but he saw it.

  Thran, his captain, standing in front of him, issuing commands, but then he wasn’t.

  For the briefest moment, in a heartbeat too short to grasp, Thran’s form changed.

  It was still him, but something was different. His posture had shifted slightly, his stance no longer aligned to where it had been before. His words continued uninterrupted, but something was off.

  The moment passed in a blink.

  Daedren felt his blood turn to ice.

  He stood still, gripping his shields, staring at Thran as though expecting him to shift again.

  “What is it?” Thran asked, noticing his unease.

  Daedren opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat.

  Nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like madness.

  But he knew.

  He knew.

  Reality had just changed in front of him.

  And he had seen it.

  That night, Daedren did not sleep. He sat on his bunk, staring at his hands, at his surroundings, at the ship’s cold, unfeeling walls.

  He had spent years training, years refining himself to be stronger, faster, more disciplined. But none of that had prepared him for this.

  He had seen through the illusion.

  Something was wrong with the world.

  And he was the only one who could see it.

  The realization settled over him like a weight he could not shake, an impossible burden pressing into his very soul.

  What was the truth?

  What was real?

  And if reality itself was flickering, what force was behind it?

  For the first time in his life, Daedren was afraid.