Lilith lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

  Eve slept peacefully beside her, her breathing soft and steady, her small form curled against Lilith's side.

  But Lilith's mind wouldn't stop churning.

  The golden flames.

  They'd saved her life. Burned away the Warp's corruption. Left her whole and healed.

  But what were they?

  Brother Ha'ken had been certain they weren't Warp-flames. He'd said they felt different—warm instead of cold, pure instead of corrupt.

  But if they're not from the Warp, where are they from?

  And if they ARE from the Warp—some unknown manifestation I don't understand—then what does that mean for me?

  The question gnawed at her.

  She thought about her psyker abilities. The Navigator's Eye that remained blind and dormant. The connection to the Immaterium that Eve's presence suppressed.

  I could try to tap into it. Test if I can access those flames consciously. See if I can control them.

  The idea was both tempting and terrifying.

  But what if I lose control? What if opening that door again brings back the corruption? What if I hurt someone?

  The memory of the ship surfaced—bodies twisted beyond recognition, metal and flesh fused in impossible ways, dozens dead in an instant because she'd panicked.

  I can't risk that. Not here. Not with all these children around. Not with Eve beside me.

  But the not knowing ate at her.

  I have power. Something inside me that manifests as golden flames. And I have no idea what it is or how it works or if I can even access it again.

  That's... dangerous. In a different way. Being ignorant of your own abilities is its own kind of threat.

  She let out a quiet sigh, careful not to wake Eve.

  No. I'm not going to experiment. Not yet. Not until I'm somewhere safe—somewhere isolated where if things go wrong, no one else gets hurt.

  Maybe on Nocturne. Maybe the Librarians can help me understand.

  For now... I'll just have to live with not knowing.

  She closed her right eye, trying to quiet her thoughts, trying to let exhaustion pull her toward sleep.

  Tomorrow. I'll think about it tomorrow.

  Tonight, I just need to rest.

  And gradually, slowly, sleep began to claim her.

  The dream came without warning.

  One moment, Lilith was drifting in ordinary sleep—that normal darkness of unconsciousness.

  The next, she was somewhere else.

  The Warp.

  She recognized it immediately. That same impossible space she'd glimpsed during her first catastrophic awakening. Colors that shouldn't exist. Dimensions that bent wrong. The sense of vast, incomprehensible things moving just beyond perception.

  But this time was different.

  This time, she was diving into it.

  Not being pulled. Not losing control. Just... falling. Sinking. Descending deeper into the Immaterium like a stone dropped into an infinite ocean.

  The strangeness surrounded her—shapes that were and weren't, sounds that existed without air, sensations that had no physical basis.

  She should have been terrified.

  She should have been going mad, her mind fracturing under the weight of things mortals weren't meant to perceive.

  But she wasn't.

  Why don't I feel anything? Why isn't this hurting me?

  The corruption that had nearly destroyed her before—that suffocating pressure, that sense of wrongness eating away at her sanity—it was absent.

  Instead, there was just... observation.

  She could see things. Comprehend them on some level. But also not comprehend them.

  It was like reading a book in a language she didn't speak—she could recognize the shapes of words, understand that they meant something, but the actual meaning remained frustratingly out of reach.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  This is the Warp. The Sea of Souls. The Immaterium.

  I'm seeing it. Really seeing it. Not just glimpsing it through a door I accidentally opened.

  She continued to sink.

  Deeper.

  Deeper.

  The space around her felt simultaneously full and empty. Crowded with presences she couldn't quite identify, yet also hollow—like standing in a vast echoing chamber.

  Why is it empty? Where are the daemons? Where are the Chaos Gods?

  She'd expected to encounter something. Those vast presences that had reached for her before. The voices that had whispered incomprehensible promises.

  But there was nothing.

  Just this strange, contradictory space.

  Empty and not-empty.

  Silent and not-silent.

  Am I deeper than where they exist? Or am I in a different part of the Warp entirely?

  She didn't know. Couldn't know.

  And then she saw it.

  A light.

  Far below her—if "below" even had meaning here—something glowed.

  Not the sickly, corrupt glow she associated with Warp entities. Not the cold, predatory light of daemon-fire.

  This was warm.

  Like sunlight. Like the flames of a hearth. Like the first light of dawn breaking over a horizon.

  She moved toward it—or it moved toward her, she couldn't tell which.

  The brightness intensified.

  It hurt to look at directly. Not in a painful way, but in the way staring at the sun hurts—too much light, too much intensity, her perception unable to process it all.

  She squinted, tried to focus, tried to understand—

  It was like staring at an unsolvable puzzle.

  She could see it. She could sense its presence. But every time she tried to grasp what it was, the understanding slipped away like water through her fingers.

  What is this? What am I looking at?

  Shapes that might have been patterns. Might have been meanings. Might have been something fundamental and true that her mortal mind simply couldn't hold.

  The warmth intensified.

  Not burning. Not threatening.

  Just... there. Present. Undeniable.

  Is this connected to the flames? Is this what Naic gave me?

  Or is this something else? Something that's always been here, and I'm only now seeing it?

  The light pulsed.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Like a heartbeat.

  Like—

  Lilith's eye snapped open.

  She gasped, sitting up abruptly, her right hand flying to her chest where she could feel her own heart racing.

  A dream. It was a dream.

  But it hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt real. Vivid. More solid than actual reality.

  She looked around the dormitory room—dim pre-dawn light filtering through the small window, Eve still sleeping peacefully beside her, everything exactly as it should be.

  Normal. Safe. Real.

  But that wasn't a normal dream. That was something else.

  She could still remember it. Every detail. Every sensation. That was unusual in itself—dreams usually faded quickly, becoming vague and uncertain within minutes of waking.

  But this? This was crystal-clear in her mind, as if it had just happened.

  The Warp. I was in the Warp again. But different this time.

  No corruption. No pain. Just... observation.

  She glanced at the small clock on the wall—one of the few pieces of actual technology in their room. Four in the morning. Still two hours before the morning bell.

  Eve was still deeply asleep, her breathing unchanged.

  Lilith carefully adjusted the thin blanket, tucking it more securely around Eve's small form.

  Then she just sat there, watching her twin sleep, her mind racing.

  Was it really the Warp? Or just my imagination? My brain processing trauma and fear into surreal imagery?

  But it felt so real. So specific. Not like a nightmare. Not like anxiety made manifest.

  It felt like I was actually there.

  And the most troubling part—

  Where were the Chaos Gods?

  In all the lore she'd absorbed, all the wiki articles and memes and stories, the Warp was described as the domain of Chaos. The four Dark Gods—Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, Slaanesh—ruled there, their influence permeating everything.

  But in her dream, there had been nothing.

  No gods. No daemons. No corruption.

  Just empty space—if "empty" was even the right word—and that strange, warm light.

  Maybe I was too deep? Maybe I was in some part of the Warp the Chaos Gods don't touch?

  She tried to remember the lore. Had there been anything about deeper levels of the Warp? About places beyond Chaos's reach?

  Fragments came to mind. The Well of Eternity. Tzeentch's realm. Something about—

  Wait.

  A memory surfaced. Not from firsthand experience, but from Maverick's idle internet browsing.

  A meme. Something about Tzeentch throwing one of his Greater Daemons—a Lord of Change, maybe?—into a well. The Well of Eternity, or something like that. A place even the Chaos Gods feared.

  At the time, it had been funny. Absurd. The kind of ridiculous 40k lore that was so over-the-top it became comedy.

  But now, having actually seen the Warp...

  The fact that Tzeentch—the god of schemes and forbidden knowledge, who knows everything—refused to go into that well himself...

  That's terrifying.

  Because if something scares a Chaos God, what the hell IS it?

  She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself.

  I was diving. Sinking deeper. Was I heading toward something like that? Some place even daemons avoid?

  The thought was both fascinating and horrifying.

  And that light. That warm, bright thing I couldn't understand.

  Was it dangerous? Beneficial? Just... there?

  She had no answers. Just more questions piling on top of questions.

  I need to stop thinking about this. I need to sleep. I need to just... let it go.

  But the dream lingered. The memory refused to fade.

  No one really knows what's in the deepest parts of the Warp, she thought. Not the Imperium. Not the Eldar. Probably not even the Chaos Gods themselves.

  It's an infinite, impossible space. And I just dove into it like I was exploring the ocean floor.

  That was either the stupidest thing I've ever done, or...

  Or what? I don't even know.

  She lay back down beside Eve, pulling the blanket over herself.

  Eve stirred slightly, mumbling something incoherent, then pressed closer to Lilith's side.

  Lilith wrapped an arm around her twin, holding her close.

  Whatever that was—dream, vision, astral projection, whatever—I'm not telling anyone about it.

  Not Ha'ken. Not the sisters. Not even Eve.

  Because I don't understand it myself. And trying to explain something I don't understand will just make me sound insane.

  Or worse—it'll draw attention. Make people think I'm becoming corrupted. Make them decide I'm too dangerous to keep around.

  She closed her right eye, forcing her breathing to slow, trying to will herself back to sleep.

  Just a dream. Just a weird, vivid, terrifying dream.

  Nothing more.

  Nothing to worry about.

  Just... sleep. Sleep and forget.

  But even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn't forget.

  The memory was too clear. Too vivid. Too real.

  I dove into the Warp. Saw something incomprehensible. And came back unchanged.

  That shouldn't be possible.

  But it happened.

  And I have no idea what it means.

  She lay there in the pre-dawn darkness, holding Eve close, trying not to think about the endless depths of the Immaterium and the bright, warm mystery that waited somewhere far below.

  Just sleep. Just rest. Deal with it later.

  Or better yet—never.

  Gradually, exhaustion began to pull her under again.

  Not back to the Warp. Not back to that strange, impossible space.

  Just to normal, dreamless sleep.

  And this time, thankfully, she stayed there.