The next morning, they found the sky bleeding thoughts.
Not rain, not ash.
Thoughts.
Shards of memory whispering down from the ripple above. Some were their own. Some were not. A lullaby in a voice Dee didn't remember ever knowing. A battlefield Vampher had never fought on. A warm hand brushing Hiro's cheek, calling him by a name he hadn't been given.
They walked in silence, each memory fragment clinging to them like dew. The world around them had grown quieter. Or maybe it was listening.
Vampher was the first to break the silence. "What if the next lock is someone we know?"
Dee didn't answer. Hiro didn't blink.
Because all three of them already suspected.
The lock wouldn't be a stranger this time.
It would be one of them.
They reached a village by noon.
Or what remained of one. Homes collapsed inward, as if they had bowed to something too heavy to bear. The air was thick with the scent of nostalgia gone sour. Wind chimes hung from broken rafters, their sound somehow playing in reverse.
In the center, atop a mound of forgotten birthdays and empty journals, stood a familiar figure.
Smiling. Waiting.
Dee.
But not the Dee beside them. Not their Dee.
This one stood straighter. Taller. His robes were pristine. His eyes glowed with mirrored galaxies, and his grin was the kind only tyrants wore: warm, practiced, hollow.
"Welcome," he said. "To the lock you almost became."
Dee stepped forward slowly, jaw tight. "I know you."
"You should. You dreamed me first. In the quiet nights. In the moments you wondered what it might be like to stop pretending."
Hiro shifted beside them. "What does that mean?"
The false Dee answered, arms wide. "It means your friend here has always known he was built for control. For orchestration. For creation that commands obedience."
Dee frowned. "I create to inspire."
The lock-Dee laughed. "And yet everything you write bends to your will. Your spells sing your language. Your golems cry your songs. What is that, if not tyranny with a smile?"
"No," Hiro said. "He chooses to be kind."
"For now," the lock whispered. "But choice bends with pain."
Vampher drew his blade. "So what is this? Another illusion?"
"No," Dee said, quieter now. "This is a test. My test."
The false version extended a hand.
And the world shifted.
They were no longer in the village. They stood inside a theater of memory, infinite rows of seats filled with versions of Dee. Each one wore different masks: playwright, puppetmaster, prophet, god.
On the stage stood a single desk. A quill. A sheet of blank paper.
The false Dee gestured. "Write it, and it becomes. A world that obeys. A universe that thanks you. No resistance. No heartbreak. Just harmony—your harmony."
The quill twitched.
Dee stepped toward it.
His fingers grazed the desk.
Then stopped.
He turned. Looked at Vampher. At Hiro. At the empty chairs where he imagined they'd sit if he ruled alone.
He clenched his fist.
"No story is worth writing if it only listens," he said.
The paper caught fire.
The theater collapsed into light.
And the lock screamed.
Back in the ruined village, the false Dee crumpled, laughter fading into weeping.
The lock shattered.
And something deeper broke free.
A small spark floated into Dee's palm.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
"What is it?" Hiro asked.
"A truth," Dee whispered. "One I refused. One I now accept."
The sky shimmered.
Another thread unravelled.
But it wasn't alone.
Now, a tapestry began to reveal itself behind the ripple. A larger pattern. Locks designed not just to hold—but to shape.
"Three down," Vampher said.
Dee smiled faintly. "And the story's starting to answer back."