The fissure no longer looked like a wound.
It stretched across the sky above Arden Gate like an eye half-open, its edges fraying into nothingness. From its depth, the merged form of the four Narrativeless hung, vast and undefined. It was no longer four separate shadows exhaling loop, hollow, time, or wait. Now they had become one heavy shape that bent reality with every breath.
The air pressed against the town like a book closing.
Lio stood at the center of the square, his claws dripping black. His chest burned where the beam of hunger had shattered. His spark of silence blazed brighter, steadying his legs even as blood and ink ran from his mouth.
He faced the thing above and whispered, "So this is what you wanted to be."
The merged shadow stirred. It exhaled something new—neither hollow nor loop, neither before nor after.
Storyless.
The word was not spoken. It was felt, pressed into the skin of every living thing.
