The chamber dissolved around Erel like morning mist, the mirrors and Evangeline's mocking laughter fading into memory. He found himself standing in what could only be described as a study—if studies were designed by madmen with unlimited resources and a taste for the macabre.
The room stretched impossibly high, its walls lined with shelves that seemed to curve away into infinity. Books bound in leather of every conceivable color filled the shelves, some glowing with internal light, others seeming to absorb the illumination around them. Between the books sat objects that defied easy categorization: crystalline formations that hummed with barely contained energy, mechanical devices that moved without visible power sources, and what appeared to be fragments of starlight trapped in glass spheres.
At the center of the room sat a massive desk carved from a single piece of black wood, its surface covered with maps, diagrams, and documents written in scripts that hurt to look at directly. Behind the desk, in a chair that seemed to be grown rather than built, sat a man who could only be Bluebeard himself.
He was not what Erel had expected.
The legendary figure was tall but not imposing, well-dressed but not ostentatious. His beard was indeed blue—a deep, midnight blue that seemed to contain depths like a starless sky. His eyes were pale gray, almost colorless, and they held an intelligence that was both ancient and utterly inhuman. When he smiled, which he did as Erel appeared, it was with genuine warmth that somehow made him more terrifying than any snarl would have.
"Ah, Erel," Bluebeard said, his voice cultured and pleasant. "The survivor. Please, sit." He gestured to a chair that materialized across from his desk. "We have much to discuss."
Erel remained standing, his hands still stained with Adren's blood. "The plane is collapsing, isn't it?"
Bluebeard's eyebrows rose with what seemed like genuine surprise and delight. "Straight to the heart of the matter. How refreshing." He leaned back in his chair. "Yes, the paradox has been broken. This entire plane is unraveling as we speak."
"But we completed the trials. All of them." Erel's voice was rough with grief and confusion. "Everyone played their parts perfectly. The bridge, the labyrinth, even the final trial with Evangeline—we did exactly what the stories demanded."
"You did," Bluebeard agreed, standing and moving around his desk. "That's precisely the problem. You see, my dear boy, you accomplished something rather extraordinary. You managed to complete every trial according to the narrative structure while simultaneously ensuring that not everyone died."
Erel stared at him. "I don't understand. I killed Adren. I chose betrayal over trust, exactly like the story wanted."
"Yes, but you survived." Bluebeard's smile was almost fond now. "One survivor—that's the paradox that's tearing this place apart. The Bluebeard myth requires total consumption, complete tragedy. The story demands that curiosity and trust lead to inevitable destruction. But you... you experienced that destruction and lived to carry the weight of it."
"So the plane is breaking because I didn't die?"
"The plane is breaking because your survival with the full knowledge of what you've done creates a narrative impossibility." Bluebeard gestured to the room around them, which Erel now noticed was beginning to blur at the edges. "The myth is both fulfilled and subverted simultaneously. The story is complete, but its conclusion undermines its own premise."
Erel felt something cold settle in his chest. "What happens to you? To Evangeline?"
"We fade back into the Imaginarium until the story gathers enough belief to manifest again." Bluebeard's expression was unreadable. "It's the natural order of things. Stories live, die, and are reborn when the world needs them again."
The silence stretched between them as Erel processed this. The room continued its slow dissolution, books fading from shelves, the impossible architecture becoming more and more translucent.
"What do you plan to do now?" Bluebeard asked eventually, settling back into his chair as if he had all the time in the world.
Erel looked down at his hands, still seeing traces of blood that wasn't really there anymore. "For years, I've been running away from what I am. From my abilities, from the responsibility of being an Anomalite. I told myself I was just trying to live a normal life, but really... I was just afraid of the past"
"And now?"
"Now I have a debt to pay."
"A noble purpose," Bluebeard observed. "And one that will likely require you to fully embrace what you've been running from."
"I know." Erel met the entity's pale gaze.
"Why are you telling me all this?" he asked. "Why not just let the plane collapse?"
Bluebeard was quiet for a long moment, his form becoming translucent as the study continued to fade around them. When he finally spoke, there was something almost human in his voice.
"In all my manifestations across all the stories I've embodied, I've rarely encountered someone who faced the full horror of their choices and chose to carry that weight rather than flee from it." He smiled, and for the first time, it seemed genuine rather than calculated. "After centuries of watching humans repeat the same patterns, make the same mistakes... I find I've taken quite a liking to you, Erel."
The last of the room crumbled away, leaving them suspended in a void that pulsed with dying light. Bluebeard's voice came from everywhere and nowhere as his form finally faded completely.
Reality reasserted itself with the jarring suddenness of waking from a deep dream. Erel found himself standing in the same narrow alley, one he did not recall being in to begin with.
This reminds me, I still have no idea how entered the plane to begin this shit show. What a damn way to spend a fine evening.
He pulled out his phone. The time display showed only seven minutes had passed since he remembered driving the bicycle. Seven minutes for what had felt like hours, for trials that had changed him forever.
The weight in his chest was real.
The familiar blue door of Lyra's café had never looked so welcoming. Erel stood on the front steps, his hand hovering over the brass knocker, still trying to process everything that had happened. Seven minutes. According to his phone, only seven minutes had passed since he'd been pulled into that impossible tear near the river. Yet he felt like he'd lived through years.
The door opened before he could knock.
"You look like hell," Lyra said, stepping aside to let him in. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders now, and she'd traded her café apron for a worn sweater and jeans. But her eyes, those sharp, knowing eyes, were already scanning him with the intensity of someone reading a particularly complex text.
"Thanks for the warm welcome," Erel muttered, stepping into the familiar warmth of her living room. The space was exactly as he remembered: bookshelves covering every available wall, a reading chair by the window with a blanket draped over its arm, and the faint scent of chamomile tea lingering in the air.
"Sit down before you fall down." Lyra was already moving toward the kitchen. "I'll make tea. You're going to need it."
Erel sank into the cushions, feeling suddenly exhausted. "How did you—"
"Know you'd come here?" Lyra called from the kitchen. "I felt the plane collapse about fifteen minutes ago. You showing up here just a few minutes later? That's not a coincidence, Erel. That's confirmation."
"You felt it collapse?"
"Like a soap bubble popping." She returned with two steaming mugs, settling into her reading chair across from him. "Planes create pressure when they form, vacuum when they die. Anyone with enough sensitivity can feel it." She studied his face over the rim of her mug. "So. Want to tell me how you managed to survive something that should have killed you?"
For a moment, Erel just stared into his tea. Where did he even begin?
"I tried to avoid the river like you said. But somehow I kept ending up there anyway. Every street I took, every turn I made—I'd find myself back at the water's edge."
"Spatial distortion. Classic plane formation behavior." Lyra nodded. "What happened next?"
"There was this tear in the air. I could see through it to... somewhere else. A Victorian mansion on a hill." Erel frowned, trying to remember. "But I don't remember crossing over. One moment I was staring at it, the next I was inside, lying on a carriage. Like I'd lost consciousness or something."
Lyra went very still. "What do you mean you don't remember crossing?"
"I mean, I have no memory of deciding to enter. No memory of stepping through. Nothing." Erel met her eyes. "That's not normal, is it?"
"No, it's not fucking normal." Lyra set down her mug harder than necessary. "Crossing a threshold requires conscious choice, even if it's subconscious. The Imaginarium can't just... drag people in."
"Well, something dragged me in."
"That's..." Lyra ran her hands through her hair. "In all my years studying this stuff, I've never heard of unconscious threshold crossing. It shouldn't be possible."
"But it happened."
"Yeah, it happened." She grabbed a notebook from the side table. "Tell me everything. From the moment you woke up."
So he told her. About the mansion, about the other people—Grey, Stone, and Adren. About the trials that seemed designed to strip away everything human and decent. About watching his companions die one by one until only he and Adren remained.
"Wait," Lyra interrupted, scribbling notes. "You said there were other people. Were they all human?"
"I thought so at first. But there were two..." Erel paused, remembering. "Something was off about them."
"Constructs," Lyra said immediately. "Artificial entities designed to mimic humans. They're used to fill out trial groups when planes need specific numbers or dynamics." She tapped her pen against the page. "What about the brides running the trials?"
"There were several of them. All beautiful but wrong somehow, like they were wearing human costumes that didn't quite fit." Erel closed his eyes, remembering. "They spoke in riddles, demanded payment for passage. But they felt real enough."
"Kins. They're smart enough to run trials and interact with people, but they're locked into their narrative roles." Lyra made more notes. "But the real question is Bluebeard himself. What was he like?"
"Ancient. Like he'd been thinking and planning for centuries. When he spoke, he wasn't just talking about the trials or the story. He understood the bigger picture—how planes work, what my survival meant, the nature of the Imaginarium itself."
Lyra's pen stopped moving. "That's a Spawn. Tier 3 entity—they have full intelligence, real personality, strategic thinking." She frowned. "But based on what you're describing—the mansion size, the multiple trial areas, the time dilation—you were in a Class 2 plane. Having a Spawn as the primary entity... that's borderline Class 3 territory."
"Is that unusual?"
"It's rare but not impossible. Sometimes you get planes that sit right on the edge between classifications." She made more notes. "Sounds like you were in an Alpha-class plane too—stable internal rules, consistent logic. Those are actually harder to break than the chaotic ones."
"Bluebeard said I created a paradox by surviving when everyone was supposed to die."
"Yeah, but understanding the theory and actually doing it are different things." Lyra studied him carefully. "How do you feel now? Your flux levels especially."
Erel considered this, feeling for the energy that always hummed just beneath his awareness. "Stronger. Like there's more of it than there used to be. But I don't think I went up a tier or anything."
"You probably absorbed residual energy from the plane's collapse. Breaking an Alpha-class manifestation releases a lot of flux." She closed the notebook. "But to know for sure, you'd need to enter your soul recollection chamber."
Erel went very still. "I haven't used that since..."
"Since the night your parents died in that plane," Lyra finished softly. "I know."
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of old grief settling between them. Lyra had been there that night, confirming what the rescue teams had already told them.
"I never thought I'd willingly enter it again," he said quietly.
"I know. And I'm not going to lie to you—what you're talking about, going after this Mira girl, it's dangerous as hell." Lyra's voice was soft but firm. "If you really commit to this path, you could end up like your parents. Like Adren. Some planes don't let people come home."
"I know the risks."
"Do you? Because thirteen years ago, you were a traumatized kid who decided to run from everything connected to the Imaginarium. Now you're talking about diving headfirst into it." She leaned forward. "What's changed?"
Erel was quiet for a long moment, thinking about Adren's trust, about Grey's sacrifice, about the weight of promises made to dying friends.
"I saw what it meant to choose others over yourself. To trust someone even when it might kill you." He met her eyes. "For years, I've been so afraid of losing anyone else that I never let myself care about anyone. But Adren... he cared enough to die for me. The least I can do is honor that."
"For years, my hatred for the planes has made me run, but for the first time, I realise how foolish I have been, running from the very thing that I should probably retaliate against."
Lyra's expression was a complex mix of emotions—pride, fear, sadness, and something that might have been relief.
"You sound like your mother," she said finally. "She always said the power meant nothing if you weren't willing to use it for something bigger than yourself."
"Are you going to try to talk me out of it?"
"Part of me wants to. The part that raised you, that's watched you build a safe, normal life." Lyra's smile was sad but genuine. "But another part of me... God, Erel, I've been waiting thirteen years for you to find your way back to who you really are."
"And who am I?"
"Someone who was always meant for more than hiding behind textbooks and coffee cups."
"If you're really doing this, we start with understanding what the plane changed in you. The soul recollection chamber first, then you need to get more adept with your abilities."
Erel felt something settle into place in his chest—not peace exactly, but purpose. Direction.
"Tomorrow then. I'll enter the chamber tomorrow."