: The Story That Bled
They arrived at the edge of a town that didn't exist.
Not on any map. Not in any memory.
And yet, it was full of people—laughing, working, trading stories as though they'd lived here forever.
Chris stood at the edge of the main road, her gaze sweeping across cobbled streets and flower-draped balconies. Children danced in the rain without getting wet. Elders told tales that the sky painted in clouds above them. But none of it was real.
"It's too perfect," she murmured.
Grey agreed. "It's a page caught mid-turn. A story that refuses to fade."
Kairo's eyes narrowed. "We've entered one of Wale's unwritten chapters."
The town was called Verineth, though none of its people remembered naming it. They simply said, "It's always been Verineth."
When Chris tried to ask questions—who was their leader, where their food came from, how long they'd lived—she got the same response:
"The Story provides."
Kairo stood still for a long time, eyes closed.
"There's no future here," he said. "No past, either. This place is a loop—one he left behind."
Grey clenched his fists. "Or a snare."
They stayed the night in Verineth, though none of them slept.
The stars above the town moved in reverse, tracing backward arcs across the sky. Time itself unraveled in slow threads, like an old song hummed in the wrong key.
Chris wandered alone through moonlit streets, and in one shuttered shop window, she saw her reflection smile again.
Only it wasn't her.
It was Wale.
His face unchanged. Ageless. Pale eyes burning with calm certainty.
But this time, he didn't speak.
He simply held up a single finger—pointing downward.
Beneath the town.
Chris woke the others immediately.
The well in the center of town wasn't a well.
It was a tunnel.
Stone steps spiraled downward into darkness that pulsed like a heartbeat. The townspeople watched as the trio descended, their faces expressionless. As if they knew but could not say.
Chris led the way. Grey followed close, sword drawn. Kairo brought up the rear, eyes flicking back every few steps, just to make sure the stairway didn't vanish.
They reached the bottom after what felt like hours—but might've only been minutes.
The chamber beneath Verineth was a library.
But not of books.
Of names.
Carved into the walls, the ceiling, even the floor—thousands upon thousands of names, etched in every language they'd ever seen… and some they hadn't.
At the center of it all, hovering in the air like a ghostly relic—
The mirror.
Whole.
Untouched.
And utterly alive.
Chris stepped toward it, fire curling around her fists.
But the mirror didn't reflect her.
It reflected everyone else.
Every person she had failed.
Every soldier she'd led into battle.
Her sister, smiling before she burned.
Kairo gasped as he looked into it. His visions flickered across the glass—millions of futures, tangled and screaming.
Grey dropped to one knee. His voice cracked.
"I see all of them… every soul Wale rewrote."
And then, the mirror spoke.
Not with voice, but with story.
A memory spilled into the chamber—an old one.
A child in a silent home. A book with blank pages. A whisper from the dark: "Let me tell your story. I'll make sure you're never forgotten."
And Wale said yes.
The mirror pulsed.
A figure began to emerge—not physically, but narratively. The chamber shifted, reality adjusting to accommodate his presence.
Chris lit her hands with fire. "We're not afraid of you anymore."
Wale's voice came from all around, smooth and sad.
"That is why I must return."
The library began to collapse.
Names peeled from the walls, rising into the air like paper birds. The trio barely escaped the tunnel as it caved inward, Verineth trembling beneath their feet.
And then the town began to vanish.
One flower petal at a time.
One story at a time.
Until only silence remained.
They camped at the edge of the void where Verineth had once stood.
Chris stared into the night, remembering every person in that false town. Every innocent illusion. Every fake joy.
"They weren't people," Grey said softly.
"They were possibilities," Kairo corrected. "He was testing us. Seeing if we'd let go."
Chris said nothing.
Because she hadn't.
A part of her had wanted to stay.
A perfect lie, after all, was still peace.
Days passed. Then weeks.
The world began to react—winds carried whispers, animals repeated phrases in human voices, rivers flowed with ink for a day before turning clear again.
Then the sky split.
Just once.
A fracture, like a smile made of lightning, jagged across the heavens. From it poured not rain, but sentences—snippets of dialogue and narration, each falling like hail across the land.
Everyone who read one—forgot something.
And everyone who heard one—remembered something they were never supposed to know.
The world was unraveling.
But not dying.
Transforming.
Chris looked up into the torn sky.
And knew:
The final arc had begun.