The second step should have felt like progress.
Instead, it felt like deletion.
Jia Lin's foot met the ground — but the moment it did, the earth rejected her. She stumbled forward, caught herself, and when she looked back, the footprint had already vanished.
No sign she had ever been.
She walked cautiously, and each step unraveled more of her. Her hands grew translucent. Her memories shuffled.
She sat.
Instantly, her form solidified. The Final Step Gu pulsed faintly, as if approving.
Rules. There were rules.
She must not run. She must not panic. She must step with intention — or be erased.
A flicker in the light caught her eye. A figure stood where her shadow should have been.
It was her. Or an echo of her. Older, harsher. Wiser.
The figure stepped forward. Where it moved, light rewove itself into story-thread.
"You have stepped," the echo said. "Now the path will walk you."
Then it vanished into a mist of unwritten myth.
And Jia Lin, steadying her breath, began to walk sideways — into the memory of a world that never was.