There was no heartbeat.
Azrien Kael floated between moments, the cold hum of silence stretching like thread pulled too tight.
Around him, the world buzzed with quiet motion—people walking, verses chanting, silver threads shifting across the stone like roots searching for "meaning."
But none of them belonged to "him."
---
He watched a child pass.
Her lips moved silently, eyes wide and lost, following her Thread like a moth to flame.
Behind her, an old man wept into his beard, his Thread looping and fraying—repeating the same six paces.
His "verse" was short. Almost out.
---
Azrien stood motionless. No one looked at him.
The "Ledger" didn't hum for him.
And yet… it "watched."
---
From the walls of the great chamber, a thousand eye-like glyphs pulsed faintly in the dark—script-runes written into the bones of the world.
The "Divine Ledger" didn't miss anything.
Except "him."
---
> I don't belong here.
---
His thoughts felt heavy.
Like they had to claw their way into existence.
Like they weren't "written" to be thought.
---
That's when he heard it.
A voice.
---
> "You should not be awake yet, Azrien Kael."
---
He turned.
There was no figure.
Only a swirl of ink in the air—like spilled calligraphy reassembling itself into shape.
---
> "You are Unwritten. You were not meant to hear me."
---
Azrien narrowed his eyes.
He said nothing.
He didn't know if he was "allowed" to.
---
The voice crackled like fire eating paper.
---
> "Your thread is absent. Your story is lost. You are an anomaly. A breach. A flaw."
---
A pause.
Then a question.
---
> "Do you wish to be erased… or do you wish to rewrite?"
---
Azrien's mouth opened before he understood his own will.
---
> "I want... to remember."
---
The chamber "shuddered."
Dozens of threads "snapped."
People collapsed, clutching their heads, whispering forgotten names.
The silver lines buckled.
The glyphs in the wall flared violently.
---
Then—"darkness."
---
And a whisper, just for him:
---
> "Then steal a story. Take your place. Become the echo that breaks the Verse."
---
Azrien's eyes snapped open.
He was no longer "standing."
He was "falling"—through stone, through stories, through silence—into a place beneath the Verse.
---
Where the "Unwritten" rot.
Where forgotten "Names" scream.
Where Azrien Kael would begin to "steal fate" itself