It began with silence. But not the peaceful kind—this was silence sharpened into a blade.
Liss stood at the threshold of the Unwritten Vault. A place that rejected memory. A place that knew her name before she did.
Elyse followed behind, cautious but close. The others remained outside, unable to breach the first glyph of denial.
"Why here?" Elyse asked, her voice trembling like the edges of light.
"Because this is where I was first imagined," Liss replied. "Before the gods. Before fiction."
The Vault shimmered open—no door, no hinges—just a parting of impossibility. Inside, the walls were made of unquestions—things too dangerous to ask.
Liss walked between them, her aura brushing the unspoken.
Elyse could barely keep her feet moving. Each step threatened to erase her reason for existing.
"Don't look at the ceiling," Liss warned.
Elyse glanced. Saw herself… forgetting what she saw. She cried silently, then continued.
At the center was a mirror. But it didn't show Liss. It showed a girl with white hair, golden eyes, and no reflection.
"That was me," Liss said. "Before memory started keeping score."
She reached toward the glass. And the entire vault flared.
Not with light. With definition.
Every word spoken in history paused to acknowledge what Liss touched.
The girl in the mirror blinked.
"You shouldn't have come back," the mirror said.
Liss smiled.
"But you called me."
And with one gesture, she stepped into the reflection.
Elyse screamed—
"LISS—!"
But it was too late. The mirror shattered. Liss was gone. And the Vault whispered:
"She has become the echo that all beginnings fear."