They stepped into the unknown.
Not metaphorically.
The Origin Pattern was less a place and more a story trying to tell itself with no pages left. The sky shimmered with thoughts not yet thought. The ground flexed with memory roots trying to find truth to anchor in.
Kael walked first.
Aila followed, her eyes scanning the horizon with suspicion. Oran gripped his blade tighter than usual—not because he expected a fight, but because silence this absolute always preceded one.
"What is this?" Oran finally muttered. "Another simulation?"
Kael shook his head. "This is what's left when recursion stops pretending to be logical."
---
The path ahead was loose.
Not made of stone or grass—but of moments.
Each step they took crystallized into something tactile only after they passed it. Reality formed behind them, not before.
Aila whispered, "It's writing itself after us."
"No," Kael corrected, "it's letting me write it."
He opened his hand.
