The air screamed.
Not a metaphor — the sound was real. The city of Lumnis groaned like a dying animal, its glass towers bending, melting, reforming into things that weren't architecture anymore. Elysia stood in the middle of it, knees trembling, the fragment in her hand cracking with each heartbeat.
Kael was gone. Or maybe he was everywhere. His voice echoed in the static around her, breaking the silence like a frequency only her blood could hear.
> "You shouldn't have touched it, Elysia."
The ground pulsed. Asphalt turned translucent, veins of light crawling beneath the surface like the city had grown a nervous system. The fragment burned through her skin, searing patterns up her arm. She wanted to drop it — but the moment her fingers loosened, it screamed, and reality *shivered*.
Suddenly, she was somewhere else.
The ruins were gone. She stood in her apartment again — same flickering neon outside, same half-eaten noodles on the table, same old coat hanging near the door. For a second, she thought she'd gone mad. Then she saw the blood on her hands — *his* blood — and remembered.
> "No," she whispered. "This isn't real."
A faint knock echoed.
Three times.
Measured. Too perfect.
She opened the door.
Kael stood there. But his eyes… weren't human anymore. Blue, yes — but not glowing with life. Glowing with code, with fragments of something breaking inside the simulation that was her world.
> "You're stuck between," he said, voice distorted. "Between memory and existence. The fragment doesn't grant truth. It rewrites it."
"Then what am I?" Elysia hissed.
Kael tilted his head, glitching in and out of sight.
> "You're what's left of a choice."
Her breath caught. The city outside froze mid-motion — cars suspended in air, raindrops like shards of glass floating around her. She could see the threads now, the hidden architecture behind everything: light and data, old souls screaming in binary.
Then came *the static storm*.
A soundless explosion ripped through Lumnis. The entire skyline fractured like a mirror. Shadows poured from the cracks — memories given shape, walking nightmares wearing familiar faces. Elysia's reflection stepped out from one of them, smiling like she knew how the story ended.
> "You were supposed to die there," her reflection said. "But you broke the loop."
Elysia's hand trembled. "Who are you?"
> "The version that didn't hesitate. The one who let Kael burn."
Lightning split the sky — not white, but black. It tore the horizon in two. The city reassembled and fell apart in cycles of seconds. Elysia couldn't tell which version was real anymore. Her lungs filled with air that wasn't air, her skin pixelated, her thoughts echoing in triplicate.
Then, in the chaos — a voice she didn't expect.
> "Elysia. Listen."
It wasn't Kael this time. It was the fragment. It *spoke*.
> "You've seen through the veil. You know what you are. Now decide: destroy the loop, or become its core."
Her head spun. Every version of the city folded inward, like reflections swallowing themselves. She saw thousands of versions of her life — every decision branching like veins: the one where she never found the fragment, the one where Kael never existed, the one where Lumnis was nothing but sand.
And through them all… one constant.
A shadow watching her.
Always.
Her reflection stepped closer, smile fading. "He made us to contain it. Don't you get it? Kael isn't real either. He's the *lock*, and we're the *key*."
Elysia looked at the fragment, now cracked open like an eye. "If I destroy it, what happens?"
> "Everything ends."
> "And if I become the core?"
> "Everything continues — but it won't be you anymore."
She laughed. A hollow, broken sound. The kind you make when there's nothing left to fear. "That's the point, isn't it?"
Her reflection didn't answer. She reached forward — and for the first time, Elysia didn't flinch. Their palms met.
A surge of power tore through her. Every memory she'd ever had, every scream, every regret — all bleeding into one singular truth: she *was* the fragment. She always had been. A shard of a dead god's dream, trapped in human form.
Reality bent around her decision.
She closed her eyes… and let go.
---
When she opened them, Lumnis was silent.
Clean. New.
The air was heavy, but not broken. The city looked… untouched. No cracks, no static, no shadows. Only peace.
Then she saw the reflection again — faint, flickering in the glass of a passing drone.
> "You think this is peace?" it whispered. "No, Elysia. This is your new prison."
The drone shattered.
And the loop began again.
---
*End of Chapter 7: Fractured Reality*