The world dissolved as they stepped through the gate.
Light fractured, sound folded in on itself, and words turned to ash. When Lucien opened his eyes, he was no longer sure if he had eyes at all. The air shimmered like ink spilled across glass. The ground pulsed faintly under his feet—alive, breathing, whispering fragments of forgotten language.
Lucien…?
Sera's voice trembled through the static.
"I'm here," he answered, though his voice sounded strange—like someone else was saying it for him.
Shapes floated past them: half-finished faces, sentences without authors, memories that didn't belong to either of them. The Deep Layer was not a place; it was the space between thought and story, the realm where everything lost went to hide.
Lucien reached for Sera's light, but her glow flickered weakly. "Stay close," he said. "If we lose each other here, we won't find our way back."
I'm trying… but it's like something is pulling me apart.
Her glow shuddered, ripples of static running through it. For a heartbeat, he saw her face—gentle, luminous—and then it blurred into letters and numbers before solidifying again.
Lucien clenched his fists. "He's here. Evan. He's rewriting the rules as we speak."
They walked deeper. The path bent in impossible directions—up became down, forward became before. With each step, the world rewrote itself, testing them.
Lucien passed a mirror made of liquid ink. His reflection smiled a second too late. "Who are you?" it asked.
He didn't answer.
Lucien… look.
Sera hovered beside him, and her voice cracked. In the ink's reflection, she wasn't light anymore—she was human. A girl with soft eyes and a faint, trembling smile.
"Sera?" he whispered.
That's not me… or maybe it was. Before I became your voice.
Lucien stared at the reflection. The girl smiled sadly and placed a hand against the mirror.
You made me real when you spoke my name, Sera whispered. But maybe I was always meant to fade.
He reached out, pressing his palm against the mirror. "No. You're part of me now. That can't fade."
The ink rippled. The reflected Sera leaned closer. "Everything fades, Lucien. Even the words you cling to."
Her image fractured into shards of black light.
Sera gasped. Don't look too long—this place feeds on memory!
Lucien pulled back, but his hand was bleeding ink.
The deeper they went, the more the world twisted. Sometimes he saw Evan's words written in the air:
'The villain seeks meaning, yet forgets his name.''The light was never real.'
Each line felt like a blade across his mind.
"Evan's rewriting me," Lucien muttered. "He wants to erase who I was and replace me with his version."
Then fight it.
He closed his eyes. "I can't fight what I can't remember."
Then remember me instead.
Her voice shook, desperate.
Lucien opened his eyes—and for a moment, everything around them blurred into warmth. The world froze. The ink stilled.
He saw her clearly now: Sera, glowing softly in the darkness, her form no longer just light but something more—something almost human. Her face was familiar and strange all at once, like a dream he'd had every night but never remembered upon waking.
"Sera…"
Lucien.
They moved closer, drawn by something beyond logic. The Deep Layer grew quiet—as if even reality paused to listen.
If we fade, she whispered, I want you to know—
"Don't say it."
Please…
He shook his head. "If you say it, it becomes an ending. And we don't get endings yet."
Sera laughed softly, her voice trembling. You're still the same. Always afraid to finish the page.
"Because every ending is another silence," he murmured.
She reached out, her hand brushing his cheek. For an instant, he felt warmth—not from light, but from something real.
You make me want to stay human again.
Lucien's throat tightened. "Then stay. With me."
You know I can't. This place eats definitions. Soon I won't even remember what love means.
He pulled her closer, desperate. "Then I'll remind you. Every second, until the ink runs dry."
The world cracked. A thunderous sound rippled through the void—the Deep Layer rejecting their defiance.
Sera screamed as her light scattered, fragments of her essence swirling upward like glowing dust. Lucien grabbed at them, shouting her name, but the air burned with static.
Lucien—!
He caught one fragment, pressing it against his chest. "Stay with me! Please!"
Her voice flickered in his mind, faint but steady. You still don't understand, do you? The only way to survive here… is to let go of what you were.
Lucien's eyes burned. "Then what am I supposed to be?"
Someone who writes, not remembers.
He fell to his knees, trembling. "I can't lose you."
You won't. Because you already wrote me into your heart.
Her words were fading, like the last lines of a chapter.
"No—no, stay awake. Stay—"
Even if I fade… you'll find me again. Every story has echoes, remember?
Her light pulsed one last time—and then scattered completely, dissolving into the air like golden dust.
Lucien knelt in the ink, breathing hard. Silence swallowed everything.
Then, faintly, a whisper:
Keep writing.
He stood slowly, his reflection gone, his hands trembling but steady. The ink beneath him shimmered, and for the first time, he realized—his shadow was gone.
Only one thing remained glowing faintly on his palm: Sera's last word, written in light.
Love.
Lucien looked ahead, where the horizon began to twist into words again.
"Evan," he whispered, voice breaking into both sorrow and fury, "you took everything from me. Now I'll take your story."
He lifted his pen-blade, and the darkness trembled.