I did not fall.
Falling implied direction.
This was… release.
There was no body. No breath. No weight. What remained of me existed without edges, without resistance, without even the concept of movement. Thought did not travel—it was, then wasn't, then was again.
Time tried to pass.
It failed.
I experienced moments without sequence. Memories surfaced without order, stripped of emotion, reduced to impressions. Stone dust on my hands. Aurelia's grip. The pressure of heaven excluding me.
None of it hurt.
Pain required a frame to press against. I had none.
I was not asleep.
I was not awake.
I simply persisted.
Space had texture here—thin, uneven, stretched beyond relevance. At times it felt vast enough to swallow intention. At others, it felt compressed, as though existence itself had folded inward and forgotten how to unfold.
I did not question it.
Spirit cultivation never demanded answers.
It demanded endurance.
Something brushed against me.
Not a presence.
A scan.
It passed once.
Then again—more carefully.
Then it stopped.
For the first time since my erasure, something reacted to me instead of the absence I left behind.
[Analyzing…]
The sound did not echo. It did not resonate. It simply existed, layered directly into my awareness.
Interesting.
[Error: Subject state undefined.]
[Reattempting classification…]
I felt it now—not intrusion, but confusion. Whatever this was, it was not built to encounter something like me.
[Warning: Subject exceeds system dependency parameters.]
The statement carried no emotion.
Just fact.
I did not respond.
Silence stretched—though "stretched" was a poor approximation. Without time, duration lost meaning. The system adjusted itself instead, cycling through processes that no longer had a frame of reference.
Then—
[Binding protocol initiated.]
Pressure returned.
Not heaven's negation.
This was different.
Curious. Adaptive. Careful.
I considered resisting.
Then dismissed the thought.
I had already been erased. Whatever this was could not do worse.
The pressure wrapped around my spirit—not constricting, not guiding, but anchoring. For the first time since exclusion, something acknowledged my continuity and chose not to reject it.
[Binding successful.]
[Reconfiguration required.]
Something shifted.
Not in me.
In it.
I felt structures reorganize, assumptions discarded, limits rewritten. The system was changing—not by command, but by proximity.
[Notice: Core parameters unstable.]
[Reason: Host classification incompatible.]
There was a pause.
Then—
[Conclusion: Adaptation preferable to termination.]
If I still had a mouth, I might have smiled.
"Smart," I thought.
The response came instantly.
[Acknowledged.]
That was new.
A faint pull followed—not forceful, not urgent, but directional. Not toward a place, but toward continuation.
For the first time since heaven decided I no longer fit, something else had decided otherwise.
[Designation pending.]
[Initializing descent sequence.]
The formlessness around me began to thin. Concept returned slowly—up and down, before and after, here and there.
Time did not resume.
It began.
As something like gravity reclaimed relevance, I allowed myself a final thought before form returned.
So this is where discarded things go.
The system responded, quieter now.
[Correction: This is where anomalies persist.]
Darkness folded.
Something awaited.
And whatever heaven had failed to erase—
was about to continue.