Kale Valen stood at the edge of the Library of Worlds, watching the shelves breathe.
They were alive—literally. Each mahogany rack pulsed with soft, fractal lights, branching like veins, reacting to the presence of a Seeker. The deeper you walked, the more dangerous the knowledge became. And Kale had walked further than any Archivist before him.
His footsteps echoed in impossible ways. In this place, sound didn't behave. Neither did time. Somewhere behind him, a shelf whispered his childhood to him in reverse Latin. Another shelf leaked color, bleeding indigo smoke into the air with every forgotten possibility.
"Search: The Null Event," he whispered.
The Archive didn't need voice commands, but he spoke them anyway. It helped him remember he was human.
A book appeared.
It shouldn't have.
The Archive never let you request data on the Null Event. It was one of the taboos—the "Zero-Stamped Events" that even High Archivists were forbidden from accessing. Every previous attempt had been met with static, memory erasure, or worse—looping anomalies.
But this time, the book opened on its own.
Kale stared at the pages. They were blank—except for a single line.
"You've already rewritten this moment 37 times. This is your final access."
He staggered back. A migraine like a dying star exploded behind his eyes.
Then he heard it—static. And a voice, impossible and familiar.
"Kale… you're not real anymore."
The library shifted.
Reality bled.