LOG ENTRY 16A: Recovered from [REDACTED]—deciphered through unstable Edictal layers. Reader discretion advised.[Corruption begins approximately 14.2 seconds into file parsing. Manifestation risk: MEDIUM-HIGH.]
[SCENE: UNKNOWN SECTOR – MULTI-FRAGMENT FEED]
There was no beginning—only collision.
Aren blinked, and the world fractured.
He stood—no—he floated. A corridor of mirrors, infinite in both directions. Each pane showed a different him. Different scars. Different regrets. One had no eyes. One screamed without sound. One held a blood-soaked relic shaped like Nara's spine.
He stepped back. The mirrors shattered.
[SCENE: AREN-0037 "CYCLE"]
He turned a corner and came face to face with himself again, but this time the figure was hunched over, whispering to something cradled in its arms.
"Nara?" Aren whispered.
The figure looked up—its face peeled back, layers of time unwinding in reverse. Inside, it wasn't bone.
It was static.
"You shouldn't have touched the obelisk."
It reached out—and in its palm was Aren's own heartbeat, raw and writhing.
He ran.
But the corridor didn't end.
[SCENE: AR'ENSIA]
Subject: JunoObservation: Discontinuity event—Emotional suppression failed.
Juno was alone.
The trees in this realm bled violet sap. The leaves were tongues, twitching prayers. She stepped into the clearing—and found herself dissected across seven angles.
She was alive in all of them.
But only one could scream.
And the scream was Aren's name.
She tore at the vines—only to find they were made of her own memories, braided like hair and hung from a cradle.
From it, something opened its eyes.
A baby?
No.
A mirrored fetus, its flesh etched with glyphs—one word repeated endlessly:
RESONANT.
It opened its mouth and spoke in her voice:
"You will never reach him in time."
[SCENE: OBELISK INTERIOR—UNKNOWN TIME INDEX]
Aren falls again—except he's not falling. Gravity doesn't exist here, not like that. Every second reverses. Every heartbeat plays forward and backward at once.
He sees a field of Arens impaled on obsidian trees.
One of them is laughing.
One is praying.
One is still alive.
"We are all you. And we died for nothing."
He turns. Behind him stands a woman cloaked in ink.
"Nara?" he breathes.
She lifts her veil.
It's not Nara.
It's the shape of her. The possibility of her. A blueprint of regret.
"You took too long," she whispers.
Then she screams—and Aren's ears bleed data.
[SCENE: FINAL ECHO — CLASSIFIED FILE INTERCEPT]
Fragment retrieved from [UNSTABLE REALITY LOOP 0-XV].Status: INCOMPLETE. Extraction caused 17 analyst fatalities.
VISUAL FEED:A child sits in a white room, eyes blacked out. A voice repeats on loop:
"Aren is not Aren. The Witness is not the Son. The Key is not a lock—it is a mirror."
TEXT LOG – FINAL LINE (handwritten over corrupted parchment):
"If you read this, don't look in the next mirror you pass. That won't be your reflection."
[CHAPTER INTEGRITY FAILURE DETECTED]
Recoverable ending status: 2%Proceeding to final lines...
Aren awoke—gasping.
He was on the ground beside the obelisk. Juno was shaking him violently.
"You were out for eight minutes," she shouted. "You weren't breathing."
"I saw… I saw everything," he croaked.
Juno's eyes darted to the sky—now splintered into glass-like panels, leaking sideways rain.
"We need to leave."
"No," Aren whispered. "We're already inside something else. And it wants us to know it."
He looked down at his hand. Etched into the palm was a new glyph.
A spiral. Inverted.
It pulsed once—like a heartbeat.