The Resonance Field around Sector-0A7 began to scream.
Not in sound, but in sensation—like pressure inside the skull, a wailing that couldn't be heard but felt, crawling through nerves like static through an old antenna. Those attuned to the Edicts woke up retching. Others bled from the nose. Animals refused to cross thresholds. Tech refused to boot. The sky forgot how to stay still.
Aren was already awake. He hadn't slept. He couldn't.
Something had started unraveling—and it wasn't just the world.
Viewpoint 1: Acolyte Aven, Third Temple of the Severed Choir
Aven stood before the altar of silence, lips trembling. The Choir hadn't spoken in weeks. The glass chimes hanging from the ceiling had begun to bleed—not drip, bleed—each note a tiny death rattle of the divine.
He began the ritual of Listening anyway, voice trembling in the ancient cadence.
But today, something answered.
Not a hymn. Not prophecy.
A scream.
His mind split like porcelain as the temple lights blackened. Shapes slithered between each breath he took. In that void, a shape stepped forward.
Not god. Not man. Something wearing both like clothes.
"You called," it said. "And we were starving."
The sound of bones cracking filled the room. His? The entity's? He couldn't tell.
He screamed too.
The chimes kept bleeding.
Viewpoint 2: Observer Vault ██–A3
Four operators watched the screen, each pulse in the telemetry spelling out impossible patterns. Something was moving across the timelines. Not through—across. Like it had always been there but never left a trace until now.
"Sector-0A7's anchor point just inverted," one whispered.
"What does that mean?" another asked, eyes locked on the feedback loop spiraling into fractals.
"It means the simulation thinks it's real now."
The screen began to pulse with an unknown frequency. A figure appeared.
Aren.
But not.
It stared through the lens.
Then smiled.
Viewpoint 3: The Ruins Beneath Glassbridge
Sister Maelis descended into the ruins without permission.
The glyphs scrawled on the walls had begun to rewrite themselves. The ink bled upward.
In the deepest chamber, she found a mural—once depicting the Twelve Edicts holding back the Abyss.
Now, the Edicts were bowing.
To a thirteenth figure.
Its face was blank, scratched out violently. But the eyes remained.
And they looked like hers.
She ran.
Something followed.
Aren
The night before had shattered.
He stood now in a city that shouldn't exist. The obelisk was gone, replaced by towers of bone and steel. Ghosts of buildings whispered names of people he'd never met. The sky fractured like ice when he looked too long.
"You're remembering the wrong future," Nara said suddenly—her voice returned, but cracked, like it was echoing through a broken phone.
A figure walked out from the fog.
Aren's breath caught.
It was the man from the vision.
Older. Worn. Tired.
"Do you remember now?" the man asked, stepping close enough that their shadows merged.
"I don't understand," Aren whispered.
"You will," the other said. "After they erase you. After you become the silence."
Aren reached out—and touched nothing.
Interlude – The Veil Fractures
A hundred Arens screamed across a hundred timelines.
Some dissolved into ash. Others stabbed gods. Some were locked in white rooms whispering to shadows. One clawed out his eyes to escape a reflection. One found peace—but only by forgetting everything.
One walked through the Inkfall—and came back…wrong.
All of them turned, at once, across realities, to stare at you.
The reader.
"You're late," they said.