The first thing that died was the sentence.
THE RIFTBORN MUST END.
It didn't fade.
It didn't erase cleanly.
It tore.
Letters twisted out of shape, splitting into fragments that screamed as they came apart. Words collapsed into unreadable symbols, then into nothing at all. The ground beneath Rei's feet shook violently as the narrative itself rejected what it had written.
Aira stumbled, grabbing Rei's arm to stay upright.
"What did you do?" she shouted over the noise.
Rei didn't answer.
Because he hadn't done it consciously.
Something else had responded.
The plane of text buckled, sentences folding into each other, paragraphs crashing like buildings in an earthquake. The remainder staggered backward, eyes wide for the first time.
"That's not possible," he whispered. "You can't reject a core directive."
Rei finally looked at him.
"Then stop calling it a directive," Rei said. "It was never a rule. It was fear pretending to be one."
The remainder's form flickered violently.
"I warned you," he said, his voice breaking into overlapping tones. "Undefined stories attract predators."
The words around them began to change again.
But this time, they weren't rewriting Rei.
They were rewriting the world.
The plane beneath their feet dissolved, dropping them without warning.
Aira screamed as gravity returned all at once.
They fell.
Not through air.
Through moments.
Rei saw flashes as they plummeted.
A city burning.
A child hiding under rubble.
A version of himself lying dead in the street.
Another standing victorious over a broken god.
Another never awakening at all.
Kai shouted somewhere below him.
Suki cursed.
Zeke roared.
Then impact.
Reality slammed back into place brutally.
Rei hit the ground hard, pain exploding through his ribs. He rolled, gasping, tasting blood.
They were back in the city.
But not the same one.
The sky was red.
Not sunset red.
Warning red.
Buildings leaned at impossible angles, some frozen mid-collapse. Fires burned without heat. Sirens wailed but never changed pitch, locked in a loop.
Rena was on her knees, hands pressed to her head.
"This city is fractured," she said through clenched teeth. "It's overlapping too many outcomes."
Zeke pushed himself up, eyes scanning for threats. "I don't like cities that look angry."
Suki's flames burned unnaturally bright. "Yeah. It's like the place wants to kill us personally."
Kai stood slowly, staring at his hands. Lightning sparked and died erratically.
"My powers feel… borrowed," he said. "Like they could be taken back any second."
Rei forced himself to stand.
The mark on his chest pulsed again.
Stronger.
Hungrier.
Listening not just to him.
But to the world.
A voice boomed across the ruined skyline.
Not calm.
Not neutral.
Furious.
"THIS ITERATION IS UNSTABLE."
The clouds twisted violently, forming a massive eye in the sky. Not physical. Conceptual. Watching everything at once.
Aira's grip tightened on Rei's arm. "That's not the system voice."
"No," Rei said quietly. "That's panic."
The remainder appeared again, forming from fragments of broken light. He looked worse now. Less solid. More desperate.
"You don't understand what you've done," he said. "By refusing the ending, you forced the narrative to defend itself."
Suki scoffed. "By killing us?"
"By sacrificing variables," the remainder replied.
The ground split open nearby.
A scream echoed.
A person fell through the crack, arms flailing, before the earth snapped shut like a mouth.
Kai went pale. "That wasn't random."
Rei felt it too.
The world was choosing.
Not him.
Them.
Zeke slammed his fist into a nearby wall, denting steel. "It's thinning the cast."
Rena looked up sharply. "Zeke's right. Secondary anchors are being removed."
Aira turned to Rei slowly. "Secondary… meaning?"
Rena hesitated.
"Meaning not you."
Silence fell between them.
Suki laughed softly, but her eyes were wet. "Wow. That's comforting."
The eye in the sky narrowed.
"PRIMARY ANOMALY MUST BE ISOLATED."
The streets around Rei cracked outward in a perfect circle.
Space cleared.
Not violently.
Deliberately.
Everyone except Rei was pushed back by an invisible force.
Aira screamed his name as she was thrown across the street, slamming into debris.
"No," Rei shouted. "Stop."
The mark flared violently.
The force paused.
For half a second.
Then intensified.
Chains formed from glowing symbols, wrapping around Rei's limbs, anchoring him to the fractured ground.
The remainder stepped closer.
"I tried to warn you," he said softly. "This is what happens when a story loses control."
Rei struggled, pain tearing through his arms.
"You're wrong," Rei said through clenched teeth. "This story didn't lose control."
The chains tightened.
"It gained choice."
The eye in the sky began to close.
The city started collapsing inward, buildings folding into nothingness, streets unraveling into fragments of text and memory.
Kai crawled toward Rei, lightning tearing at the force field around him.
"Rei," he yelled. "Do something!"
Rei looked at his friends.
At Aira bleeding but standing.
At Zeke holding back collapsing debris with brute force.
At Suki burning herself just to keep the darkness away.
At Rena screaming silently as her power failed her.
Something inside Rei snapped.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Responsibility.
The mark didn't just glow.
It opened.
A surge of raw narrative force exploded outward.
The chains shattered.
The eye in the sky screamed.
Not a sound.
A concept tearing apart.
"YOU WERE NOT DESIGNED FOR THIS," the voice roared.
Rei stood tall in the center of the collapsing city.
"Neither was the world," he shouted back. "But here we are."
The remainder screamed as his form began to unravel.
"You don't get it," he cried. "If you survive, something worse will come."
Rei met his gaze.
"Then let it."
The ground beneath Rei collapsed completely.
Instead of falling, he rose.
The city froze mid-destruction.
Time didn't stop.
Attention did.
Everything waited.
Rei felt it.
The presence.
Not Azeroth.
Not the system.
Something outside narrative layers.
Observing.
Evaluating.
Then it spoke.
Not in words.
In certainty.
THIS STORY IS NO LONGER SAFE.
Aira felt it too.
She screamed Rei's name as light swallowed him.
Zeke charged forward, roaring in fury, but hit an invisible wall.
Suki dropped to her knees, flames dying.
Rena finally broke down, sobbing silently.
Kai screamed until his voice tore.
Rei looked back one last time.
He smiled.
Not bravely.
Honestly.
"Don't follow," he said.
And then he was gone.
The city collapsed fully.
Reality snapped back.
Silence.
When the dust settled, Rei was missing.
No mark.
No energy.
No trace.
Only a crater where he had stood.
Aira fell to her knees.
"No," she whispered. "No no no."
The sky cleared slowly, returning to something resembling normal.
Emergency sirens resumed.
Life went on.
But something fundamental was gone.
Far beyond the world, beyond gods and systems, something ancient shifted its focus.
The observer leaned closer.
Not amused anymore.
Interested.
And somewhere in a place without time, Rei opened his eyes.
He was alone.
Surrounded by darkness.
And a single sentence appeared before him.
WELCOME TO THE UNWRITTEN.
He exhaled slowly.
"So," Rei muttered. "This is what death looks like."
The darkness answered.
"Oh no," it said gently. "This is what comes after."
End of Chapter 22