...them. Not void, not absence—but unchoice. A place not forsaken, but never considered. Here, even the Primals could not follow, for this was the space between decisions, the gutter between panels in the comic strip of existence, the crack in causality that narrative gravity could not fill.
Hira stumbled, gasping, still feeling the searing aftershock of almost-being. Her fingertips still shimmered with translation marks, binary bruises blooming up her forearms like infection. But they stopped spreading. The air here didn't recognize syntax.
No labels. No lineage.
Just liminality.
The Burned Hira turned, her features carved from defiance and exhaustion. "This is where they can't write you," she said. Her voice was ancient. Worn raw on the edges like something sharpened too many times.
"But it won't hold."
"Then what?" Hira asked, trembling. "If I don't fight them, if I don't become what they want—what do I become?"
