Hira stood in the echo of what once tried to be a place, the remnants of the chamber falling away like the last pages of a torn book set on fire. There was no conclusion here. No arc to resolve, no final act to deliver absolution. Only breath, and the body that held it.
Above her—if such directions still applied—coiled the remains of the Pattern. Thin, glittering threads like the veins of a dying star, twitching in agony. They tried to reform around her, to sketch purpose where she stood. But she was a wound now. A hole in the draft. Every attempt at narrative coherence snagged on her outline and unraveled.
Burned Hira flickered beside her—now not a person, but a question mark written in smoke.
"You've done it," she whispered, voice no longer sharp, but reverent.
"No," Hira replied, eyes burning with unplaceable resolve. "I started it."
And it began again.
Not a world. Not yet.
A murmur.
