The vault didn't look like much at first—just a rusting steel door embedded in the side of a wind-carved cliff. But as Kale stepped through with Luma, Torrin, and Milo at his side, he felt the pressure in the air change.
This place was dense with reality. Or rather, realities.
Inside, the walls weren't solid. They shifted like filmstrips—glimpses of other lives flickering just beneath the surface. One second, Kale saw himself as a soldier. Then a beggar. Then dead.
"What is this place?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Luma's voice was steady. "The Vault of Versions. Where your unused selves go to die—or wait."
As they moved forward, they passed rows of containment fields, each holding someone who looked eerily familiar: Kale again, again, and again. One version snarled at him through cracked glass. Another simply sat in silence, tears trailing endlessly down his cheeks. One was dressed in black armor, a sigil of fire on his chest.
"Are these… me?" Kale whispered.
Torrin kept a hand on his sidearm. "They're all you. Versions that could have been. Timelines that collapsed or were rewritten."
Milo stared at a version of himself curled into a fetal position, flickering like bad reception.
"They're still aware," he whispered.
Luma touched a glyph panel, and the walls rippled. A hallway opened into a chamber filled with floating books—thousands, orbiting a cold blue flame.
Each book bore a different name: Kaleth, Kaelion, K.V., Kal. All of them were names Kale didn't know—but somehow recognized.
"This is where the Blank Book came from," Luma said. "Each of these held a different 'you.' When a timeline ends, the Book remains. Most are archived here."
Kale stepped forward, the Blank Book pulsing at his side. One of the orbiting books broke formation and floated toward him. It opened, pages blank but for a single line:
> "You chose to forget. But we did not."
Suddenly, the vault trembled. Warning sirens echoed.
"They found us," Torrin snapped.
"Who?" Kale asked.
"The Censorlings," Luma growled. "They patrol broken timelines. The Observer's eyes."
Through the far wall, ripples in spacetime surged. Humanoid forms emerged—grainy, pixelated distortions wearing half-masks and wielding pens like blades. They erased matter with every step.
Kale instinctively held up the Blank Book. A barrier of language exploded outward, halting their advance. But it flickered fast.
"We're not strong enough yet!" Luma shouted.
Milo grabbed Kale's hand. "Read a version. Any version! Rewrite yourself!"
Kale grabbed the nearest book, one labeled Kaleth the Dissonant, and opened it. Light surged into him—a flash of a life where he wielded words as weapons, altered realities by speaking truths others refused to hear.
With a single command, he shouted, "Unwrite!"
The Censorlings collapsed into fragmented letters, vanishing into the floor.
Kale collapsed. The book dropped from his hands, pages now burned.
Torrin caught him. "What the hell was that?"
"Borrowed power," Luma said grimly. "And a cost we haven't yet seen."
Kale looked down at the Blank Book. A new sentence had formed:
> "Every version leaves a scar."
He didn't feel pain yet. But he knew it was coming.