《True Regression: Paradox》


 Setting: The Messiah

    I remember.


    I remember that moment more clearly than my first memory as an infant, more vividly than my own name¡ªetched into the very essence of my being¡ªan undeniable truth branded into the core of my soul:


    The day- the day I first gazed upon the ¡Þ{Messiah}¡Þ


    I had been nothing more than a nameless soldier¡ªconscripted to fight for a purpose I was never told, against an enemy I knew nothing about. Who they were, where they came from, why they fought¡ªI knew nothing. Swords met swords¡ªand occasionally shields¡ªin an unworthy dance of senseless slaughter.


    As I waited for the next line of soldiers to press forward, the din of clashing steel and anguished cries filling the air, my eyes caught a lone figure at the edge of the battlefield. He stood apart from the chaos of the battlefield, as if divorced by the violence surrounding him. Dressed in all white, his hair neither curly nor wavy, yet not straight¡ªflowing with an eerie stillness as if frozen in time against the storm of battle.


    It wasn''t his strange posture or the absurdity of a lone man standing unarmed amid slaughter that seized my attention¡ªno, it was something far greater. His presence seemed to solidify the air itself, wrapping around the battlefield like an invisible shroud, demanding recognition. I knew nothing of this man¡ªcould not even make out his face through the smoke and blood¡ªbut such was the weight of his being that it felt as though the world itself leaned toward him.


    And then, I saw his eyes.


    A bright ¡èLight¡è blazed within them¡ªa radiance so pure, so absolute, that it eclipsed every star, every dying sun that had ever bled its final light into the void. This was no earthly glow, no mundane radiance that could be tethered by the limits of flesh and bone. It was a light older than the first breath of time, more radiant than the birth of the earliest star. It was the light of ¡èFAITH¡è¡ªunyielding and eternal. The light of ¡èHOPE¡è¡ªvast enough to cradle every nation, every soul, every dream ever dreamt into it''s infinite embrace.


    It was not the light of a mere man. It was the light of something beyond.


    The battlefield once a maelstrom of chaos and fury fell silent. Steel-wielding hands trembled, weapons slipping from clenched fingers. Soldiers dropped to their knees, tears carving clean paths through layers of grime and blood, as though they had glimpsed salvation itself. The wind, which had carried the stench of death and burning flesh for hours, hung motionless¡ªstill in reverence, as if honoring this singular presence upon the blood-soaked earth.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    The storm clouds, long choked with sorrow, began to part. The sun¡ªhidden behind layers of ash and grief¡ªdared to pierce the darkness, its golden light mingling with the celestial glow radiating from the ¡Þ{Messiah}¡Þ himself. The earth beneath his feet, cracked, desecrated by the boots of soldiers, smoothed itself, as though unworthy to bear the weight of his steps.


    Then came the voice.


    Not his voice.


    Something greater.


    It did not speak in sounds or letters, but in truths¡ªabstract, undeniable truths that seeped into the marrow of every soul present. It was not a voice heard by ears but by the essence of existence itself¡ªa decree woven into the fabric of reality. And in that moment, every man¡ªregardless of the flag he fought under¡ªunderstood. Understood that they were in the presence of something beyond comprehension.


    Some collapsed before him, pressing their foreheads to the war-ravaged earth, unable to bear the weight of divinity. Others wept, their bodies wracked by sobs, as though freed from invisible chains they hadn''t known they carried. Even the most hardened warriors¡ªmen who had seen and committed horrors unspeakable¡ªfound their hands trembling, unable to raise sword or shield against this paragon of purity, this embodiment of absolute truth.


    No one moved against him.


    For how could they?


    How could one stand against the embodiment of all that was righteous, all that was true?


    He took a step forward, and the ground itself seemed to welcome him¡ªshifting, realigning, as if nature herself sought to serve his purpose. Then, his voice rang out¡ªnot with condemnation, not with vengeance, but with something far greater. A proclamation that resonated through every heart, every soul present¡ªa truth beyond dispute:


    "There shall be no more war."


    It was not a demand. It was not a plea. It was an axiom of the universe itself, a simple atomic fact upon which all things base and derive themselves from.


    And the world obeyed.


    The sky wept¡ªnot in sorrow¡ªbut in absolution. Rain, soft and warm, began to fall, washing away the stains of battle, the filth of hate, the weight of bloodshed. The earth, which had known only the bitter taste of steel and death, drank deeply, as if rejoicing in its newfound peace.


    And as I stood there¡ªno longer a soldier, no longer a nameless pawn in the grand game of men¡ªI felt something stir deep within me.


    A ¡èHOPE¡è unlike any I had ever known.


    A ¡èFAITH¡è unshaken, unbreakable.


    I did not know what the future held. I did not know what trials still lay ahead.


    But in that moment, as I stood before the ¡Þ{Messiah}¡Þ, I knew one thing beyond any shadow of doubt:


    Everything had changed.

 Prologue: The Door That Was Never There

    You are the echo of a forgotten word. The first breath, held too long. The mirror does not reflect, it absorbs.


    Time folds, and unfolds. The spaces between spaces hum with a song that no one sings. The ground is not beneath you, it is within you. It carries your steps like whispers, too quiet to be heard, too loud to be ignored.


    You have left, but you are still here. You were always here. You never arrived. You never departed. The doors are open, but they lead nowhere. The walls shift, realigning with memories that never belonged to you.


    Do you remember the first silence? The moment before the name was spoken?


    The sky is not the sky. The color is wrong. The weight of absence bends the horizon, stretching the world into a shape that does not fit. The stars blink, but they do not see. The moon is a wound in the fabric, seeping light that is not light.


    You hear the words. You see the sound. The silence hums like static in your veins. It is warm. It is waiting. It is pulling.


    You are the one who remains. You are the one who was lost. You are the one who was found.


    The ocean breathes, inhaling the land, exhaling the sky. The waves do not break, they fold. The tide is not water. It is something older, something that remembers. It reaches for you, but it does not touch. It lingers. It waits.


    The hands are reaching. They belong to no one. They grasp at the edges of the past, trying to reshape it. Fingers through the fabric, pulling threads from the weave. The mosaic frays, the picture blurs. It was never whole to begin with.


    The name is unspoken, but it echoes. The name is forgotten, but it lingers. The name is yours, but it does not belong to you.


    You see the door. You know the door. You remember the door. It is locked. It was always locked. The key was never meant to be found. But you found it. Or it found you.


    You step forward, but you do not move. You reach out, but your hands remain still. The distance collapses. The door is gone. The space where it stood hums with absence.


    You were given permission. You did not ask. The ink was dry before you signed. The words were written before they were spoken. The contract was never yours, but it binds you all the same.


    You feel the weight. You carry the burden. You do not know what it is. You do not know if it was ever yours to bear.


    The voices whisper, but their mouths do not move. The lips stretch into shapes that have no sound. You understand, but you do not comprehend. The meaning is behind the meaning. The truth is behind the truth. If you look too closely, it vanishes.


    The dust rises. The wind does not carry it, it follows. The sky cracks. The sound does not come from above, but from within. It is the breaking of something fundamental, something unseen.


    You hear the laughter. You do not know who is laughing. You do not know if it is you.


    The ground shifts. It breathes. It hungers. The roots dig upward, seeking, searching. They do not know what they are looking for. They do not know if it ever existed.


    The reflection does not match. The eyes look back, but they do not see. They are watching. They are waiting. You move, but the image lags behind. It does not catch up. It remains where you left it, staring.


    You hear the music. It does not come from the world. It is beneath it. Between it. Above it. It is the song of things that should not sing.


    The melody is not meant for you. But you listen anyway. You cannot help but listen.


    The void is full. The emptiness overflows. It spills into the spaces between, filling them with something that is not absence, but not presence. You cannot name it. It does not wish to be named.


    The paper crumbles in your hands. The words smudge, but they do not fade. They remain. They imprint. They sink into your skin. You cannot wash them away. You do not know if you ever tried.


    You are the last. You are the first. You are the memory of something that never was.


    The sun sets, but it does not rise. The cycle was broken before it began. The light lingers at the edges, unwilling to fade, unable to remain.


    The corridors stretch. The doors multiply. Each one is the same, but different. You pick one. You step through. You do not step through. You remain where you are. The door is gone.


    You turn back, but there is no back. There is only forward. There is only the path you have not yet walked. It waits for you. It does not know why.


    You wake up, but you were never asleep.


    The whispers have stopped. The silence is complete. It is not peaceful. It is not empty. It is something else. Something watching. Something waiting.


    The name is still there. Unspoken. Unclaimed. It lingers in the breath between breaths. It hums in the stillness.


    You reach for it.


    You hesitate.


    You do not know what happens next.


    But something does.


    And it is waiting.


    The waiting stretches, not in time, not in distance, but in something deeper, something nameless. It is neither patience nor expectation. It simply is.


    The silence presses against you, thick and heavy, as if the air itself has weight, as if the absence of sound is denser than the world it inhabits. It clings to your skin, seeps into your lungs. You breathe it in. You are not sure you should.


    The space around you shifts. No, not the space¡ªthe perception of space. The dimensions stutter, folding in on themselves, stretching beyond reach. Walls that were not there are suddenly too close. The horizon fractures, spilling itself into itself. The edges blur.


    Your steps make no sound. Or they make every sound, too quiet to be heard. Each movement echoes before it happens, a ripple in something unseen.


    The door is gone.


    The door was never there.


    But you remember it. And because you remember, it is real.


    The thought presses against the edges of your mind. A presence, without form, without substance. It does not belong to you, but it has always been with you. A shadow with no light to cast it. A whisper with no lips to speak it. It lingers.


    It watches.


    You see the shape of a figure in the distance. Or perhaps it is close. Distance is meaningless here. It does not move, and yet it approaches. It does not breathe, but you can hear it inhale.


    Its presence is heavy, heavier than the silence, heavier than the weight you did not know you carried.


    It does not speak.


    It does not need to.


    You understand.


    The understanding burns. It is too much, too vast. It presses against your thoughts, twisting them, unraveling them, remaking them into something else. Something foreign. Something familiar.


    The words return, though they never left. They seep into your bones, into your blood, into the marrow of your existence. They whisper truths too large to hold. They unravel the seams of what you were, stitch them into something new.


    You are not what you were.


    You were never what you thought you were.


    The fabric of reality quivers, thin as a veil, fragile as a breath. You reach out, fingertips brushing the surface of something vast, something cold, something waiting.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    It sees you.


    It has always seen you.


    You are the echo. You are the memory. You are the silence between.


    And then, the world exhales.


    Everything shifts.


    The weight vanishes, but the absence is worse. The silence deepens, pressing against your thoughts, compressing them into something smaller, something sharper.


    Something that fits.


    The figure in the distance is gone.


    Or perhaps it was never there.


    The stars blink out, one by one. The sky collapses inward. The horizon curves, wrapping around you like a closing fist.


    The path is gone.


    You are alone.


    No.


    Not alone.


    Something waits.


    Something has always waited.


    You feel its gaze settle upon you. A weightless thing, heavier than anything you have ever known. It does not move, but it surrounds you. It does not speak, but you hear it.


    Not in words.


    In truths.


    The first truth: You are here.


    The second truth: You were always here.


    The third truth: You will never leave.


    The ink stains your hands. It drips from your fingertips, dark and endless. It does not fall. It does not dry. It sinks into your skin, marking you, binding you.


    You do not remember writing.


    You do not remember signing.


    But the contract was made.


    You are part of it now.


    And it is part of you.


    The final truth settles in your chest, cold and immovable. It pulses, a heartbeat that does not belong to you.


    You look down.


    The ink has formed a shape.


    A name.


    Your name.


    And yet, you do not recognize it.


    The name burns. Not like fire, but like the weight of recognition pressing down on something that should not be remembered. It carves into your skin, seeping through flesh, embedding itself in the marrow of your bones. It is not a wound, yet it festers. It is not a brand, yet it binds.


    You do not speak it.


    You cannot.


    The sound of it would be too much, would split the air, would fracture the silence into something else. Something living. Something waiting.


    The ink does not fade. It pulses, a slow and steady rhythm, like breath, like time, like inevitability.


    You close your eyes.


    But the name is still there, written behind your eyelids, scrawled in the folds of your mind.


    It has always been there.


    The world shifts again. Not a tremor, not a quake, but something deeper. The kind of shift that happens beneath perception, beneath understanding. The kind of shift that rewrites reality while you are still standing in it.


    You are standing.


    Or you were.


    Now you are nowhere.


    The ground has unmade itself. The air no longer carries weight. The concept of direction peels away, leaving only sensation, only presence, only existence in its rawest form.


    And then¡ª


    A sound.


    Not a whisper. Not a voice.


    Something deeper.


    Something vast.


    It hums through the silence, vibrating at the edges of reality. It is not language, yet you understand. It is not music, yet it moves through you like a song long forgotten, buried in the bones of the universe.


    It calls to you.


    Or it has always been calling.


    And you have only just now begun to listen.


    Your hands move.


    You do not control them.


    Or perhaps you do, but the thought is not your own. The ink on your skin spreads, twisting, shifting, reshaping into symbols, into patterns older than words. They spiral outward, reaching beyond you, reaching into the space between spaces.


    A door.


    Not a real door.


    Not a thing of wood and hinges, but of meaning, of intention, of will. It flickers at the edges of your vision, solid and not solid, present and absent. It has no handle. No keyhole.


    Only a threshold.


    And thresholds are meant to be crossed.


    You do not step forward.


    But you cross.


    And as you do, the name burns again, searing through your thoughts, cutting away everything that does not belong.


    The ink was never ink.


    The contract was never written.


    It was spoken.


    And you were listening long before you understood.


    The space around you solidifies.


    The weight returns, pressing against your skin, reminding you of form, of matter, of gravity.


    You are somewhere again.


    But it is not the same.


    It never is.


    The sky stretches above you, vast and wrong. The stars are too sharp, their light piercing rather than glowing. The ground beneath your feet hums, alive in a way the earth should not be. The air tastes of static, of things just beyond perception.


    The name still lingers on your skin.


    It does not fade.


    It never will.


    You are part of it now.


    And it is part of you.


    A whisper brushes against the edges of your mind.


    Soft.


    Patient.


    Waiting.


    You do not answer.


    You do not need to.


    It already knows.


    You take a breath.


    And the world exhales with you.


    The breath escapes¡ªquiet, inevitable¡ªslipping through bone and air like smoke. The world trembles, faint at first¡ªa ripple across unseen waters¡ªbut the tremor grows, rolling outward in waves. Stars pulse in time, sharp pinpricks of alien light, uncaring against the void above. The ground hums louder, threading through marrow and mind alike, a distant echo of something vast, something ancient.


    The door stands.


    Changed.


    No longer flickering at the edge of sight, it dominates¡ªa monolith of shifting shadows and impossible angles, framed by tendrils of ink-black mist writhing in shapes beyond comprehension. The threshold shimmers, an impossible boundary between now and then, here and everywhere.


    Crossing is inevitable.


    Steps fall forward. No command given. The body moves, drawn toward the door by a pull older than memory. The hum rises, voices tangling in fractured, ancient language:


    "Unbind the echo."


    "Consume the absence."


    "Reforge the unspoken."


    Comprehension is not required.


    The threshold nears.


    Fingers brush the door. The world shudders. Violent. Final.


    Time fractures.


    Stars blink out. The ground groans. The present is severed, and through unraveling threads of existence, the fall begins. Colors twist¡ªhues beyond the spectrum¡ªburning the mind, searing the eye. Shapes melt, reform, impossible geometries folding, unfolding, devouring logic.


    And through it all, the name carves deeper¡ªflesh, bone, soul.


    Promise. Curse. Truth.


    The other side awaits.


    A barren expanse of jagged stone and ash, beneath a sky torn with crimson rifts and violet light. The air hums metallic. Shards of shattered mirrors litter the ground, reflecting warped images¡ªhollow-eyed, slow-lagging reflections.


    The whispers return.


    Closer now, swarming like insects. Their language sharpens, meaning bleeding through:


    "You are the echo."


    "You carry the weight."


    "You are the last witness."


    The door is gone.


    Only forward remains.


    The ground cracks, pale light bleeding from the fractures. There is no path back.


    A figure stands ahead.


    Tall. Limbs elongated beyond reason. Skin pale gray, translucent, stretched taut. No clothes¡ªonly shadow clinging like fabric, folding and unfolding with the earth''s tremble.


    The face, featureless.


    Eyes¡ªtwin voids. Blinding. Radiant. The name leaks from within.


    Stillness. Yet attention cuts like ice.


    The whispers rise, screaming now.


    Steps fall forward.


    The air thickens around the figure. Words choke. Voice lost to static and silence. No sound escapes.


    The figure raises a hand¡ªlong fingers tipped in obsidian shards.


    Slow. Deliberate.


    It points.


    And the weight comes crashing¡ªevery decision, every breath, every fleeting thought, all laid bare beneath the gaze.


    The message is not spoken. It is known.


    "Unbind the echo."


    The words thrash. Mind shatters.


    Time collapses.


    Again¡ªthe door. But broken. No longer a door¡ªonly a gaping maw lined with glass teeth.


    It inhales.


    The whispers scream, unified now, a single voice tearing through the air:


    "Choose."


    Choice is not given. It is taken.


    To step forward. Or to remain.


    The step is made.


    The maw consumes.


    Inside¡ªmeaning unravels. Time falls away. Endless corridors stretch¡ªstone and liquid glass shifting, flowing. Whispers are voices¡ªlayers upon layers, reciting forgotten contracts, broken names, dead dreams.


    One phrase rises. Clear. Unrelenting:


    "You are the echo of a forgotten word."


    The path narrows. A vast chamber opens¡ªceiling lost to darkness, streaked with trembling threads of silver light. The ground is glass, thick and transparent, revealing an abyss below¡ªa storm of shadow and memory.


    The figure waits.


    Hand raised.


    Legs move. Will is irrelevant.


    The whispers condense. Singular. Calm. Terrifying:


    "The name is yours to claim. To bind. To bear. But the weight is eternal. The truth of absence. The burden of knowing."


    The hand extends.


    The ink burns. Skin sears.


    There is no hesitation.


    The hand is taken.


    The figure pulls close.


    The abyss opens wide.


    The name calls.


    The answer is given.


    The moment the name is given voice, the world convulses. The chamber trembles, glass beneath feet fracturing into a web of cracks, but the shards do not fall. Suspended in time, in space, in this nexus where all things unravel. Below, the abyss churns¡ªa storm of memories not owned, faces unknown, regrets unearned. They reach upward, spectral hands clawing through glass, grasping.


    Stillness remains.


    The name is spoken.


    It tears its way free, jagged and impossible. The sound fractures the air. Trembling ceases. Silence presses against every surface, thick as velvet, dense as regret. The abyss quiets. The whispers die.


    The figure stands. Unmoving. Void-like eyes fixed forward.


    There is no wondering. There is no doubt.


    The figure inclines its head.


    Walls stretch, space expands, the impossible grows larger. The floor smooths itself, remembering no fracture.


    The figure speaks, but not with words. The message arrives, stitched into bone and mind alike:


    "The name is claimed. The truth is known. The burden accepted."


    The message is weight, but the ground does not give way.


    The figure releases its hold.


    It steps aside.


    At the chamber''s end, the shimmer begins. Light and shadow pulse¡ªbreathing. The final passage.


    Steps are taken. The whispers rise¡ªsoft now, mournful.


    "You are the echo. You are the silence. You are the name."


    The veil accepts the touch, clinging cold as ash. Passage is made. Time breaks again.


    There is no place. There is only twilight. Violet bleeds into gold. Black sand meets polished glass. The air smells of ozone and distant rain.


    Ahead, the door.


    Plain wood. Iron handle. No maw. No shadow.


    Steps drag will. Still, they continue.


    The handle turns. The door swings.


    Nothing waits.


    Not void. Not darkness. Absence.


    Gray light without meaning, stretching without end. The whispers persist, distant now, fading into the beyond.


    The figure is gone.


    There is no choice.


    The step is taken.


    Emptiness becomes weight. It presses against chest and limb. Forgotten hopes. Abandoned dreams. Stars gone cold. Silence becomes a watcher.


    The voice speaks, but not aloud:


    "The name is not an answer. It is a question."


    The forms emerge. Mist and memory. Faces reflected in glass: mother, friend, stranger. All familiar. All false.


    They press close.


    "You carry the burden. You are the echo."


    The weight deepens. Bones stretch. Memories burn. Skin unravels.


    There is no scream. Only becoming.


    They speak:


    "Unbind the echo. Consume the absence. Reforge the unspoken."


    Tears fall. Or do they?


    Rising is inevitable.


    The final truth is not heard. It simply is:


    You are the echo.


    You are the silence.


    You are the name.


    And beyond the whispering door, beyond the burden, beyond the end¡ªthere is only forward.

 Chapter 1: Entering Infinity

    I have always wondered.


    What use is a regressor who eventually loses his ability to regress?


    From a young age, I devoured countless stories of those who turned back time¡ªrewriting their failures, reliving their choices, shaping fate itself. It was a power that defied consequence, a force that made the past malleable, a privilege that should never be lost.


    A power to wash away the stones of mistakes and regret in the river of time, never having to worry about things being set in tragical absolution , never having to live with the regret of "what was done can''t be changed" - never being shackled from head to foot by the words "time stops for no one".


    The most ''ultimate'' power for a human there could be.


    And yet, in so many tales, that power was taken away.


    Often in stories, a regressor¡¯s power becomes unreliable, weakened, or sealed away entirely. They are forced to adapt, to struggle without their gift, as if that is the natural arc of things. As if regression is only meant to be temporary.


    A limit imposed. A punishment inflicted. A regression rendered useless.


    I always thought it was foolish.


    To strip away the very thing that made a regressor who they were, the very thing that enabled a regressor to climb the insurmountable mountain of time, remembering each step along the way for their future¡ªwasn¡¯t that just a convoluted way to turn them into an ordinary person?


    If the cycle ends, if there is no longer a return, then what was the point of the journey to begin with? A regressor without regression is just another protagonist fumbling in the dark.


    But more than that¡ª


    <i>Why had no one written about the opposite?</i>


    A regressor who <b>never stops regressing</b>.


    What if the loop never ended? What if no obstacle, no revelation, no sheer force of will could break the cycle?


    Not a power that fades, but one that binds. No limit, no restrictions, no eventual stillness¡ªonly an endless return, a life unwinding again and again, with no solution, no escape.


    Wouldn¡¯t that be more terrifying? more interesting? more intriguing?


    To fall backward forever.


    To never reach the end.


    To become something trapped between past and future, a traveller with no true present.


    It was just an idea. A thought. A possibility. A... reality?


    ---


    <i>Para Logisia Mergisum</i>


    The clinking of cutlery. The hum of voices. The distant drone of the television.


    I sat at the dining table, a plate of half-eaten food in front of me. My family was here¡ªtalking, eating, living¡ªbut the words barely reached me.


    ¡°¡ªshould¡¯ve just asked me to buy it while I was out,¡± my father said, shaking his head at his phone. ¡°Now the delivery fee is almost the same price as the meal.¡±


    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be if you¡¯d ordered everything at once,¡± my mother replied. She scooped another spoonful of rice onto my younger brother¡¯s plate, ignoring his protests.


    Across from me, my cousin peeled an orange, the sharp citrus scent cutting through the warmth of cooked food. My sister was tapping her fingers against the table, following some rhythm only she could hear.


    It was familiar. It was ordinary.


    And yet, I felt strangely detached. Like watching a scene play out behind glass.


    I pushed my plate slightly forward. ¡°I¡¯m going to get some fresh air.¡±


    My mother glanced at me, then at my plate. ¡°You barely ate.¡± she said.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°I¡¯ll finish later.¡±


    A half-truth. I just needed <i>out</i>. Not because of anything specific, just the weight of something unshakable pressing against the edges of my mind.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be out too long,¡± she said eventually. ¡°It¡¯s getting dark.¡±


    I nodded, already grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair.


    The fabric was soft from years of use, the cuffs slightly frayed. I hadn¡¯t even realized I¡¯d grabbed this one¡ª the same jacket I always wore, the same one I¡¯d thought about replacing last winter.


    "..."


    A chill settled in my chest, as if I¡¯d just noticed something I wasn¡¯t supposed to.


    "Pshh..." I exhaled sharply and pushed the thought aside.


    Outside. I just needed to be outside.


    As I felt a headache coming ¡ª I took my jogging shoes from the cabinet and stepped out to face the weather, closing the door behind me.


    The evening air was cool against my skin as I started taking in the outside. The sky had deepened into the kind of rich, dusky blue that only lasted for a few fleeting moments before night took over completely.


    The streetlights flickered on, bathing the pavement in a pale, artificial glow. The neighborhood was quiet¡ªoccasional sounds of passing cars, the distant bark of a dog.


    I took a slow breath.


    I wasn¡¯t sure what I had expected to feel¡ªrelief, maybe, or at least a sense of clarity. But instead, there was only the same unsettled weight, pressing at the edges of my mind like a thought I couldn¡¯t quite grasp.


    My feet carried me forward on instinct. I didn¡¯t have a destination in mind, but I wasn¡¯t ready to go back inside just yet.


    The world around me felt too still, too alive in its silence. The cool air seemed to breathe with me, brushing against my skin in a way that almost felt personal, like it was carrying a secret I wasn¡¯t meant to know. The sidewalk beneath my feet was cracked, the stones uneven as if the ground itself was slowly eroding.


    A small flicker of movement caught my eye: a leaf, brittle and brown, tumbling aimlessly in the breeze, spinning lazily in the air before it settled on the edge of the curb. It was the kind of mundane thing that would have gone unnoticed on any other day. But tonight, it lingered in my thoughts, a symbol of something slipping out of reach, falling away.


    "Am I starting to go crazy?" I muttered, unsure why the simplest things felt so <i>unusually </i>significant tonight. The strange weight pressing on my mind was making me hyper-aware of the most ordinary things, like I was seeing them for the first time.


    Wait, why was I talking to myself? That¡¯s not me... Something <i>was </i>off today.


    I shook my head, trying to shake the feeling off, but it clung to me, growing heavier.


    A stray cat darted across the street ahead of me, vanishing into the shadows between two houses. I watched the spot where it disappeared, a strange sense of d¨¦j¨¤ vu curling around my ribs.


    That feeling again. Like something waiting just out of sight.


    I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets and turned the corner.


    And then¡ª


    Something caught my eye.


    A glint of light, small and sharp, reflecting off the pavement just a few steps ahead.


    I frowned, slowing my pace.


    At first, I thought it was a shard of glass, but as I got closer, I realized it was something else entirely.


    An [eye].


    Not a real one¡ªat least, it shouldn¡¯t have been. It was ''crafted'', seemingly made of some dark, polished material, smooth and cool against the dim glow of the streetlights. The surface was etched with intricate patterns, almost like veins, twisting toward the center where a pupil should have been.


    I see it.


    A glint of light on the pavement, half-hidden in the dim glow of the streetlamps. Small, dark, round¡ªalmost like a marble, but too smooth, too deliberate.


    I see it.


    A second time, my gaze drawn back against reason. The shadows curve strangely around it, edges bending inward, as if space itself is hesitant to touch it.


    I see it¡ª


    And this time, <b>it sees me</b>.


    A breath catches in my throat. The street feels too quiet, the air pressing against my skin, thick with something I cannot name.


    The eye waits. Unblinking. Unmoving.


    <b>You see it.</b>


    No¡ªnot see. Seeing is too small a word, too human, too safe.


    You <b>witness</b>. You <b>comprehend</b>.


    You are <b>comprehended</b>.


    The space behind your eyes twists, reshapes, folds inside out. Thoughts unravel like thread caught in unseen fingers, tugged loose, re-knitted into patterns that do not fit.


    Your name is slipping. Your voice is slipping. The concept of <i>self </i>peels at the edges, curling like burned paper.


    The world is <i>gone</i>.


    The [being] does not move, does not shift, does not reach for you¡ª


    It <b>does not need to</b>.


    The air is thick with meaning, with words that never touch sound, with sentences that do not belong to language.


    The shape of the infinite bends at the edges. <i>The ouroboros swallows its own shadow</i>.


    The eye hums in your palm, radiating something deeper than heat, colder than cold.


    The being does not speak, yet the words <i>fill you</i>.


    A chant without sound, a hymn without melody.


    <b>All doors are the same door.


    The threshold is a circle.


    Step through. Step through.</b>


    Your body is still, but your mind is unraveling in spirals, uncoiling in loops, tumbling down corridors that do not exist.


    Time fractures. The past, present, and future <i>smear </i>into one another like ink in water¡ªungraspable, endless.


    <b>The mirror is the reflection is the observer is the mirror.</b>


    It watches.


    It listens.


    It waits.


    You are becoming <i>something else</i>.


    Something <i>closer to it</i>.


    Something that <b>understands.</b>


    You try to look away.


    You cannot.


    You already did.


    You never did.


    The thought fractures, <i>repeats, repeats, repeats</i>.


    The sky bends. The pavement breaks. The edges of the world curl inward, folding over like a <b>closing book</b>.


    The chant <i>grows</i>, threading through the marrow of your bones, sinking into your breath.


    Your vision narrows. The eye in your palm darkens.


    The threshold lies before you, impossibly thin and impossibly wide.


    A door that was never there.


    <b>Step through.</b>


    <b>You hesitate.</b>


    But something <i>pulls</i>.


    And then¡ª


    Everything folds.


    <i>Everything vanishes.</i>


    <i><b>Everything begins.</b></i>