Chapter 17:Am I real

Vorynxis stepped forward.

And for a single, endless moment, the world ceased to be.

There was no light. No ground. No sky. No air.

Nothing.

Then, with a soundless shudder, the universe snapped back into place. The earth was beneath him once more. The mountains stood where they always had. The sky stretched above, distant and unwavering.

But something was wrong.

Not with the world.

With him.

The moment passed, but the sensation remained—a crawling, suffocating awareness, as if he had stood on the edge of something vast, where a single misstep would erase him. The air felt thick, heavy with something unseen. The sky loomed overhead, pressing down upon him, not vast, but close, as if the heavens themselves had bent lower to observe him.

It was not fear that rooted him in place.

It was understanding.

The world was wrong.

The sky had cracked.

And he had seen what lay beyond.

The crack had sealed itself, but it did not undo what had happened. The knowledge was inside him now, clinging to his mind like fire, searing into his thoughts, burning away the certainty he had once known.

The sky was no longer blue.

Not black. Not void.

It was tired.

Like a cloth stretched too thin, frayed at the edges, forced to exist when it no longer had the strength to do so. The stars flickered, not like dying flames, but like things attempting to disappear and failing.

And beyond them—beyond the veil that had been torn open, beyond the mistake that let him see—there was something else.

Planets.

No. Not planets.

Their shapes defied sense, spiraling in ways that wounded the mind. Some were bones, continents of ribcages and spines, curled into themselves like the remains of forgotten beings. Some were mirrors, their surfaces reflecting things that had never existed. Some were pure color, shifting and formless, hues that had no names, twisting and burning into the thoughts of those who dared perceive them.

And some…

Some were voids.

Not black holes. Not empty space.

Just places where existence refused to be.

He could not grasp them. His thoughts slid from their forms like water over smooth stone, unable to hold onto their shapes. They were too much. Too many. Not too many—even infinity felt small.

This was not the world he knew.

It never had been.

His world was just a fragment. A sliver of something far greater.

And the crack had been a mistake.

Something had gone wrong.

Something had let him see.

His breath slowed.

His body had not changed. His strength remained.

And yet, something in his mind had fractured.

His perception was wrong now.

The silence pressed against him—not empty, but aware. The weight of it coiled around his thoughts, thick, suffocating.

Then—

His own breath echoed back at him.

Too slow.

Not delayed.

Repeated.

A fraction of a second apart.

And then—

Another version of him never breathed at all.

Three of him.

One ahead.

One behind.

One that was never there.

Then, only one again.

His mind trembled.

But his heart did not waver.

This was not an illusion.

It was happening.

Something in the world had shifted.

Something had remembered him differently.

He stepped back. The ground felt real. Cold. Solid.

But for the first time, he was no longer certain.

Had it always been real?

Or was it only real because he believed it should be?

His fingers curled against his palm.

Then—

His shadow moved.

Not delayed.

Not mirrored.

But watching.

The change was subtle, almost unnoticeable. A shift in the way it stretched across the stone, an unnatural smoothness to the motion.

And then—

It turned its head.

And looked at him.

His thoughts seized.

Then—

Something shifted in his memory.

The night of his execution.

The pain.

The fire.

The hatred.

And yet—

There was someone else there.

A presence that had not been there before.

No—

A presence that had always been there, but had never been noticed.

It had been waiting.

It had been watching.

Even now, he could feel its breath on his thoughts.

A name slithered through his mind.

A voice.

No.

NO.

He clenched his teeth, forcing the memory into silence.

This was not real.

Was it?

His fingers twitched.

Had he always known fire?

Had he always burned?

Had he always—

The thought vanished.

Gone.

Not forgotten.

Erased.

Something had reached into his mind and taken it.

But it was not a theft.

It was a correction.

The world was fixing itself.

Fixing him.

Making him what he was supposed to be.

He bit into his own hand, drawing blood.

Pain.

Real.

But for a moment, the color of his own blood was wrong.

Blue. No, gold. No—nothing at all.

Then it was red again.

Had it changed?

Or had it always been red, and something had merely allowed him to think otherwise?

The weight of unreality pressed against him.

The crack in the sky had closed.

But something was different now.

He had seen.

And some truths, once glimpsed, could never be ignored.

The universe was shifting.

For him.

Or against him.

And he had a choice to make.

He lifted his hand. Fire flickered at his fingertips.

And he made his choice.