: Echoes of the First Lie

: Echoes of the First Lie

The world had changed.

Again.

This time, it wasn't crumbling or rebuilding. It was still. Settled. The chaos of Avreth's war was gone. And yet, an unease hummed beneath the soil, under the rivers, behind every word people spoke.

Because somewhere deep down, the world remembered it had been rewritten.

And some stories… were fighting to return.

Wale stood on the balcony of an unfinished tower.

Below him, cities thrived again—people laughing, markets brimming, towers glowing with ether-light. But he didn't smile.

He couldn't.

Not when every breath he took still felt like borrowed ink.

Chris stepped beside him, holding two cups of tea. She handed him one.

"You've been quiet since we came back," she said softly.

Wale accepted the cup. "I'm not sure I did come back."

Chris raised a brow.

He turned to her. "The Wale that returned… isn't the one who left. Not completely."

Chris didn't look away. "Good. That one would've doomed us all."

A pause. Then they both sipped.

Grey had returned to the ruins of his old citadel.

Now, with new resolve—and a tattered cloak that fluttered behind him—he was gathering remnants of fractured orders, warriors and historians alike, to preserve what stories remained untouched by Avreth's shadow.

Inside the oldest chamber, beneath slabs of silent stone, he opened a sealed vault.

Inside was a mirror.

Cracked.

Old.

But not shattered.

His own reflection stared back at him.

Not smiling.

Just… watching.

The days passed.

The peace felt real.

And then it didn't.

It started small.

A child went missing—vanished mid-step with no trace, no echo.

A library burned, but no fire was seen.

A man awoke speaking in languages no one had ever written.

The world whispered warnings.

And Wale heard them all.

Kairo appeared in dreams.

He spoke through wind. Through falling leaves. Through flickering candlelight.

Wale was meditating when he heard the whisper:

"The First Lie still breathes."

He opened his eyes. "What lie?"

No answer.

Just silence.

Chris summoned the council—Grey, Wale, and the remaining keepers of lore. The chamber they met in was underground, surrounded by nullstone that muted magic and falsehood alike.

"There's something below the rewrite," she said. "Deeper than Avreth."

Grey nodded. "I've felt it. A rhythm. Like something waiting."

Wale said nothing for a long time.

Then: "The first monster."

Chris turned sharply. "You mean you?"

"No," Wale said. "I was a result. Not a cause."

He looked at them both.

"I was created from a lie. But someone—or something—wrote that lie first."

They called it Pre-Text.

A world so old that even Avreth had forgotten it.

A seedbed of discarded truths and original errors. Where names weren't given—they were stolen.

To find it, they would need to walk backward through time.

Through unwritten history.

Chris stood by Wale as the ritual began.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.

"No," Wale said. "But I need to."

Grey activated the runes. "Then may the true past open wide."

Time didn't break.

It sighed.

They fell through eras—pages tearing upward as they reversed through cities, forests, wars, peace.

Until they hit the blank.

No script.

No world.

Only potential.

And there… in the center of nothing…

A door.

Made of bone.

Held shut by a lock of memory.

Wale stepped forward.

The lock recognized him.

Because it was made of him.

He touched it—and the door opened.

Inside was darkness.

And a voice.

Not loud.

Not cruel.

Just… familiar.

"Welcome home, Lie-Born."

Wale's breath caught.

A figure rose from the shadows.

Not tall.

Not monstrous.

Just a child.

A child with his face.

Unscarred.

Untouched.

Innocent.

The child tilted his head. "Do you know who I am?"

Wale whispered: "You're… me."

The boy smiled. "No. I'm what you were before you were written."

Behind Wale, Chris and Grey watched silently.

The boy walked toward him. "You were created from fear. From doubt. I was the part they erased."

He reached up—touched Wale's cheek.

"And I never left."

The world shook.

Above them, the rewritten world cracked.

Not from war.

Not from anger.

From truth.

Because the lie wasn't Wale.

The lie was that he had ever been separate from this place.

From the First.

And now that truth was trying to return.

Chris conjured flame—but it flickered.

Grey unsheathed his sword—but the metal wept.

Wale looked at the boy.

"What do you want?"

The boy smiled.

"To be remembered."

He stepped into Wale.

And Wale screamed.

For a moment, he saw it all:

The first draft.

The gods before Avreth.

The Lie of Origin—that the world began in purity.

It hadn't.

It began in compromise.

In rewriting.

In a choice to forget.

And now the forgotten wanted in.

Wale awoke on the floor of the nullstone chamber.

Chris and Grey knelt beside him.

His eyes glowed faintly.

"I saw it," he gasped. "I saw the first rewrite."

Chris leaned closer. "What did it say?"

"That we never chose to live," Wale whispered. "We were allowed to."

He looked up at them.

"And whoever made that choice… is still out there."

The sky turned grey.

Not from clouds.

But from ink.

Not falling—but rising.

Grey stood and looked to the north.

"Something's coming."

Chris nodded.

And Wale clenched his fists.

"Then let's write the truth this time."