The Vanishing and the Second Pull

Zantrayel held its breath.

The great Bazaar, always humming with trade, noise, and life—vanished.

Not crumbled.

Not attacked.

Gone.

The stalls, the tents, the floating incense altars, the gold-threaded rugs, the sacred salt piles from the coast of Mare, the blacksmith who hadn't missed a day in forty years—all vanished in a single breath.

One blink.

One heartbeat.

And silence.

Only the wind remained, brushing across the now-empty square like it too was confused.

People screamed. Some dropped to their knees. Others stood still, unable to process what they saw—or didn't.

Far beyond the city, at the Crossroad, those left behind thought they had been spared.

The scholars.

The record-keepers.

The silent monks.

The sigil-less acolytes.

And yet… one by one, they were taken too.

Not all.

Only those with a secret.

Only those whose souls had once brushed against a Lwa in dreams, in childhood, in prayer or peril—even if they didn't remember.

They were taken again, and the Crossroad made no attempt to explain itself.

This time, the taking was even more bizarre:

One was lifted into the sky by a choir of mirrors.

Another fell upward, their shadow staying behind, weeping.

A monk dissolved into butterflies that reformed into bones mid-air.

A child aged into an adult in seconds, just before vanishing in a puff of ancestral smoke.

One woman looked into a bowl of water, saw herself walking through Ginen—and was instantly standing there.

It was beyond Ayola now. She could only watch.

Even she, high priestess of the gate, bearer of silence, could barely hold her ground.

Ginen wasn't simply choosing.

It was remembering.

And calling back everyone who had forgotten who they truly were.

Zion, still buried in the deeproot realm, stirred.

The vines around him pulsed.

He felt it.

"Something's coming," he whispered.

"Something… bigger than us all."