Chapter 8: Stage Directions

I don't speak for a long time.

Not as we hike back through the ash-colored trees. Not as the river gurgles behind us like it's laughing. Not even when Glyph pings my brain with three consecutive red alerts and one very concerned sad face emoji.

My head's a stage.

And someone else is waiting in the wings.

"Glyph," I whisper, finally. "That wasn't just a corpse."

[Correct. That was you, Act One edition. Pre-death. Pre-isekai. Post-tragedy. Cute haircut, though.]

"That version of me was smiling."

[Yeah, well, this version of you is not. Time to find shelter before we both spiral—pun accidental.]

We find an abandoned watchtower three hills south. Empty. Mostly. The only company is a family of very aggressive moss bats and an old painting of Saint Roderic dying nobly in twelve different brushstroke styles.

I barricade the door, collapse onto a half-collapsed cot, and try not to scream.

"Who was he?" I ask the ceiling. "The one watching me?"

[Possibly you. Possibly someone playing you. Either way: creepy doppelgänger vibes.]

"And if he's real?"

[Then welcome to the multiverse, darling.]

I sit up, heart hammering.

"Glyph… tell me everything. About how I died. About what you're not telling me."

[…]

No answer.

"Glyph?"

[Memory integrity compromised. Processing error 74-A: Causal Loop Detected.]

"That's not comforting."

[You're in a recursive narrative. Layered personas. Possibly simulated reality. Possibly worse.]

"Define worse."

[Real. But rewritten.]

I spend the night dreaming in stage lights.

Every time I close my eyes, I'm back in an old rehearsal room—bare floor, empty chairs, one spotlight.

Sometimes I'm Hamlet. Sometimes Macbeth. Sometimes just Jeremy, crying on the stage when no one else shows up.

Once, I see my own face in the audience.

He's not smiling.

Morning breaks like a bone. I wake with Glyph rebooting and a throat full of dread.

"New plan," I mutter. "We go to the Council. Tell them everything. The fake relics. The cult. The corpse."

[Bold of you to assume truth gets rewarded in this world.]

"Then what's the play?"

[We fake a new miracle. One that gives us leverage.]

I hesitate. "I thought we were done faking miracles."

[That was before your dead body smiled at you.]

We ride back to Solvane Manor on a borrowed mule. Regret is missing, presumed sensible.

The city's tense when we arrive. Temple banners hang half-lowered. Priests speak in hushed tones. Castle Vesche looms like a judgment.

I bathe, change into Audric's least-bloodstained cloak, and rehearse in the mirror.

Eye contact. Contrition. Just enough fever to look holy.

Then I walk straight into the lion's mouth.

The Temple Council meets again in the Hall of Revelation. I arrive uninvited.

"You were not summoned," says one of the priests.

"I come bearing prophecy."

[Technically you come bearing panic and a mediocre sleep schedule.]

I march to the quartz plinth and place a new object on it:

A mirror shard from the Wyrm's Mouth cave. Polished. Cursed-looking. Still faintly bleeding memory.

Gasps.

The inquisitor is here again. Masked. Silent.

I bow.

"This relic showed me a body. My body. In the river of the dead."

Silence.

"A trick," says a bishop. "Illusion magic. You lie again."

"Then test me."

I grab the shard.

And change.

[Method Actor: Activated]

Face: Jeremy Blake. Hair: shorter. Eyes: the old kind of tired.

My real self.

[Warning: 8-minute limit before voice degradation.]

"I am Jeremy Blake," I say. "I died. Not once, but twice. The first time, I fell. Or was pushed. The second time, I woke up here."

Gasps. Murmurs. The shard pulses.

"And I'm not alone."

I turn toward the inquisitor.

"There are others like me. And you know it."

The inquisitor tilts their head. Doesn't deny it.

"A corpse with my face is floating down the Wyrm's Mouth. Go look if you don't believe me."

"I did," says the inquisitor, finally. Voice low. "It vanished."

[Timer: 6 minutes. Wrap it.]

"This is no longer about faith," I say, voice hoarse. "It's about control. Someone's rewriting the script. And we're all stuck on stage."

The shard cracks.

Right down the center.

The room gasps.

The inquisitor stands.

"You are not a prophet," they say.

"No."

"You are a mirror."

The shard explodes.

Again.

Chaos.

Screaming. Blinding light. A priest faints.

The floor shudders beneath us like something big is shifting under the world.

When the smoke clears, I'm still standing.

"Do you see?" I whisper. "This is bigger than religion. Bigger than me."

"Then what do you propose?" snaps one of the judges.

[Now. Pitch it.]

I breathe.

"We found a map. A spiral pattern that leads deeper into the Wyrm's Mouth. I want to go back."

"Blasphemy," says one priest.

"Research," I correct.

[Props to the science rebrand.]

"I want to uncover what's really down there. Not for faith. For truth."

I'm escorted out again. Not arrested. Not canonized.

Worse.

Assigned a committee.

Three priests. One historian. A guard named Brannigan with zero neck and negative patience.

They call it a Holy Expedition.

I call it a disaster waiting to happen.

We set out at dawn.

Me. Glyph. A scribe with chronic sneezing. Two relic bearers. And Brannigan, whose sword is bigger than his vocabulary.

[This is not a dream team. This is a field trip with knives.]

Back to the Wyrm's Mouth.

Back to the glitch in the narrative.

The river's lower today.

But I still see something in it.

Not a corpse.

A reflection.

Mine.

Wearing a crown.

Bleeding.

Smiling.

The blood wasn't his. The smile wasn't mine.

We reach the cave again.

This time, I don't hesitate.

I step inside.

The spirals are still there. But they've changed.

Moved.

Glyph buzzes. [Confirmed: symbols have rearranged. This place is reactive.]

"Alive?"

[Or coded to adapt.]

Deeper in, we find something new.

A door.

Old metal. Burned with numbers.

Earth numbers.

My apartment code from L.A.

I almost scream.

[This is a memory graft.]

"What's behind it?"

[Guess.]

I open it.

Inside: a soundstage.

The air smelled like stale popcorn and ozone— too real for a memory.

Empty. Spotlights flickering. A director's chair with "J. Pierce" on the back.

My old actor name.

In the center: a coffin.

My coffin.

I walk to it.

Open it.

Empty.

[That's worse than full.]

On the inside of the lid: words.

"Final Take: Rewrite Required."

I stagger back.

The others don't see the same room.

To them, it's a shrine.

Candles. Dust. Statues.

They kneel.

Only I see the truth.

Or the lie.

Or both.

"Glyph," I whisper. "What is this?"

[A memory leak. Someone tried to overwrite your death. They didn't finish.]

"Why?"

[Maybe you weren't meant to come back.]

That night, I sit alone at the canyon's edge.

I hear laughter.

Not mine.

His.

Jeremy 1.0.

[Processing...] → [...] →

[Apologies. Temporary lapse.]

Floating again. This time closer. This time speaking.

"You can't outrun the script," he says.

I scream.

No one hears.

The next morning, the shrine is gone.

The door is blank.

The cave empty.

The others remember nothing.

But I do.

And Glyph is quiet for the first time in days.

END OF CHAPTER 8