Chapter 15 : The Miracle Machine

STATUS: False Prophet, Glitching Actor, Public Saint.

OBJECTIVE: Heal a dying prince, fool an empire, survive a miracle.

—Glyph

The chapel was packed.

Golden incense smothered the air like old guilt, and behind it, the court buzzed—clergy, nobles, soldiers, and reporters alike, elbowing for a view of the resurrection. Of me.

The Prophet.

Saint Audric. Jeremy Blake. Theater dropout, scam artist, walking divine contradiction.

And they were about to watch me perform the miracle of healing the dying Prince Aurek.

No pressure.

[Reminder: You have 15 minutes to fake a miracle, in front of a hostile queen, a dying boy, and a magic-tracking Inquisitor. Also, your nose might bleed if you Method too hard.]

"Glyph," I hissed under my breath, "are we even sure he's supposed to be healed?"

[Define "supposed." Morally? Narratively? Metaphysically?]

"All of the above."

[Then: no. He's heir to a collapsing empire, infected with what might be divine backlash. Healing him could mean war. Not healing him means death.]

"Great. Flip a coin?"

[Or fake one.]

The crowd parted like a stage curtain. Two armored priests wheeled the prince forward on a floating stretcher etched with silver prayer-runes. Aurek looked… wrong.

Sunken eyes. Pale skin. And something leaking from his mouth—black, like ink or tar.

I recognized that ooze.

It was the same color as the river in Wyrm's Mouth. The same color that bled from the mirror in the cave. The same rot that touched me every time I slipped between selves.

He wasn't just sick.

He was infected with the same glitch I was.

And I was expected to "heal" him in front of the whole court.

I bowed low. They wanted awe, mystery. I could give them that.

[Stage cues incoming.]

My cloak flared as I rose. My voice dropped to that low, trembling timbre I'd trained into memory.

"This is not just flesh," I said. "This is a soul unraveling. And only the Spiral can rebind what was broken."

Gasps.

Queen Ilyra tilted her head, watching like a cat watches a mouse auditioning for Hamlet.

"You claim divine authority," she said. "Then act like it."

[This is the part where you stall.]

I placed my hands over the prince.

Inside my skull, Glyph pinged heat signatures, spell residues, pulse distortion.

[Okay, so good news: The prince is alive. Bad news: He's anchored to something else. Something watching.]

"Glyph. Are you saying healing him could wake something up?"

[No. I'm saying it already has.]

The black tar flickered—reactive to sound, maybe. It curled toward me.

[It recognizes you. Same infection vector. Same… coding.]

"Can I isolate it?"

[Not without triggering a feedback loop. But maybe you can redirect it.]

My eyes widened.

"You mean transfer it?"

[With enough drama? Sure. Let's build a new miracle.]

I nodded. Raised both hands.

"My body for his," I declared. "Let the sickness flow through me. Let me bear what he cannot."

The gasps turned into open panic.

"No," said the royal steward. "You'll kill yourself."

I smiled faintly.

"That's the point."

Then I bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Let it fall onto the boy's forehead.

Let the crowd see it.

[Aaaaand lights.]

Glyph surged power into my skin. My veins glowed gold. My mouth hissed the same nonsense language we'd stolen from Spiral scripture.

The black tar twitched—then lunged.

It surged into my hands, my mouth, my eyes.

And for a moment—

I saw everything.

Flash.

An Earth-side studio. Cameras. A script with my name, crossed out. Replaced by "J. Pierce." A director shouting.

"Take 12. Rewrite the ending."

Flash.

A void. A dressing room that never ends. Me, trapped in a loop of auditions that always end in blood.

Flash.

A man in a lab coat, tapping a barcode scanner over my wrist.

"Don't worry," he says. "If this version fails, we've got backups."

I hit the ground screaming.

The prince sat up.

Healed. Whole. Breathing.

The crowd erupted.

[Okay, okay—uh, Jeremy, breathe. The crowd's buying it. Just hold.]

I couldn't.

The black ooze slithered beneath my skin now. I felt it rewiring memories—which ones were mine? Which were roles?

Aurek looked down at me in awe.

"You took it," he whispered.

"Don't thank me," I coughed. "I might give it back."

[Warning: Mental contamination at 14%. Shapeshift capacity reduced. Identity cohesion failing.]

"Glyph. How long do I have?"

[Before what? You forget who you are, or they realize it's all fake?]

"Either."

[Then: not long.]

...…

I was dragged to a private chamber by two armored monks and a nervous-looking steward who couldn't stop quoting scripture under his breath.

Not the spiral ones.

The old kind.

The kind that comes before the Spiral Eye—before the gods had branding.

They laid me on a velvet bench that smelled like panic and patchouli. I couldn't stop shaking. My limbs didn't feel like mine. I was glitching—bad.

"Glyph," I rasped. "How bad?"

[Contamination threshold at 19%. Identity anchors fraying. Actor bleed at 41%. We've got… maybe thirty minutes before you become a Shakespearean salad.]

"Do we have a plan?"

[Well, you just healed the prince. You're officially a walking miracle. If this were a story, you'd be rewarded with a castle, a crown, and an extremely inconvenient marriage proposal.]

"And in our story?"

[They're going to dissect you.]

The door creaked.

Queen Ilyra entered, flanked by the inquisitor—still masked—and a priest whose eyes were silvered over with divine possession.

"Leave us," the queen said to the guards.

They left. So did the air in the room.

"Do you know what you just did?" she asked softly.

"I saved your son," I said, biting back the tremor.

"You took something from him," she replied. "Something that doesn't die easily."

Her fingers traced a glyph etched into her ring—something old, circular, recursive.

A spiral.

"The Spiral cult thinks you're their messiah. My court thinks you're a saint. The Inquisition…" she nodded toward the masked figure, "…thinks you're a risk."

"And you?"

"I think," she said, "you're a vector."

I blinked. "Meaning?"

"Meaning," the inquisitor cut in, "you're not the miracle. You're the delivery mechanism."

They stepped forward and tossed something at my feet.

A scroll.

The same prophecy scroll from the Spiral Eye. Only… rewritten. Literally.

I recognized the ink—it was mine. My handwriting. My script.

"What is this?"

[That's not the original. That's a rewrite. The symbols are newer—layered over your previous performance.]

The inquisitor tilted their head. "You're being edited."

It hit me then.

Every scene. Every miracle. Every role I'd played since arriving here—

They were building toward something. But I wasn't the writer.

I was just the cast.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

Queen Ilyra knelt beside me.

"I want the truth," she said. "Not the performance. Not the persona. I want the name you forgot."

"I don't—"

"You do," she whispered. "You just buried it under other masks."

My hands twitched. I could feel them slipping again.

The face in the mirror.

The corpse in the river.

The alternate me, watching from the canyon rim.

I'd been hiding behind performances for so long, I wasn't sure there was a real version left.

[Warning: Identity echo approaching. Internal fragmentation at 52%.]

"Glyph. Help me hold it together."

[Trying. Need an anchor. Give me a line you've never performed.]

"What?"

[Something that's yours. Not a script. Not a lie.]

I looked up at Ilyra. The inquisitor. The priest.

And I said the truest thing I could think of.

"I don't want to die again."

The room held its breath.

Then the priest stepped forward and held out a vial.

"This is the Archive Serum," he said. "It doesn't cure. But it shows truth. Your truth. Take it… and see what they've rewritten."

[Glyph scan confirms: It's legit. But it'll break down any remaining mental barriers. Full memory sync. Good, bad, traumatic—everything.]

"Side effects?"

[Emotional whiplash. Identity collapse. And you might scream in front of the queen.]

I took the vial.

Held it.

And drank.

The world shattered.

"he sky didn't just crack—it buffered, pixels stuttering like a corrupted stream.

FLASH:

A medical theater. Earth. Stark white lights. My body strapped to a gurney. I'm shouting—

"No, I didn't sign up for this!"

A woman in a business suit looks down. My agent.

"Of course you did. Clause 7c. You're not the lead anymore, Jeremy. You're the backup."

FLASH:

I'm watching a version of me fail on stage. Fall. Die. The crowd gasps. The director shouts—

"Kill the stream. Bring in the understudy."

FLASH:

A barcode burned into my wrist. A scanner reading it. My status:

> Jeremy Pierce Blake

ROLE: Understudy

STATUS: Corrupted

NOTE: Do not recycle

FLASH:

I fall through light. Through memories. Through scenes not mine.

Through scripts.

All rehearsals.

All staged.

I never escaped Earth.

I was uploaded.

I came back to myself in the queen's lap, shuddering.

My fingers were bleeding from where I'd gripped my own palms too tightly.

[You okay?]

"No."

[Fair.]

"I was never chosen."

[Nope.]

"I was… a backup."

[But you survived. That's gotta count.]

The inquisitor stepped closer.

"You remember now?"

"Yes."

"Then you're ready for the next act."

Queen Ilyra rose.

"There's going to be a war. The gods are waking. And people believe in you."

She gestured to the window. To the square below. Where thousands chanted my name.

"If you play this right, you can rewrite the ending."

"What if I don't want to be the lead anymore?"

"Then pick your ending before someone else does."

I stared out at the crowd.

They didn't see a glitching actor, a scared fraud, a dead man.

They saw a saint.

...

I stood on the balcony overlooking the plaza.

Thousands had gathered below, holding candles, relics, and scrolls inked with the Spiral. They weren't chanting anymore.

They were waiting.

For a sign.

For me.

Glyph buzzed softly in my skull, like a ghost in low power mode.

[System reboot at 42%. Functionality limited. Do not attempt sarcasm.]

"Just keep my brain from melting," I whispered.

[I can delay the collapse. I can't undo the contamination.]

"Noted."

The queen was behind me now. The inquisitor too. Both flanking me like mismatched bookends—regal precision and quiet entropy.

"There needs to be a miracle," she said.

"I'm fresh out."

"We'll stage one. You'll bless the crowd. They'll see what they want. The Spiral will believe their god walks among them. The nobles will believe you're a pawn. And the gods—" she hesitated, "—the gods might hesitate."

The inquisitor spoke then. Calm. Cold.

"They've rewritten this story too many times. They're watching again. You have to give them something… unexpected."

"What do you suggest?"

"Break character."

Glyph twitched at that.

[That's dangerous.]

"Dangerous?" I laughed. "I've died. Been rewritten. Used as a divine sock puppet. What's left to lose?"

[Well, according to my last memory sync… your dignity. But that might already be gone.]

I stepped forward onto the dais.

The wind shifted. The sky cracked faintly—just a shimmer, like the reflection on broken glass. The glitch storm was building.

A miracle machine.

That's what they were turning me into.

An actor so good, even the gods believed the performance.

The spiral staff had been placed at the edge of the dais, gleaming faintly, as if remembering me. I didn't touch it.

I didn't need props anymore.

"Citizens of Vesche!" I shouted. "You came for a sign. So here it is."

I pulled the scroll from my pocket—the prophecy.

And tore it in half.

Gasps. Screams.

The queen stepped forward, startled. The inquisitor did not.

I raised my hands.

"Miracles aren't clean. They're not safe. They don't come from gods. They come from need."

[Jeremy—something's happening.]

I felt it too.

The air bent around me. Reality flexed.

And the Spiral lit up—not from me.

From the crowd.

From them.

A network of glowing marks began to shine—on skin, on paper, on altars and foreheads. The Spiral was alive, not because I made it so—but because they believed.

The miracle machine didn't need me to lie.

It needed me to break the script.

"I'm not Audric Solvane," I shouted. "I'm not a saint. I'm not a prophet. I'm a man who died on a stage and woke up in someone else's skin."

Gasps again. But no outrage.

Just silence.

A shared breath.

"I lied to live. I performed to survive. And I was good at it. But this—" I gestured to the world, to the air flickering like static, "—this isn't a play anymore. It's a prison. Built from belief."

The Spiral on the staff surged. It vibrated. And exploded into light.

Glyph flickered violently.

[System override. Memory partition unlocking. External influence detected.]

A second light source bloomed behind me.

I turned—

—and saw the inquisitor remove their mask.

And my heart stopped.

It was my face.

But older.

Noy just older--wrong. A face stretched over too many roles, seams showing at the

edges.

Not Audric. Not Jeremy.

Something else.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

He didn't speak.

He handed me a file.

Thin. Crumpled. Old.

I opened it.

Inside: a call sheet.

Marked TAKE 12.

Jeremy Pierce Blake – Understudy

Production Title: Divine Echoes: Pilot Loop

Status: REWRITE REQUIRED

I looked up.

He nodded once.

"You were never the original," he said. "None of us were."

A hundred memories surged. Lives lived in loops. Characters recycled. Tragedies staged.

And behind it all—something vast. Something corporate. A creative machine built to manufacture gods, miracles, and martyrs.

The Spiral wasn't divine.

It was editorial.

[Glyph reboot complete.]

"Glyph?"

[…Welcome back, Jeremy. You're not going to like this.]

"Say it."

[We've been trapped in a recursive simulation. Every death resets the loop. Every miracle adjusts the script.]

"How many loops?"

[This is Take 12.]

I dropped to my knees.

The crowd below still stared up.

The queen approached, slowly, hands open.

"We can use this," she said. "We can free ourselves."

"You knew?"

She nodded.

Touched her wrist and said "I died too"-revealing a faded barcode. "Once. Woke up rewritten. I remembered in fragments. Now you remember too. You're not alone."

The inquisitor—my future self, my failed self—turned and walked to the edge of the dais.

"If we don't finish this loop differently," he said, "they'll scrap us. Reset. Try again."

"How?"

"Do the one thing they can't expect."

"Which is?"

"Refuse the ending."

The glitch storm cracked above us, lightning flickering sideways, static bleeding down the sky like film burning in reverse.

"Glyph. Can I survive this?"

[…If you improvise hard enough.]

I stood.

Faced the crowd.

Their chants synced, voices flattening into a single tone— a studio audience track on loop.

And smiled.

"Then let's rewrite the miracle."

End of Chapter 15