Chapter 16: Curtain Call

Curtain Call, Part I

[System Status: Memory sync stabilizing. Cognitive bleed at 8%. Glyph operating at 89% sarcasm capacity.]

I didn't sleep after the miracle.

Hard to nap when your fake resurrection ends with a screaming crowd, a possessed prince, and your own reflection mouthing "You're next."

Harder still when you realize the show isn't over.

Because Act One was a lie.

And now, the world expects a sequel.

We rode in silence.

Me, swaying half-conscious in a velvet-lined carriage that smelled like powdered incense and royal nerves.

Glyph, flickering faintly in the back of my skull like a stage light on its last bulb.

And the Queen's retinue—guards in silver-plated armor, faces blank, spears sharper than their personalities—flanking both sides of the road, just in case I tried to run.

(Again.)

[Status: Prophet-on-tour. Up next: Royal shrine. Re-sainting ceremony. High probability of surprise martyrdom.]

"I'm not a prophet," I muttered.

[Noted. Updating your branding to Divine Improv Consultant. Very marketable.]

"Where's Aurek?"

[Stable condition. Medics are saying 'divine trauma.' I say possession-lite with a splash of memory echo.]

"And the Queen?"

[Waiting. Smiling. Plotting.]

Outside the window, Castle Vesche fell behind us like a memory getting rewritten.

Ahead: the royal shrine at Silennoir.

It was originally built to house the bones of a fire-eater who allegedly hiccuped up a miracle mid-performance. Now it was hosting a holy man who couldn't remember which identity he'd worn when he died.

Spoiler: it's me.

We reached the shrine at dusk.

Torchlight flickered up its marble steps, casting long shadows across saints I didn't recognize—men and women frozen in holy agony, palms outstretched like they were begging the gods to stop the scene.

Maybe they knew how this ends.

Two guards helped me out of the carriage. I tried not to wobble like a drunk pageant queen.

Inside, the Queen waited beneath a stained-glass mural of the sun being stabbed by a spiral.

A bit on-the-nose.

She smiled.

"Lord Solvane. Or do you prefer Jeremy today?"

I stiffened. "Still deciding."

"Then let me help you choose." She offered a scroll sealed in gold wax. "The High Theurge has canonized your miracle. You're now the official Saint of the Second Flame."

[Oh good. You've been upgraded to myth.]

"And what does that mean exactly?"

"It means," she said, stepping closer, "you'll be performing another miracle. Publicly. In front of the High Council. And the Inquisitor's Eye."

"Which miracle?"

She smiled wider. "You'll know it when you see it."

[Translation: you're about to get Surprise Plotted.]

After the audience, I was escorted to a private chamber with walls lined in mirrored gold. An assistant draped me in ceremonial robes that smelled like embalmed hope. Glyph flickered as I paced.

"I can't do another miracle," I whispered.

[Sure you can. Miracle is just Latin for 'well-timed spectacle.']

"I nearly blacked out last time."

[So aim for a controlled blackout. Fake holy fainting is historically effective.]

"I'm not joking."

[Neither am I. You're the only saint who's ever crowdsourced his divinity.]

There was a knock.

A young page entered, holding a velvet-wrapped box.

"For the ritual," he said. "From the Queen."

Inside: a mask.

Porcelain. Red-glazed. Inquisitor-style.

Exactly like the one the real Inquisitor wore.

I stared at it.

"Is this a gift or a threat?"

The page fled without answering.

Ceremony Day.

The shrine's central hall was filled to bursting—nobles, clerics, cult survivors, and a few too-curious townsfolk all crammed together in reverent chaos. At the altar stood High Priest Edran. Still pale from my last performance. Still suspicious.

At the side: the real Inquisitor. Mask gleaming. Silent.

And at the center of it all—me.

Saint Jeremy.

No, wait.

Audric Solvane.

No, wait.

Both.

None.

I couldn't tell anymore.

[Memory sync: 84%. Personality drift minimal. Emotional bleed: spiking.]

I stepped up to the dais.

The Queen raised her hand.

"Saint Solvane has been touched by flame, death, and rebirth. Today, he will speak with the voice of the gods once more."

Murmurs.

The Inquisitor tilted their head. Watching.

Judging.

I raised my arms.

Glyph whispered: [Improvised Miracle Protocol ready.]

I took a breath.

Then it hit me.

A name.

Not mine.

Not Audric's.

But one I hadn't heard in over a decade.

Eliot Vale.

A character I'd played once in college.

He'd been a martyr. A liar. A boy who burned his own village and convinced the survivors it was a holy sign.

I stepped forward.

And became him.

"My children," I said, voice lower, more fragile than my own. "The Spiral does not promise salvation. Only transformation."

The room quieted.

"The river swallowed me. The fire rewrote me. And now I return—not as a man, but as memory."

[Light flare. Now.]

Glyph triggered a glow around my hands. Soft gold. Fake divinity.

A child gasped.

The Inquisitor didn't move.

I took out the red mask. Held it up.

"This was worn by those who judged. Those who erased us. But today—" I snapped it in half, "—we take it back."

The crowd erupted.

Half in awe.

Half in confusion.

I was sweating through three layers of sanctified silk.

But I wasn't done.

"I remember the scripts," I whispered. "The ones they buried in my skin. The ones I was forced to perform."

People leaned in.

"The world is not real. Not stable. It is a stage. And we are reciting roles."

[Okay, that's pushing it.]

The Inquisitor stepped forward.

"You speak of memory," they said. "But whose?"

I turned to them.

"My own. And not."

"You claim to be divine. Prove it."

Another test.

Another trap.

I reached into my robes.

Pulled out a broken shard from the fake relic I'd used at the Wyrm's Mouth. The hourglass piece.

Still warm.

Still humming.

I pressed it to my temple.

And for a moment—I saw it all again.

The mirrored cave.

The dead me in the river.

The face behind the glass.

And a new flash—

A call sheet.

Marked: TAKE 13 – FINAL EDIT

Jeremy Blake. Scene: Death Spiral. Director's Note: Rewrite again. No witnesses.

The vision shattered.

I dropped to my knees.

Breathing ragged.

The crowd surged forward, thinking it was all part of the act.

The Inquisitor didn't blink.

They just… nodded.

Like a cue had been given.

Like this was going exactly to script.

.....

Curtain Call, Part II

...…

[System Status: Glyph operating at 63% stability. Emotional logic processors degrading. Sarcasm filter… intermittent.]

The ceremony didn't end.

It collapsed.

A noblewoman fainted. A cleric vomited. Someone in the back dropped a candle and set an entire prayerbook on fire. All while I knelt, eyes wide, bleeding from the palm I pressed the shard into. Not part of the act. Not staged.

Real.

Too real.

[Warning: Dissociative loop detected. Audric/Jeremy distinction unstable. Role fragments resurfacing.]

"Get up," said a voice.

I blinked.

Not Glyph. Not the Queen.

The Inquisitor.

They were at my side, hand outstretched.

"Get. Up."

I took it.

Their grip was cold. Callused. Familiar.

For a second, I thought I saw the barcode again, faint under their glove. A broken product.

"Follow me," they said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere no one claps."

They dragged me out a side passage as the shrine dissolved into chaos.

Down hidden steps. Through flickering sconces and cracked frescoes of saints being eaten alive by symbolic beasts.

"Is this where you kill me?" I muttered.

The Inquisitor chuckled. "You're too useful."

We stopped before a black door.

They tapped a sequence into a small square carved into the wall.

It beeped.

No lock. Just recognition.

Behind it—light.

Cold, sterile, humming.

A hidden chamber. Modern. Not medieval.

Screens. Cables. Projection nodes.

The screens flickered—not with static, but with faces. Dozens of them. All mine. All slightly wrong.

Earth tech.

Glyph buzzed hard.

[Source match: 23rd-century temporal design. Unlawful memory splicing system. Warning: YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST HERE.]

"Welcome," said the Inquisitor, pulling off their mask. "To the archive."

I turned slowly.

The face beneath the mask wasn't unfamiliar.

Not quite.

Short hair. Burn scar down the jaw. Eyes too tired for their age.

They extended a hand.

"Hi. My real name's Cassidy."

That name unlocked a door in me I didn't know I had.

"You… you were my stage manager."

"Off-Broadway. Pre-Audric. Pre-death."

"You said I had 'potential,'" I murmured.

"You had more than that," they said. "You had range. That's why they picked you.

You could become anyone —even someone who didn't exist. And that made you perfect."

"For what?"

They turned to a screen.

It flickered to life.

A logo. Corporate. Faded.

VEILWORKS ENTERTAINMENT.

DIVINE FANTASY: ITERATION 5.

PROJECT FILE: "SAINT OR SINNER?"

Beneath it—my face.

Not Audric's.

Jeremy's.

File notes scrolled beneath.

CASTING: Blake, Jeremy. Backfill Actor. Reused template.

STATUS: Dead. Draft closed.

Override Detected. Resume?

I stumbled back.

"This is a simulation?"

"No," Cassidy said. "This is the remix."

They poured something like tea into cracked mugs. I didn't drink mine.

Cassidy spoke.

"You weren't supposed to wake up. You were slotted in to replace a failed character in Iteration 4. Your body was recycled. Your memories stitched. You were meant to perform your role and burn out quietly."

"I didn't."

"No. You improvised."

I paced.

"And the Queen?"

"She's from a previous iteration. She remembers fragments. That makes her unstable—but very, very invested in finishing the show."

"And the Inquisitor role?"

Cassidy sipped their tea. "Supposed to be a plot device. I hijacked it."

I stared at them.

"You're like me."

"No," Cassidy said. "I was like you. But I stopped pretending. You haven't."

[Memory sync warning: Identity anchor stress rising. Abort? Y/N]

"Why show me this now?"

"Because you're at the center. And you need to choose: do you want to keep playing the role? Or do you want to break the script?"

I didn't answer.

I couldn't.

Cassidy handed me a small data rod.

"It's a kill command," they said. "For the show. For the world."

"Why give me this?"

"Because the story's collapsing. If it ends wrong, you take everything with you."

"And if I trigger it?"

Cassidy smiled.

"The curtain drops. For good."

I left the archive dizzy.

Numb.

The Queen waited for me in the upper hall. Her gown shimmered like starlight dipped in blood.

"You're pale," she said.

"I saw the truth."

"Ah," she said. "That phase."

"I know about Veilworks. The Iterations. The file. Everything."

She stepped closer.

"And what will you do with that truth?"

I held up the data rod.

She didn't flinch.

Instead, she touched my cheek.

"You still think this world is less real than the last one."

"It's a performance."

"So is life," she said. "But this one is yours."

She pressed a kiss to my temple.

And whispered:

"If you break the script, you become the void. But if you finish it—truly finish it—you might get to rewrite it."

[Glyph Status: Flickering. Emotional interface degrading.]

She left me standing in the hall, shaking.

That night, I dreamed.

Of mirrors.

Of voices echoing down broken stages.

Of a little boy watching a fire and smiling, because it meant he didn't have to go home.

I woke up gasping.

Alone.

The data rod still in my pocket.

At dawn, I walked the gardens behind the shrine.

My head was buzzing.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

A crow landed near me. It stared.

Its eyes shimmered—silver, not black.

[System anomaly. High probability: messenger construct.]

I approached.

It cawed once.

Then burst into ash.

Revealing a scroll.

It read:

Final cue approaching.

You have 3 options:

Continue the role.

End the world.

Rewrite the script.

Choose.

After reading, the scroll burned away, leaving Jeremy with ash-stained fingers.

There was no sender.

I didn't tell anyone about the message.

Not even Glyph.

He was too quiet now.

Buzzing low.

Like something inside him was coming loose.

[Jeremy.]

"I'm here."

[Do you trust them? The Queen. Cassidy. Anyone?]

"No."

[Do you trust me?]

I hesitated.

"…Yes."

[Then let me show you something.]

A file opened in my vision.

A video.

Time-stamped.

Security cam footage.

A soundstage.

A fake alleyway.

And me.

Jeremy.

Struggling. Panicked.

And a woman.

Tall. Pale. Blonde.

My former agent.

Shoving me.

Hard.

I hit my head on the prop bench.

Blood spilled.

She whispered:

"Sorry, kid. You were too real."

Then everything went dark.

I dropped the rod.

Fell to my knees.

My death—was murder.

By someone who claimed to represent me.

Glyph didn't say anything.

He didn't have to.

Because now I remembered the whole thing.

The fall.

The betrayal.

The call sheet labeled "Last Take."

And the line I whispered before fading:

"Cut. Please… cut."

I stood up.

No longer Jeremy.

No longer Audric.

Not even Eliot Vale.

Just me.

The last man standing on a stage that was never mine.

That evening, as bells rang from the shrine tower, I returned to the dais.

The Queen stood at the center.

The crowd waited.

Glyph flickered once.

Then stabilized.

[Ready for final act.]

I took the stage.

Looked out at the crowd.

At Cassidy.

At the Inquisitor.

And I smiled.

Not holy.

Not tragic.

Not prophetic.

Just honest.

"I was never supposed to be here," I said. "And maybe neither were you."

"But we are."

"And that means we can choose."

I held up the data rod.

The crowd gasped.

Cassidy raised their hands.

The Queen did not move.

"I'm not a god," I said. "But I am an actor. And actors know how to end scenes."

I looked to the stars.

Then to the spiral etched into the sky above us.

"Lights," I whispered.

"Curtain."

"Cut."

And I pressed the rod into the altar.

The shrine pulsed.

The world shook.

Everything went dark.

[Whatever happens next— remember your lines. Even if they're the last ones.]

END OF CHAPTER 16