Chapter 17 : Stage Directions for the Damned

Glyph's voice returned with the gentle urgency of a bomb technician talking down a caffeinated hostage.

[Okay. Don't scream. Don't panic. But you're standing in the middle of a miracle you didn't plan.]

I stared at the air above Prince Aurek's body, where a glowing spiral of gold light hovered—spinning, slowly. The aura pulsed with each heartbeat. The problem was that Aurek was still very much dead. And yet… the spiral glowed.

Around me, the Temple Council, Queen Ilyra, and half a dozen royal watchers knelt in reverent awe. Even the Inquisitor stood still.

No one was speaking.

Because miracles weren't supposed to look improvised.

But they hadn't seen the half-dissolved Spiral staff I'd used as a prop still smoldering by the altar.

They hadn't seen my fingers twitching with panic, or the way my breath caught every time Glyph buzzed static in my skull like a busted modem.

[Jeremy. I don't think we faked this.]

"No," I whispered, backing up from the prince's bier. "We never could've."

The light curled like incense smoke. Spirals within spirals. A soft hum filled the air—not loud, not musical. Just there. Like the after-echo of a theatre whisper.

Then Prince Aurek sat up.

Gasps all around.

One priest fainted.

Aurek blinked at the spiral. At me. At his own hands.

Then he spoke.

"Where is the river?" he said softly. "Where is the blood?"

[Oh no. He's channeling.]

"What river?" Queen Ilyra demanded, rising from her seat.

"The Wyrm's Mouth," Aurek replied. "But upside down. Full of teeth. The water screamed my name."

He looked directly at me.

"And you," he said. "You lied."

Shit.

...…

Title: "Act Three, Scene Two"

The velvet curtain rose again—not literally, but the sensation pulsed through me like a muscle memory. The way the cold air thickened. The way the air paused before an entrance.

I was back on stage.

Except this stage had blood in the cracks and too many eyes in the dark.

Glyph's voice buzzed low and dry in my skull.

[Mic check: You good, Broadway? You've got two nobles watching, one dying prince, and zero miracles left in stock.]

"You're not helping," I muttered, tilting my head toward Prince Aurek's bed. His body barely moved beneath the silks and divination glyphs. His chest stuttered on each breath like it couldn't remember how lungs worked.

[Neither am I, if you're asking whether he's salvageable. Vital signs: dismal. Brainwaves: glitched. Overall prognosis: sucks.]

Queen Ilyra sat beside her son, all steel and sorrow, her fingers ghosting over his wrist like she could will a pulse back into rhythm. Behind her, Inquisitor Varin hovered silently—unmasked now. Tired. Watching me with eyes that weren't just from this world.

And then, the room shifted.

Not physically.

Narratively.

The silence thickened. The scene wanted a turning point.

I stepped forward.

"Your Majesty," I said, voice smooth, rich, rehearsed, "you summoned me to work a miracle. Allow me."

Queen Ilyra's face didn't change. But her voice was frost-laced.

"You've faked miracles before."

I didn't flinch. "Yes. And sometimes fakes work better than faith."

The line hung there. Sharp enough to gut a room.

Glyph hissed.

[Too spicy. You're toeing the divine contempt line. The Inquisitor just raised his murder eyebrow.]

I approached the bed slowly.

The prince looked half-dead. Worse, half-forgotten. Like the world had already started erasing him.

He looked like I did in the mirror two chapters ago.

"Glyph," I whispered, "give me a readout."

[His core spell lattice is collapsing. I can stabilize it for maybe five minutes. After that? He's one bad plot twist from permanent blackout.]

"I need more than five minutes."

[Then improv faster.]

I closed my eyes and let the performance begin.

[Method Actor: Activated]

Target Persona: Prince Aurek Vesche (Projected Echo)

Duration: 10 minutes before voice instability

Warning: Prolonged use may induce recursive memory bleed.

My voice dropped into a tone that wasn't mine. Softer. Familiar. Regal.

"Mother?" I whispered, mimicking Aurek's cadence.

The Queen froze.

So did Varin.

Glyph's voice screeched like bad radio static.

[Jeremy, this is beyond risky—]

I leaned forward and spoke again, still using the prince's voice.

"Let me go."

I wasn't speaking to them. I was speaking to the enchantment. The divine script etched in agony across the prince's skin. I was pushing against it with performance.

With belief.

I laid a hand over the boy's chest.

"Let me go," I repeated, gentler now. "The play isn't over."

The glyphs flared. One burst like a shattered wineglass. The prince spasmed once, gasped—and then—

He opened his eyes.

The wrong color.

Bright gold. Glowing.

Everyone in the room gasped. Even Varin.

Glyph screamed in my head.

[That's not resurrection. That's possession! You just opened a narrative bleed!]

Too late.

Prince Aurek sat up.

But it wasn't Aurek anymore.

The thing inside him turned to look at me with the weight of a thousand spotlights.

"You summoned me," it said. "Prophet. Actor. Echo."

The Queen backed away. Her face pale.

"In the name of the Spiral," I whispered, heart slamming against my ribs, "who are you?"

"I am the Audience."

SCENE BREAK

...…

"Act Three, Scene Two"

The silence that followed wasn't empty.

It was listening.

The Audience—whatever wore Prince Aurek's body now—tilted its head like a curious child. Its gold-lit eyes flickered with stage-light clarity, but its smile never reached them. It didn't blink.

Didn't need to.

Glyph was losing it in my skull.

[Okay, we are officially out of our genre. That thing is not a ghost, not a demon, and not a hallucination. It's—Jeremy, it's meta.]

"Define meta," I whispered under my breath.

[It's breaking narrative walls. It knows it's in a story. Worse, it knows you know.]

"Jeremy?" Queen Ilyra's voice cracked, shaky and low. "What is this?"

The thing that wasn't her son answered for me.

"He opened the curtain."

I stood frozen.

Performance paralysis.

It felt like I was back on Earth, stage left, right before the cue lights. Only this time, the audience was… breathing.

"You've gone off-script," the thing said to me. "That's not allowed. That's rude."

"I didn't mean to open anything," I said aloud. "I was trying to—"

"To survive?" The voice oozed mock-sympathy. "That's fair. You always were adaptable. Prop Maker. Shape Thief. Scene Partner."

It turned its head to Queen Ilyra.

"But he lied to you," it said sweetly. "This miracle isn't holy. It's his act. Would you like to see the rehearsal notes?"

A swirl of light flickered in the air—pages fluttering, annotated script lines, prop schematics with my handwriting.

My real handwriting.

Ilyra recoiled.

Varin didn't move.

The inquisitor was locked on me like I was the only anchor in a storm of unreality.

And I was. That was the terrifying part.

"I don't care what you are," I said, stepping toward the bed. "You don't get to wear him. You don't get to use my performance like it's yours."

The gold in its eyes deepened.

"Oh?" the Audience whispered. "But you used his. Audric's. Elias's. J. Pierce's. All those borrowed skins. Now one's borrowing you back."

The light in the room warped—subtly, like heat haze—and for one flickering second, I saw myself in the prince's place.

My original body.

My original face.

Dead-eyed. Lips parted. A marionette on invisible strings.

And I remembered.

MEMORY BLEED TRIGGERED

Fall of the Magelords, Los Angeles. A black box theater. Cold coffee and stage blood. A red light blinking backstage. Someone yelling: "Jeremy, hit your cue!"

Then—

A fall.

A camera rolling.

A voice whispering: "Cut."

I staggered. Glyph scrambled to stabilize me.

[WARNING. Identity fracture at 61%. Timeline leak probable.]

"What are you?" I asked the thing again.

It didn't answer this time.

Just smiled wider, and blinked.

And when it did—

The world reset.

SCENE SHIFT – THEATER REALITY BLEED

We weren't in the prince's bedroom anymore.

We stood on a stage.

Actual theater.

Red velvet curtains. Spotlight above. Dust motes dancing.

And an audience sat in the blackness beyond the footlights. Rows and rows and rows of shadows with glowing eyes.

Glyph's voice was barely a whisper now.

[You're inside the bleed. This is a projection of story-space. They built this.]

"They who?"

[Whoever wrote your death.]

The Audience was center stage now, still wearing Aurek's face.

But not his body.

It had changed.

Its skin now shimmered with flickers of other roles.

Audric.

Elias.

Even my Earth face.

All fused. All fractured.

A performance reel stitched into a skin.

"You died, Jeremy," it said. "And instead of ending, you improvised. Clever little cheat."

"I didn't choose to—"

"But you played along. You lied your way into sainthood. You gave them miracles. You made them believe."

It stepped closer.

"And now? Now they're watching. The ones behind the veil. The ones who want the show to go on."

I whispered: "What happens if I stop acting?"

The lights dimmed. The air thickened.

"Then the scene ends," it said. "And we bring on your understudy."

From the wings, a figure stepped out.

Same height. Same build. Same clothes.

But perfect.

Flawless.

Me—but without doubt. Without cracks. A version of myself written right.

The main character I was never supposed to be.

And his eyes were cold.

END OF CHAPTER 17