Chapter 21: The Miracle That Choked

The miracle wasn't just dying—it was unspooling. Golden light unraveled into viscous strands, splattering across marble like a dropped film reel. The crowd's screams hit a frequency I last heard when my stunt double missed the airbag.

Not metaphorically. The "sacred flame" the Queen had so delicately conjured had just collapsed mid-air, splashed down onto the stage, and turned into something sticky and horrifyingly alive. A wet, wriggling shape spasmed in the ash where a divine sigil used to be. People in the front row started retching.

And then the choir began to clap.

[Okay, wow. That's either mass hysteria or peak theater school denial.]

"Glyph," I whispered, frozen on the raised marble stage beside the Queen, "what the hell was that thing?"

[Cross-referencing. Possibilities: 40% failed summoned homunculus, 35% ancient parasite, 20% miscast illusion using blood magic. 5%… well, you don't want to know.]

The Queen hadn't moved. Her posture was perfect. Hands folded. Smile beatific. She stared at the squirming miracle with all the serenity of a Sunday school painting. But her eye twitched.

That told me everything.

This wasn't just a failed spell.

This wasn't her failure.

It was mine.

Or that's what she was about to make the world believe.

I stepped forward quickly, inserting myself between her and the dripping thing on the floor. The crowd murmured, gasped—hungry for explanation.

Time to act.

I raised both arms dramatically.

"Behold! A test! The gods send not only light, but trial!"

[Going with 'divine midterm exam,' huh? Bold.]

A holy sister fainted near the incense stands. Someone sobbed.

"The miracle was real!" I shouted. "But it passed through corrupted air, through our doubt, and now it reflects what we are!"

The squirming mass stopped twitching.

Then it looked at me.

No, really. It looked at me—no eyes, no face, just a sagging, wet glob—but somehow, I felt it like a stage light in my spine.

"Glyph. Did it just imprint on me?"

[Yes. Congratulations. You're now its dad. Or prophet. Or… food.]

The Queen finally moved. Just a single step back, regal as ever, but the illusion was cracked now. Her fingers clenched tighter than a curtain call.

She knew the performance had slipped.

And the audience—dozens of nobles, clergy, zealots, spies—were starting to smell it.

Uncertainty.

The worst possible energy in a crowd.

"We must contain it," a robed priest cried. "It's unholy!"

"Let it speak," someone else shouted. "He brought it!"

I turned. That voice—

The inquisitor. Cloaked, mask gleaming under torchlight. Still in the front row. Still watching only me.

[He's not intervening. Which means he wants to see what happens when this show goes off-script.]

The blob twitched again.

And then—gods save me—it spoke.

Not in words. In sounds.

My voice.

Garbled, echoed, like someone trying to speak through water and memory.

"…not the first… not the last… rewriting… failed…"

"Glyph?"

[That thing is quoting your death.]

The crowd was dead silent now. Even the Queen didn't blink.

I swallowed.

And leaned closer to the slime.

"You know me?"

The blob jiggled. Not yes. Not no. Something older than both.

Then it hissed, and—with a sudden, painful pulse of light—burst into ash.

No blood. No slime. No cleanup crew required.

Just absence.

And silence.

A beat passed.

Then the Queen smiled again, loud and brilliant.

"A miracle," she declared. "And a warning."

Her voice carried across the marble square. Half the crowd dropped to one knee.

But not all of them.

Not anymore.

...…..

...…..

The Queen's chambers were exactly what you'd expect from a woman who could weaponize sainthood: beautiful, cold, and mirrored on too many surfaces.

Guards escorted me in with ceremonial stiffness, then vanished like we hadn't just summoned a sentient miracle and watched it dissolve into stage ash. Her Majesty stood with her back to me, bathed in the late afternoon light filtering through crystal windows. On a pedestal beside her sat Mercy's Timer—the new version. Recast. Cleaned. Perfect.

It ticked.

"Your Grace," I said, keeping my voice steady.

She didn't turn.

"You're getting too clever," she said. "That blob was not in the script."

I laughed. Not on purpose.

"You think I summoned that?"

"You don't need to. You're a walking script error. Things gather around you now—glitches, echoes, unapproved miracles." She turned at last. Her face was serene. Her eyes were nuclear.

[Don't blink. She's trying to rewrite you again.]

"You lied well today," she said, circling me. "You turned a disaster into devotion."

"Wasn't that the point?"

She stopped. Close enough that I could smell roses—and something faintly metallic.

"No. The point was control."

The word rang.

Like it had too many times in my first life.

"You're planning to kill me," I said, flat.

"No," she replied, and that one syllable was too smooth. Too rehearsed. "I'm planning to complete you. The martyr story doesn't work if the saint lives forever. But the miracle of your sacrifice? That can anchor generations."

I felt my breath lock.

"You want to canonize me posthumously."

"A beautiful funeral," she said, eyes sparkling. "With a staged ascension. And your last words echoing across every kingdom."

[Jeremy, do not punch the queen. I repeat: this is not the moment to—]

"Why not pick someone else?" I snapped. "One of your many holy sycophants?"

"Because they don't glitch," she said, voice cold. "You came back wrong. You remember too much. You bend belief. And people see it. They crave it. So I'll use you."

My hands curled into fists.

"What if I don't cooperate?"

"Oh," she said. "Then you'll fail your final miracle. Publicly. Horribly. You'll beg for death—and I'll grant it."

She smiled again.

"Or you can write your ending with me. Heroically. Silently. Gloriously."

I stared at her.

And realized something worse than betrayal.

She wasn't just using me.

She believed this was mercy.

Outside the Queen's chamber, I collapsed onto a bench in the corridor like a ghost without a script.

[We need to leave. Now. Like, hot exit.]

"She's going to kill me," I whispered.

[Yes. In the best-dressed way possible.]

"Glyph, scan the miracle corpse footage again. Was there any traceable origin? Any caster mark?"

[Working… Processing… Bingo.]

A flicker of static ran through my vision. Glyph's interface pulsed blue.

[Residual fragment from the slime-blob. Repeating signal embedded in its death spasm.]

A distorted voice played—my voice again—but cracked like a VHS tape.

"…call sheet… take twelve… she never forgave…"

My stomach twisted.

The same phrase the inquisitor used.

"Glyph, that's from Earth. From my final project."

[Confirmed. Production metadata. That miracle didn't just glitch.]

"It was cast from the original timeline."

[A callback. A recursive echo.]

I stood, every nerve on fire.

"She tried to overwrite me. But someone else is trying to overwrite her."

A scream echoed down the corridor.

Then another.

I turned.

A young acolyte stumbled into view—wild-eyed, sobbing.

"There's another one!" she cried. "Another prophet! He—he's in the square! He's—you have to see—"

I didn't wait.

I ran.

...…..

...…..

The city square was a choked artery of bodies, banners, and belief.

Clerics screamed. Nobles gawked. Farmers dropped baskets of turnips in sheer prophetic whiplash. At the center of it all, glowing faintly like a miracle on discount, stood—

Me.

Or rather, someone wearing my face.

Not Audric Solvane's noble jawline.

Not Elias Gray's grim hero smirk.

Not any of my roles.

Jeremy Blake. Earthborn. Before the casting couch. Before the fall. Before the afterlife.

The crowd didn't know that, of course. To them, it was just another divine vision with better lighting.

[Processing facial structure… Match confirmed. That is your original template, J. Blake. But it's not… alive.]

"What does that mean?"

[Biological signature is artificial. Zero heartbeat. Skin integrity slightly too perfect. Voice has synthetic reverb.]

"He's an AI?"

[Or a proxy. Someone built this.]

He turned.

The Fake Me raised one glowing hand and the crowd gasped.

"My children," he intoned, "you have been deceived."

The square fell into stunned silence.

"She has used you. The Miracle of the Flame? Fabricated. The Prophet's Tears? Staged. Mercy's Timer? A prop."

[I hate how accurate he is.]

The clone's eyes locked onto mine.

"The man you call a prophet is nothing. A copy. A liar. A failed rewrite."

My stomach dropped.

[He knows. About you. About… us.]

"I am the First Casting," the clone said, louder now, feeding off crowd silence. "I remember the original arc. The lost ending. The fire in the green room. The rewrite."

I pushed forward, elbowing through believers and skeptics alike.

"That's enough!"

He turned his whole body now, like a performer hitting his mark. My mark.

"Jeremy Blake," he said. "The understudy. The one they slid into the story after the first version collapsed. You were never meant to last this long."

I didn't answer.

Couldn't.

He stepped down from the plinth.

"I watched them erase me," he said, voice growing softer. "Watched them recast my death. Repurpose my footage. The queen… was only a producer. But the real showrunners? They've been directing this from the start."

[We're losing the crowd. Half of them are crying. A third are kneeling. One guy just painted your name on a goat.]

"And now?" the clone whispered, reaching out his hand. "Now we take it back."

He flicked his fingers.

Light exploded behind him—glyphs, screens, reels of glitchy memory projecting into the air like holographic scars.

My death played back.

On repeat.

The fall. The impact. The rewind.

"I remember," he said. "And so will they."

People screamed.

Some from horror.

Some from recognition.

Because in that flickering memory reel, I wasn't the only one dying.

There were others.

Faces I didn't recognize. Actors? Versions? Failed iterations?

[They were test runs, Jeremy. This world has loops. Cast. Cut. Rewritten. You're just the latest line in a script no one can finish.]

"Shut it down!" shouted a bishop, rushing toward the projection.

The clone smiled.

Too wide.

Too rehearsed.

"No," he said. "Let the audience see."

The sky above us shimmered—just faintly, just wrong.

For one second, the sun blinked.

Then glitched.

[Jeremy. He's tearing the stage. If this keeps up—reality fractures.]

"What do I do?"

[Beat him at his own genre.]

I stepped forward and raised my voice, old stage instincts flaring like emergency lights.

"You want truth?" I shouted. "Then let's tell it. I'm not a saint. I never was. I lied. I bluffed. I performed. But so did everyone else!"

I pointed to the bishops. The priests. The queen's agents circling the edges.

"They built a lie and told you it was holy! I just had the decency to use better lighting."

Murmurs. Ripples.

One child clapped.

I kept going.

"This man says he's the First. Fine. Maybe he is. Maybe I'm the understudy. But guess what?"

I looked straight at the clone.

"I stayed. I bled. I remembered. You're a rerun. A recorded line on autoplay. I'm the one still improvising."

[Jeremy, that was hot. Also, the queen is watching from the cathedral balcony.]

I didn't care.

Let her hear.

The clone stepped closer.

Face unreadable.

"You'll lose," he said softly. "You think you're the hero. But you're just the intermission."

He raised one hand.

The crowd trembled.

The sky cracked again.

[Jeremy. We have to stop him. He's channeling raw meta-narrative. That much distortion will collapse the arc.]

"Options?"

[You know what they always say.]

"What?"

[Kill your darlings.]

I lunged.

Too fast for doubt.

Too stupid for strategy.

But just fast enough to tackle my own clone off the plinth and into the fountain below.

Jeremy's hands flicker to Audric's (clean, manicured) mid-fight

We hit hard—stone, water, holy fish statues.

People screamed.

The clone's skin sparked.

His body flickered.

He pushed me back, eyes wild. "You'll erase us both!"

"Maybe," I said, pinning his arms, "but I'm not going out as a footnote."

His fingers twitched—then froze.

Water pooled around us.

Light rose again—but not from him.

From me.

[Oh no.]

"Glyph?"

[You triggered something. A buried line of code. A… fail-safe.]

"What kind of fail-safe?"

[The kind that rewrites the lead.]

The clone screamed.

Light exploded again.

But this time—it didn't come from him.

It devoured him.

Whole.

And when it cleared?

I was alone in the fountain.

Shaking. Sputtering.

And the crowd was kneeling.

Every last one.

A child in front doesn't bow—

just stares, repeating

"That's not how the story goes"

...

...

I stood in the holy fountain like a bad baptism gone rogue—soaked, shaking, and covered in glowing aftershocks.

The fake me was gone.

Erased? Absorbed? I didn't know.

But the weight in my chest had doubled.

Like I wasn't alone in here anymore.

[Hey, buddy. You okay?]

Glyph's voice warbled—like an old radio trying to scream underwater.

"Glyph—what's happening?"

[Static… echo threshold breached… too many voices… J. Pierce, don't panic, but your memory ID is overwriting itself.]

"What does that mean?"

[Means you've absorbed a full template. Not just data. Consciousness imprint.]

I staggered back as the sky rippled.

A thousand whispers flooded my ears.

Lines. Scenes. Auditions I'd never done.

Scripts I'd never read.

Except… I had.

Hadn't I?

"You can't rewrite me," I whispered, voice cracking. "I'm not a script."

[Correction: you're now two leads sharing one runtime.]

The crowd remained silent.

Kneeling.

Some whispered prayers. Others wept.

And at the cathedral's high balcony—flanked by masked guards and stained-glass saints—the Queen watched.

Not smiling.

Just calculating.

I knew that look.

That was a producer staring down a live meltdown and rewriting the finale in her head.

A page was handed to me. An official summons.

Audience with Her Majesty. Immediate. Private. Mandatory.

"Of course," I muttered. "Because what's a climax without the showrunner stepping in?"

[Warning. Emotional spike detected. Tread carefully. She's planning something.]

"She always is."

The palace loomed like a wedding cake laced with arsenic.

Too clean. Too symmetrical. Too fake.

Glyph flickered every few steps.

[Still glitching. New voice fragments detected. Playback… paused.]

"Good."

I didn't want to hear him.

The fake me.

The other me.

The real me?

I didn't know anymore.

The throne room was empty.

No courtiers. No guards. Just candles and silence.

And the Queen.

Seated. Alone. Wearing black.

"I watched your miracle," she said softly. "You were magnificent."

"You saw me absorb a synthetic corpse and survive it."

"Same thing."

I said nothing.

She gestured.

"I thought you'd come alone."

I hesitated.

"…Glyph?"

[Still here.]

"Always," I said. "Even when I'm not sure who 'I' is anymore."

The Queen rose.

Her eyes were unreadable.

"You've changed."

"Funny. I feel like I've multiplied."

"Good," she said. "Then you're finally ready."

"For what?"

Her hand slid beneath her cloak. Produced a familiar object.

The same script scroll from the Spiral cult.

But rewritten.

Updated.

Stamped with a new seal.

And a line at the top:

"Call Sheet: Final Miracle – One Prophet Only"

I went still.

"You're killing me off."

"No," she said. "I'm giving you the perfect ending."

"That's the same thing."

She stepped closer.

"Jeremy, this world isn't real."

"No kidding."

"It's a project. A pocket stage. A rewrite lab. The old gods are just financiers. But the audience? They believe. And now you've become something we can't control."

"Good."

"Not for long. If you stay broken, the story fractures. It's already bleeding into the others."

"Others?"

"Other arcs. Other worlds. Other—" she caught herself. "You saw them. At the river. In the fountain."

"Yeah. And I'm still here."

"You won't be for long," she said. "Unless we cast you properly."

She held up the scroll.

"Final rewrite. You get to choose your ending. But only one of you walks away."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then the audience decides."

[She's serious, Jeremy. This is a finale pitch.]

"She's turning me into a ratings stunt."

"No," the Queen said. "I'm offering you the lead role—for real this time. You get to shape the last miracle. But first, you have to kill your ghost."

"My ghost?"

She tilted her head.

"The version of you that still thinks this is all pretend."

I backed away.

"Not happening."

"Then you'll fracture."

She let the scroll drop.

Ink forms Jeremy's real signature from his Veilworks contract

[Jeremy… she's invoking high-tier narrative compression. This arc will collapse if we don't finalize your identity.]

"I don't want to pick."

"Too late," the Queen said.

"Who are you?" I asked.

She smiled.

And then she said it.

Her real name.

Three syllables.

Not royal.

Not fantasy.

Not even this world's phonetics.

It was my agent's name.

[ALERT. Confirmed: Earth Identity Match. Cassandra M—]

"Stop," I hissed. "You're not her."

"I was," she said. "In the first version."

Then she vanished.

Not teleported.

Just cut.

Like a scene ending early.

I stood alone.

Scroll at my feet.

Sky above warped.

Glyph buzzed back to life.

[Recording this: Segment complete. Arc fracture at 72%. Fate fork imminent.]

"Meaning?"

[Next choice you make rewrites reality.]

"…Great."

END OF THE CHAPTER 21