The path sloped downward again.
Always down.
Kael followed the bottle's faint pulse—no longer just green or blue, but a quiet swirl between.
Like it couldn't decide whose memory it carried anymore.
Or maybe it carried both.
The terrain changed.
Less ruin.
More intent.
Stone gave way to polished black floors,
etched in curling lines of text he couldn't read but somehow understood.
Language that didn't speak to the ear.
Only to memory.
The bottle flared.
A soft sound followed.
Like someone whispering into a well.
Then, across the far wall,
a gateway unfolded.
No doors.
Just an opening.
Beyond it—
The Archive.
It wasn't made of books.
It wasn't made of shelves.
It was made of voices.
Each one sealed into glowing spheres, suspended in the air like stars too tired to fall.
The bottle drifted from Kael's side,
hovered upward.
Selected one sphere.
Tapped it.
A voice filled the chamber.
Not loud.
But sharp.
Male.
Tired.
"Witness Log 14-B.
The boy failed. Again.
Every time they remember too much, it bends them backward."
Kael flinched.
The bottle chose another.
"Witness Log 09-E.
They try to be kind. But kindness is architecture.
We were built for structure. Not for mercy."
More spheres lit up.
A cascade of voices.
A storm of failed selves.
Some begging.
Some laughing.
Some too broken to be human anymore.
Kael dropped to his knees.
His breath shook.
The bottle returned to his side.
Dimmed.
Then flickered.
And played one last voice.
Not like the others.
Fresher.
Calmer.
And—
his.
"If I forget me—
Will I still count as me?"
"Or just as the version that survived?"
Silence.
Kael's mouth opened.
But no sound came out.
The bottle pulsed once.
Then settled.
A line etched itself across the floor:
"If your voice would echo for a thousand years—
Would you still say the same thing?"
Kael stood slowly.
Looked at the glowing spheres.
They no longer seemed like stars.
They seemed like questions.
All waiting for answers.
Or someone brave enough to say nothing.
He turned.
And walked out of the archive.
The bottle followed.