Behind the gate, there was no sound.
No light.
No texture.
Only questions.
They drifted like snow made of breath, each whispering truths Elías had never spoken aloud.
— "What do you regret most?"
— "Which lie kept you warm?"
— "Who did you leave behind, on purpose?"
Each step forward was like walking through silk spun from guilt.
Tirian followed, but said nothing.
Here, even silence had weight.
---
The corridor bent in ways that mocked physics.
Corners folded into themselves.
Stairs went upward but descended.
Once, Elías stepped through a doorway that led into his own memory — a version of himself sobbing in a temple made of hands.
He kept moving.
The pen-feather no longer glowed.
It pulsed with warning.
---
They emerged in a dome of mirrors.
But none reflected them.
Only strangers.
Or worse — possibilities.
A girl with Elías's eyes, but her face half-burned by holy fire.
A man with Tirian's frame, but carrying chains instead of swords.
A version of Elías crowned in ash, worshipped by corpses.
Another, smiling, with no shadow at all.
---
"What is this place?" Tirian asked.
Elías stepped toward one of the mirrors.
It rippled when he neared.
He reached out—
But a voice cracked across the dome:
"Choose only one."
A figure appeared.
Not man.
Not god.
A question made flesh.
Its skin was ink-stained parchment, its limbs jagged quills, and its head a scroll endlessly unfolding into fire.
Eyes like torn pages.
Voice like a forgotten prayer.
"You may rewrite one fate," it said.
"One truth may become untrue.
But it will cost you."
---
Elías didn't speak.
Not yet.
He looked at the mirrors.
The girl with his eyes was crying.
The corpse-king was laughing.
The one with no shadow stared back.
Tirian touched his shoulder.
"You don't have to choose."
Elías nodded.
"But I already did."
---
He stepped into the mirror with no shadow.
There was no resistance.
Only replacement.
He emerged not changed — but aligned.
As if he'd stepped closer to the version of himself most willing to bear what came next.
The Question watched.
Approved.
Vanished.
---
The dome crumbled.
And below them: a city.
Not the one they left.
A new one.
Made of memory.
Streets shaped like timelines.
Homes built from stories.
People carved from maybe.
The city was called:
"Remembra."
And it was dying.
---
The sky above Remembra bled ink.
The ground pulsed like flesh trying to forget pain.
Towers collapsed and reformed in real time.
A child cried, and her tears turned to books.
An old man screamed, and the scream looped — trapped in a time bubble that kept playing his last moment.
---
They entered the city through a gate made of regret.
And immediately, something found them.
Not human.
Not monster.
A Gleamer — a creature made from broken recollection, long fingers scraping through thought, feeding on misremembered sins.
It lunged for Tirian.
Elías wrote a word in the air.
Just one:
"Truth."
The Gleamer exploded.
---
The city responded.
For a moment, time froze.
Every citizen looked up — their faces melting, re-forming, as if they were trying to decide who they once were.
A statue fell.
It didn't break.
It screamed.
---
A woman stepped forward.
Eyes stitched shut.
Hair of silver smoke.
She bowed to Elías.
"You wear the mark of the Feather."
"I don't seek worship," he said.
"You won't get it here," she replied.
"Only purpose."
---
She led them to the Tower of Unfinished Stories.
Each floor held a war that was never fought.
A love never confessed.
A betrayal undone before it began.
On the final floor:
A throne — untouched.
And above it, words burned into the air:
"The Next God Must Choose."
---
"Choose what?" Elías asked.
The woman smiled.
And removed her stitches.
Her eyes bled memories.
"Whether this world burns…
Or remembers."
---
Tirian spoke, finally.
"And what happens if he chooses neither?"
She turned to him.
"Then the story writes itself."
And none of you survive.
---
Elías looked at the throne.
The Feather pulsed.
Behind him, Remembra wept.
Ahead, only questions.
And beneath his skin, a name began to form…
Not the one he was born with.
Not the one he had written.
But the one the world wanted.
---
He refused.
And for the first time, the Tower shook.
Elías turned to the woman.
"I choose to rewrite the choice."
---
The throne cracked.
And through the fracture came a light.
Not warm.
Not cold.
Liberating.
It whispered only one word:
"Begin."
---
Question for the reader:If the story let you choose your fate… would you be brave enough to write a different ending than the one you dreamed?