The world begins to stutter.
Not just physically—but in meaning.
A bird flies, flaps once—and is suddenly a fish, flopping midair.
A child laughs, and the sound becomes color.
Mountains un-write themselves into sea.
Kael, Naia, and Evan stand in the eye of a storm that defies understanding.
Kael wipes blood from his mouth, struggling to stay anchored.
"Reality is folding. The Ninth doesn't change things—it changes what they were meant to be."
Evan grips his coat. "So what do we do?! How do you fight something that rewrites truth?"
Kael's answer is whispered. Fragile.
"We go to the First Door."
Naia freezes. "You said it was destroyed."
Kael shakes his head.
"No. I lied. I had to. Even to myself."
"The First Door was never locked. Because it never needed to be."
"It was where everything began."
"It was me."
They descend beneath the world.
Into a rift sealed by memory itself.
Iskra—still unconscious—is carried in Kael's arms. Her skin is now almost translucent, faint lines of code showing through her veins.
As they reach the base of the rift, a black expanse greets them.
A circle of stone etched with a single line:
DOOR 0: DO NOT OPEN
Kael places his hand on it.
The stone sighs.
And the Door does not swing open—it simply vanishes, as if it had only ever existed because someone believed it should.
Inside…
A white corridor.
Plain. Humble. Human.
Wooden floors. Soft lights. The scent of lavender.
At the end is a boy.
Sitting cross-legged, humming to himself.
He looks maybe eight years old.
His hair is black. His eyes mismatched—one green, one gold.
He looks up as Kael approaches.
Smiles.
"Took you long enough."
Kael's heart stops.
He knows this boy.
He dreamed about him before he ever built the Doors.
Before he ever knew magic or systems.
Before he was even Kael.
"You…" Kael whispers. "You're the first. The first version of me."
The boy nods.
"Not a version. The original. The wish."
"I never grew up."
"You did."
Naia watches them, wide-eyed. "What is this place?"
The boy taps the air.
The corridor shifts—becomes a garden, then a graveyard, then a home.
"This is the seed. The why."
"You built the Doors to escape this place."
"But every Door brought you closer back to it."
Kael's hands tremble.
"The Ninth is coming. We need to know how to stop it."
The boy tilts his head.
"Why stop it?"
Kael flinches.
"Because it'll erase everything."
The boy's voice softens.
"What if it's not erasing?"
"What if it's resetting?"
Kael staggers.
Memories flood him.
Not of battles.
But of a promise.
"When you forget who you are…"
"You'll come home."
"And start again."
The Ninth is not a destroyer.
It's a return.
A collapse not as death—but as rebirth.
But Naia is already gripping her blade.
"Kael, you can't believe that. If the Ninth rewrites everything, we lose ourselves. Our memories. Our people."
"You die."
Kael breathes slowly.
"Not die."
"Unwrite."
"And maybe… write better."
Suddenly, the boy gasps.
The Door behind them—Door 0—reforms.
But this time… it's open.
And through it steps the shape of the Ninth.
No face. No words.
Just the idea of every mistake Kael ever made, wearing the bones of possibility.
The boy grabs Kael's hand.
"One chance."
"One question."
"Ask it—before the Ninth decides for you."
Kael stares into the Ninth.
And asks:
"If we lose everything… will we still remember why we changed?"
The Ninth pauses.
Then folds inward.
Not an answer.
But an invitation.
Chapter 43 End