The hill of quiet stone became the edge of a great slope. Below it, an open plain shimmered like water.
But it wasn't water.
It was reflection— a sea made of light and memory.
"This is where Witnesses are tested," said a voice I had heard before.
I turned.
It was me.
But not the older version. Not the tired eyes or the worn voice.
This one was perfect.
Hair clean. Posture strong. Eyes that had never known failure. A version of me that had never lost her. Never doubted himself. Never needed to build the Core to prove anything.
"I am who you could have been," he said. "If you had done it all right the first time."
He smiled—not with kindness, but with control.
"Are you ready to watch what you gave up?"
He stepped onto the shimmering plain. And the world around us shifted.
Suddenly I was inside a house I never built. Children laughed in rooms I never knew. The girl—I remembered her—stood by the window. Alive. Happy. Real.
The perfect me stood beside her.
"You chose the path of remembering," he said.
"I chose the path of living."
He looked at me. And for a moment, I wanted to stay. To become him. To walk through the illusion and forget.
But then I felt the glyph burn in my palm. The one born of loss.
It pulsed like a wound that refused to close.
"This isn't real," I said.
He frowned.
"It could have been."
"But it wasn't."
I raised the glyph.
It glowed with the ache of everything I gave up. Everything I earned by breaking.
"You're not the better version of me," I said. "You're the version that never tried."
The house shattered. The children vanished like dust in reverse.
And my perfect self began to crack— not from anger, but from truth.
"Then what are you?" he asked.
I stepped forward.
"I'm the one who remembers."
The reflection sea boiled away. And I stood alone.
But not empty.
In my hand, the glyph had changed. From the symbol of loss… to the mark of choice.
The realm responded. A new path unfolded. One made not of roads— but of names.
Names I had forgotten. And would now be forced to face.
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