After receiving the First Sigil, the realm shifted again.
But this time, it did not dissolve or fracture.
It withered.
The colors faded. The sky lost its stars.
And before me, a path opened— but it looked sick.
Rot crept along the edges of once-living stone. The symbols in the air dimmed, like forgotten names.
And the scent… It wasn't death. It was failure.
"All Witnesses walk this path," whispered the realm.
"But not all leave it."
---
The garden appeared after a long silence.
It was vast. Endless rows of threads hung like vines, tangled and brittle. Some were severed. Others looped into themselves until they collapsed.
At the center stood a figure.
Bent. Hollow-eyed. Still breathing. But barely.
His body was covered in marks—glyphs that had decayed. Sigils cracked, burning softly with faded light.
"Another child of memory," he rasped. "Too late for me, I'm afraid. But not too late for you."
He gestured, and the threads quivered. Each one pulsed with a broken story.
I walked among them. And felt their weight.
A boy who remembered too many wars he never fought. A girl who re-lived a mother's death until her mind split. A Witness who remembered being erased—and became the erasure itself.
The threads sang in whispers.
"This is what happens," the man said,
"when we hold without weaving."
"You must never hoard memory, Lyan." "You must make it part of something greater."
---
He fell to his knees. And as I stepped closer, I saw his face— it was… almost mine.
Not in age. Not in exact form.
But in intent.
This man had once built a Core. He had once searched for truth.
But he got lost in what he found.
"What is your name?" I asked.
He looked up. Tears without water. Eyes without reflection.
"I don't remember," he said. "I gave it away to save someone. And then… forgot who."
---
He offered me his hand. Within it, a single broken Sigil. A mark of something once powerful. Now just a wound.
"Take it," he said. "Not as strength. As warning."
I accepted. And the moment I did—
The threads began to burn. Each broken line collapsing in golden ash.
The garden, his prison, was ending. And he smiled.
"Maybe now, I'll finally forget everything."
"Maybe now, I'll sleep."
He faded with the light. And where he stood, the realm left a message:
"To witness is divine."
"To weave is responsibility."
"To become memory itself… is damnation."
---
I stood alone in a new void.
But now I held two Sigils: One born of truth. One born of failure.
And before me, a door. Carved not of wood, or metal— but of decision.
"Only those who choose," the realm whispered,
"may pass through."
---