"They don't kill for gods anymore. They kill for what they think is true."
---
Auren didn't feel the city at first.
He smelled it.
Not incense.
Not blood.
Ash.
The scent clung to the wind like memory — acrid, sacred, and wrong.
As he stepped beneath the crumbling stone arch that once read Welcome to Serev, he noticed the last two letters had been violently scratched off.
Now it simply said:
SERVE.
---
The streets were loud — but not with joy.
They were loud with certainty.
Men and women shouted philosophies like merchants selling fruit.
"Truth is pain!"
"Pain is illusion!"
"Nothing is sacred except my will!"
Auren moved through them like a ghost, unnoticed.
Or maybe just unimportant.
But everywhere he looked, someone was being corrected.
Not reasoned with.
Not challenged.
Corrected.
---
In the square, a man stood still as a woman calmly drove a knife into his chest.
She whispered something in his ear — tender, even loving.
Then he collapsed.
Auren stepped forward, horrified.
A passerby glanced at him and said flatly, "He claimed dreams had meaning. That's a corrupt idea."
No guilt. No panic. Just... belief doing its job.
---
Children played with bone-dice and broken scriptures.
A woman burned pages of philosophy and danced on the ashes, chanting:
> "What I feel is real.
What I believe is clean.
What I know is mine.
And mine alone."
Auren stumbled back.
This wasn't a city.
It was a crucible.
Every person was a god, every thought a blade.
And they wielded their "truths" like weapons without hesitation.
---
Then came the scream.
High. Sharp. Too young.
Auren ran.
Down a narrow alley streaked with holy graffiti, he found them:
A boy — no older than ten — held down by three masked figures.
Their robes were stitched with belief-slogans.
Their faces were hidden behind parchment masks.
One of them held a branding rod glowing red-hot.
On it: the word CLARITY.
The boy thrashed. "I didn't mean to lie! I just said I saw a star talk! That's all!"
Auren's fists clenched.
The rod hissed. The crowd watched — passive, polite.
"STOP!" Auren shouted, stepping forward, voice like thunder.
One robed figure turned.
"Who interrupts truth's cleansing?"
"I said—"
But he didn't finish.
---
A hand gripped his chest from the side and pulled him into shadow.
"Ah-ah," a voice whispered. "Wouldn't do that if I were you."
Auren turned sharply.
A man with a crooked hat. Mismatched boots. Teeth too sharp for comfort.
Eyes too bright to be sane.
Myrr.
"Let me go," Auren growled.
"No."
Pressure surged behind Auren's eyes — the beginnings of power. The kind that unspoke lies, unraveled illusions, cracked belief open like glass.
But Myrr only grinned.
"You were going to do it," he said. "Twist the air. Unmake them. Show them real truth."
He leaned close, breath like laughter.
> "But this city doesn't break when truth is spoken, boy.
It blooms."
---
Back in the square, the rod pressed to the boy's chest.
Auren waited for pain.
But the boy didn't scream.
He smiled.
His eyes turned silver. Mirror-like.
"I see now," he whispered. "I was wrong. I was wrong to think anything could wonder."
The crowd clapped softly. Ritual complete.
He'd been rewritten.
---
Auren staggered away, barely breathing.
They hadn't killed the boy.
They'd corrected him.
---
The Spiral Inside
They walked in silence.
If you could call it walking.
Auren stumbled. His body moved, but his soul had stopped.
Myrr tossed a coin in the air behind him, humming.
"You think you're different," Myrr said casually. "Because you hate what they believe about you."
He tapped Auren's chest with two fingers.
"But you believed you could fix it. That's still belief. That's still worship."
Auren stopped.
The alley around him twisted.
Not physically — but in meaning.
The world didn't blur. He did.
The boy's face haunted him — not because he suffered, but because he smiled after.
The absence of pain. The void where wonder used to live.
Auren clenched his jaw, breathing fast.
What would've happened if he'd acted?
Would he have saved the boy?
Or would he have torn the city in half?
Would truth have obeyed? Or collapsed?
A terrible thought took root:
He didn't know.
And part of him wanted to find out.
---
He dropped to his knees, hand over his mouth.
No tears.
No scream.
Just silence, vibrating like glass about to crack.
---
Myrr crouched beside him, for once not smiling.
"You're unraveling," he said softly. "Good. That means you're still human."
He stood, extending a hand.
"Come, Prophet.
Let me show you where beliefs go to rot."
---
Auren rose slowly, trembling.
And for the first time,
he wasn't sure if his power was meant to save anything at all.