Chapter 3
It was not a memory. Not yet. But it would become one.
The place I walked into didn't welcome me. Didn't reject me either. It simply existed as if waiting for someone who never should have returned.
A broken town. Not ancient. Not new.
Houses stood like tired bones, roofs caved in like thoughts forgotten mid-sentence. Windows blinked without light.
Task #005: Inherit the Silence Objective: Discover what was left behind Optional: Resist emotional interference
I stepped forward. Each footfall disturbed the dust not just the kind that settled with time, but the kind that remembered names.
There were no bodies. Only echoes.
A child's laugh stuck in the corner of a well. A mother's scold carried on the wind. None of them real. All of them mine.
Because I had lived here.
Not long. Not fully.
But enough.
The system pulsed.
Emotional Anchor Detected: HOME (FRACTURED) Processing memories…
I turned a corner. Saw a door I knew too well. Peeling red paint. One hinge lower than the other.
I had stood outside it once. Begging to be let in.
Not by voice. Not by words. Just by being there.
I pushed the door open. It didn't creak. It sighed.
Inside: nothing. But not the empty kind. The left-behind kind.
A chair turned slightly off-center. A cup still holding dust where tea once cooled.
The walls weren't stained with blood or fire. They were worse.
They were clean.
As if we had never existed here.
"Do you remember?"
The voice came from behind.
But I didn't turn.
Because I did.
I remembered the nights by the window. The silence after arguments. The way someone once called my name like it meant something.
I walked to the center of the room. The floor was warm.
A lie. A trick of memory.
I sat down.
The ribbon on my wrist twitched.
Anchor Activated: Memory Manifestation Imminent Warning: Emotional instability likely
The walls pulsed. No longer wood. No longer still.
They became screens. And on them: Her.
Laughing. Bleeding. Leaving.
All at once. All together.
My heart didn't race. It stalled.
"Why didn't you stop her?"
It was my voice. Too young. Too honest.
"You watched. You let her go."
I pressed my palm to the floor. It felt like skin.
"You don't get to be sad."
A pulse shot through my arm. Not pain. Judgment.
Penalty Triggered: +1 Pain Sync New Passive Acquired: Burdened Recall — Past emotions now influence system events
The door slammed behind me. I hadn't heard it close.
I stood. Staggered.
The ribbon glowed again.
Next Anchor Location: Cevareth
Not a town. A continent.
One I'd never been to. One I somehow remembered.
A map burned into my thoughts. Not drawn. Etched.
And beneath it all:
"To find what you forgot, you must remember what you never knew."
I stepped out of the house.
It crumbled behind me. Not from age. But from release.
The past had no more use for it.
Neither did I.
I walked toward the edge of the town.
And this time, I felt the weight of not just remembering
but being remembered back.
The path beyond the broken town wasn't made of stone or soil. It was made of silence. Not quiet. Silence.
The kind that listens. The kind that remembers.
And it stretched far across hills that hadn't existed until I looked at them.
Cevareth. I didn't know how I knew the name. But it burned in my thoughts like it had been waiting there. Like it belonged more than I did.
Anchor Trail Activated Beginning Transfer: Phase One
The world shimmered. Not shifted. Not shook.
It bled.
Colors pulled apart. Sky melted into ground. And I fell.
But not down. Inward.
When I awoke, my hands were buried in ash. Not warm. Not cold.
Weightless. But heavy in meaning.
I stood. Wiped my palms. Left the ash where it belonged.
Cevareth loomed ahead. Not a city. A scar.
Towers bent like broken fingers. Walls torn apart from within. It wasn't attacked. It surrendered.
And still, it waited.
Task #006: Claim What Was Buried Objective: Find the source of the rupture Warning: Memory synchronization unstable
The first step forward felt like betrayal. Like walking into someone else's grief with dirty shoes.
But I kept walking.
The roads here were cracked. Not from time. From weight. From choices.
Names carved into stone crossed out. Carved again. Crossed again.
No name remained untouched.
A voice echoed. Low. Close.
"Do you think pain makes you worthy?"
I turned.
There was no one.
But then the shadows shifted, and a figure emerged.
Tall. Wrapped in cloth that moved like water. Face hidden.
But eyes no, not eyes. Reflections.
I saw myself in them. The worst parts.
"You carry guilt like armor." "But armor must break to protect."
System Notice: Emotional Resistance Failed Initiating Mirror Trial
The ground shattered. I fell again.
But this time, I didn't land in ash.
I landed in memory.
Rain. Always rain.
I stood outside a door. Red. Peeling. Too familiar.
My hands trembled. Not from fear. From knowing what came next.
She opened the door. The girl. Her. The one who left.
But this time, she didn't leave.
She looked at me. Saw me.
And said one word:
"Run."
Then fire. Not outside. Inside. My chest.
Memory Overload Stability Decreased: 17%
I screamed. Not aloud. Inside. And the memory cracked.
I was pulled out. Thrown.
Back to Cevareth. To the ruins. To the ashes.
But something followed me.
Not a person. Not a ghost.
A shape. A concept. A name.
Etched behind my eyes:
Vael.
The system pulsed. Not in color. In pressure.
New Anchor Acquired: Vael—The One Who Stayed Too Long Hidden Thread: Awakened
The air cleared. Soot settled.
And ahead: a door.
Not remembered. Expected.
Its surface was blank. Waiting for me to decide what it would become.
I stepped closer. My hand hovered.
And the system whispered:
"You do not enter to escape. You enter to know why you stayed."
I opened it.