"...You will interpret me."
And with that, she plunged the sapling into the Untranslated Chapter.
Roots of contradiction burst through the margins. Leaves unfurled, etched with slashes, em dashes, and liminal space. It screamed—a keening wail in every tongue never spoken—then stilled.
The Untranslated Chapter convulsed as meaning bled into its ancient lines, not as a definition but as context. Not as clarity, but as resonance. It absorbed not what was intended—but what could be.
Around them, the Index trembled again—not in collapse, but in adaptation.
New entries wrote themselves in real-time:
> HIRA, v.
To corrupt a format through breath.
To inscribe truth in the negative space of rules.
> TRANSLATION, n.
A bridge made of splinters. A betrayal that births revelation.
The Untranslated Chapter did not vanish.
It bowed.
It revised itself.
Not into obedience, but into openness.
