[Central Academy – The Glass Hall]
For the first time in decades, professors no longer taught.
Students no longer asked questions.
Runes, mirrors, summoning circles — all were present… yet nothing worked under the old rules anymore.
On one of the hall's walls, text began to appear on its own, written in translucent light:
> "If the world no longer remembers its rules,
it means it is about to create new ones."
Zhelenya stood in the center of the room, saying nothing.
She held a white book — no title, no cover, no ending.
A book that was writing its first word by itself.
—
[Outer Realm – Above the Layer of Living Wind]
Albert stood on a strip of earth suspended in nothingness.
Around him, the sky was green, and the clouds didn't move — they listened.
Beneath his feet, the world rewrote itself.
But not horizontally — in spirals.
— "No one is ready for what comes next…" he said.
And in that moment, an entire continent — which hadn't existed a second before — materialized around him.
Without Albert blinking.
Without him willing it.
Simply because he was there.
—
[On Earth – The blue-eyed girl, back in real time]
For the first time, time around her began to flow again.
Her brother coughed.
The clock ticked.
A fly moved.
And in that moment, the girl felt she'd been touched by something older than time.
On the wall of the room, a phrase was carved into the plaster by no one:
> "You've awakened because he has returned."
—
[Academies of the World – 23 magical centers fall into synchronized chaos]
All internal inspection mirrors failed.
All anti-intrusion seals were bypassed by… no one.
No one crossed through them.
Yet all were triggered.
— "He is no longer a guest of reality," said a dean.
— "He is the host," answered a student.
—
[Albert – Still not speaking. Still doing nothing.]
But somewhere…
in a forgotten corner of the sky,
a voice of fire begins to call his name.
And the name… does not answer.
[Central Academy – Silent Crystal Corridor]
— "Zhelenya, are you sure that… he's back?"
The voice came from a young professor, his hand trembling above a dead rune.
Zhelenya stopped beside him. She didn't blink.
— "It's not about coming back."
— "Then what is it about?"
— "About space reshaping itself depending on what's in it. And now… he is in it."
— "But us? Are we still here?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she touched a mirror. The reflection wasn't hers.
It was a version of the room where Albert sat calmly, watching a spiral float through the air.
—
[Within the Spiral – Albert and the Nameless Child]
A barefoot boy approached Albert. His eyes were pure white, without irises.
— "What are you?"
Albert looked at him gently.
— "Wrong question."
— "Then… what are we?"
Albert smiled.
— "Nothing… until we choose. And even then… we're only traces."
— "So even you don't know what you're doing?"
— "Neither does the universe. I'm just letting it find out."
The child dissolved into a rain of translucent letters.
—
[Northern Tower – Hall of Flowing Shadow]
Kaelya walked alone, arms crossed, eyes tired and mind spiraling.
— "We can't stand still. Not now. Every moment without him is a step toward chaos."
— "Who told you he isn't already here?"
The voice came from above, out of shadow.
Kaelya looked up.
— "Zhelenya?"
— "No. I'm just the part of her that still hopes."
Kaelya closed her eyes, and for a moment, she felt a pulse in the floor. That rhythm of absolute presence.
—
[Albert – In a world formed beneath his steps]
An entire city now stretched beneath him, without architects, without people, without foundation.
The buildings were memories of places that had never existed.
Albert crouched and touched the ground.
A circle of light formed. From it emerged… Elion.
— "What is this place?"
— "A place you reached because you wanted to see me."
— "But I didn't. I was asleep."
— "Then even sleeping desires can build bridges."
Elion looked around.
— "So… I can bring anyone here?"
Albert stood.
— "Only if that someone… lives within you."
—
[Academies – Secret meeting in the sealed chamber of the Invisible Echelon]
Nine figures in grey cloaks. One seat was empty.
— "It's official. Albert can no longer be measured."
— "Then we must track him another way."
— "How?"
An elder placed his hand over a burned map:
— "Not by tracking his steps.
But by tracking what vanishes from the world… after he passes."
[Western Academy – The Abandoned Tournament Arena]
Where the Academic Tournament once took place, the stands were now empty.
But in the air… echoes of magic still lingered, vibrations of battle, screams frozen in time.
A group of students remained in the arena.
— "Did you feel that?" asked a green-haired boy, looking at the sky.
— "Yeah. It's not a spell. It's like the world itself… has a fever." the girl beside him replied.
— "And that fever has a name."
— "Albert."
At the center of the ring, a statue had formed on its own, without a sculptor.
It was him. Eyes closed.
But the shadows on the statue's skin moved, like living magic.
—
[Spiral Realm – Albert and Elion (continued)]
Elion reached out toward a translucent building.
— "If I exist here… does that mean the others can too?"
Albert nodded.
— "Depends on whether the world remembers them. Here, reality listens only to what hasn't been forgotten."
— "And if we forget?"
— "Then the buildings fall. The bridges dissolve. People vanish."
Elion took a deep breath.
— "Then let's not forget anyone."
Albert looked at him for a long time.
— "No one is forgotten as long as one person still remembers."
—
[Beneath the Temple of the Nine – The Room That Doesn't Exist on Any Map]
Kaelya descended the steps. Zhelenya followed in silence.
Before them: a door without a handle, without hinges, yet trembling as if it breathed.
— "Is this what's left of him here?"
— "No. This is what he left behind for us."
— "Is it dangerous?"
Zhelenya placed her hand on the door.
— "More than any danger… it is a choice."
The door opened on its own.
Inside: a single phrase floating in the air, made of white light:
> "Those who cannot accept that the world is changing… are the ones the world will forget."
—
[On Earth – The Blue-Eyed Girl and the Ash-Skinned Boy]
— "Brother… do you feel him?"
— "I feel that something old has been released. Something that was never truly new."
— "Do you think he'll find us?"
— "He doesn't need to. We're already inside him."
The girl raised her hand. On the back of her palm, a symbol had appeared: a spiral pulsing with her heartbeat.
—
[Albert – The Final Verse of Silence]
In the world he had created without intention, a stag of light approached him.
— "Are you the one who can hear what has never been spoken?"
Albert nodded.
— "Not because I can. But because I choose to listen."
The stag bowed its head. Then melted into a mist of stars.
[Southern Academy – Forbidden Archive of Lost Tongues]
Zhelenya stood before an ancient stone tablet no one had read in thousands of years.
The stones trembled softly, and the letters on it were shifting in real time.
An old scribe watched her in fear.
— "It won't stop, madam. It's writing by itself."
— "It's not writing. It's remembering."
— "What?"
— "The first language. The one without rules. Only desire."
— "And who speaks it?"
She closed her eyes.
— "Albert."
—
[Somewhere Between Worlds – Where Shadows Have No Bodies]
Albert stepped into a completely white space.
But it wasn't empty. It was full of presences without form.
A voice accompanied him. Not by sound, but directly into his mind:
— "Why have you come here, where no one can be?"
— "Because someone must exist… even in the impossible."
— "And what do you want?"
— "To remind you that I haven't forgotten you."
The shadows trembled. One approached, speaking with sadness:
— "But we have forgotten ourselves."
Albert touched his chest.
— "Then I'll carry you… until you remember who you are."
—
[Central Academy – Hall of the Mute Master]
Kaelya entered. At the center of the room, a glass orb floated, flickering with faint light.
Inside it, a message on loop:
> "When truth is too powerful to be spoken, it must be felt."
— "You knew all along, didn't you?" she said.
An old man, bound to a throne, looked at her. He could not speak. But he wept.
— "You warned us. And we didn't understand."
Kaelya stepped closer and touched his forehead.
— "Maybe we weren't ready. But he's giving us time."
—
[Spiral Realm – Albert and Elion (end of their encounter)]
Elion sat on a bench that appeared from nothing.
— "Albert… if we can't return… what do we do?"
Albert stopped and looked up.
— "Then we build a world where we never need to return."
— "And if no one accepts it?"
— "Then they'll dream it.
And sometimes… a dream is all we have."
—
[Invisible Echelon – Decision in the Dark]
A new voice, female, was heard for the first time in the Council.
— "We can't stop him."
— "Then what do you propose?"
— "Not to destroy him… but to understand him."
Silence. Then… an invisible door opened.
And in the darkness… a very faint light began to pulse in a spiral.
[Temple of Clocks – Somewhere Outside Time]
In a hall with walls made of stopped pendulums, two beings played chess without pieces.
— "Has he won?"
— "No. But he was also never defeated."
— "Then what is he?"
— "A result without an equation."
One of the beings looked toward a shattered clock.
There, for the first time, the second hand ticked backward.
One step.
Then stopped.
—
[Within the Spiral – Albert, alone again]
Elion had left. The dream city was slowly dissolving.
But Albert remained, in the center of a world reconfiguring itself around him.
Above his head, the sky began to write:
"Truth is not a destination, but a mirror afraid to reflect."
He raised his hand.
And with that gesture, reality paused.
It didn't break.
It didn't unravel.
But… it hesitated.
—
[Zhelenya – In the Archive]
She felt that moment of hesitation as a vibration under her skin.
— "He never asked the right question. He made it be born in others."
A timid apprentice asked:
— "What's the question?"
Zhelenya replied without speaking:
> "What does the world become when someone stops asking what it wants to be?"
—
[Kaelya – In the Round Room of Witnesses]
She waited. Not for Albert.
But for a question.
When the voice came, it was his… but it didn't come from outside:
— "Are you ready to forget everything you've ever known, just to finally see what is real?"
She didn't answer. But a tear slid down her left cheek.
That was acceptance.
—
[Earth – The blue-eyed girl and her brother]
The girl smiled.
— "It happened."
— "What?"
— "He chose not to choose. He let the world wonder."
The boy touched the floor.
A symbol appeared beneath them: a spiral cut through by a perfect circle.
— "And when the world wonders, gods are born."
— "But he doesn't want to be a god."
— "Then he'll become something more dangerous."
— "What?"
— "A mirror."
Fragments from a World Relearning Itself
---
[Between Two Breaths of the World – The Unspoken Zone]
A space where even silence could not stay still.
Here, reality exhaled a question it could not articulate:
"Who am I without those who dwell within me?"
And in that moment, Albert… did not answer.
But he was heard.
Not through words, but through the echo of his absence.
---
[Central Academy – The Deep Room of Slow Burning]
A student wrote compulsively on a sheet of paper, with ink that never touched the page.
Zhelenya watched from afar.
— "What are you doing?"
— "Writing a future that was never asked for."
— "You know it might never happen?"
— "Then it will become memory."
Zhelenya smiled for the first time in two decades.
—
[Earth – The Room Where Time Had Melted]
The blue-eyed girl stood in a chamber of black mirrors.
Each one reflected her differently.
In one, she was a child.
In another, she was dead.
In one… she was Albert.
— "Then I was him?"
Her brother's voice replied from another reflection:
— "No. But you were with him. And that means you carry the echo."
—
[Tower of the Unborn]
In a corner of a world without future, a being made of pure clay sat at a table.
It drew. But the paper was air. The pencil — thought.
In the drawing, there was Albert, but without a face.
— "I can't draw him. But I know he's there."
Another asked:
— "And if he was never real?"
— "Then he was more real than anything."
—
[The Eternal Council – Silence Is No Longer a Vote]
No one spoke.
But all chairs leaned slightly, as if in reverence to a force that never asked for obedience.
One of the members, for the first time, allowed a smile to form.
— "Maybe… this is how a new world begins."
—
[Within the Spiral – Final Frame]
Albert walked not on earth, but on forgotten stories.
Each step did not create a path — it created a question.
And each question, over time, would become someone else's truth.
Above him, words that had never been spoken floated:
> "If a man can become a mirror… then within him, the whole world will see itself as it truly is."
Albert looked up.
And the silence around him… greeted him.