The cracks didn't close.
They spread.
The Pane's wound groaned like a throat trying to choke itself, spirals of bleed twisting out in rivers of ink and light. Reflections collapsed one by one—doors that no longer led anywhere, faces that no longer remembered who they belonged to.
And in the center of it all, Ren stood.
Thorn trembled in his grip, its jagged spine fused into his ribs as if the weapon had decided his body was its sheath. Fragments of himself flickered around him like fireflies made of memory—smiles he'd never worn, screams he'd never voiced, moments that were both his and not his.
The girl clutched his arm, her flame dim but stubborn. Her voice wavered with awe and fear.
"Ren… what have you done?"
He turned to her. His eyes burned silver, fractured with a glow that didn't belong to the human world—or the Pane's rules. When he spoke, his voice echoed in two registers at once, like he was speaking alongside another version of himself.
"…I cut the story open."
