You weren't supposed to remember. And yet—you lit the match anyway.
The sky was too quiet.
After all that chaos, the stillness felt like a trick. Like silence wasn't peace—just a breath before the scream.
Elio watched the plaza fade behind them as they moved through the resurrected city. Everything had rewound, yes, but not reset. The buildings were shinier, the cracks gone, but the air still trembled. Like it knew what they did.
Kai held Serai's hand tightly. She was pale. Fading. The spell had taken more from her than she let on.
"She shouldn't have done that alone," he muttered.
"She didn't," Elio said. "We just didn't know how to help."
They found a safehouse in what looked like an old bookstore. Dusty but untouched by the loop collapse. The owner had vanished—likely erased in some timeline that no longer existed. But the books remained.
Of course they did.
Books always remembered.
Serai collapsed onto a cot. Her breathing shallow.
Kai pressed his forehead to hers. "Stay. Just stay."
Elio stood guard near the window, watching time glitch outside like bad reception. Moments flickered in and out—an old woman sweeping a step, a child chasing a ball, a shadow that passed by with no body.
He turned back. "We need to move soon."
Kai didn't look up. "She won't survive another shift."
"Then we find the next god before the mirror resets the rules."
Kai looked at him sharply. "You think it's not done?"
Elio laughed bitterly. "Kai. We broke the loop. But we didn't burn the book."
Outside, something moved.
Something massive.
The sound was like thunder being whispered. A building vanished two blocks down. Then another. Not collapsing—vanishing.
Kai was up in an instant. "What the hell is that?"
Elio reached for his blade. "Something rewriting faster than us."
Serai sat up. Her voice was a rasp. "It's the future."
They stared.
She coughed. Blood.
"The mirror didn't just unravel the past. It opened... a bleed. The future's coming backward. It wants its due."
Kai went pale. "You mean it's feeding on now?"
She nodded. "And we're the only ones who remember both ends of the story."
They didn't run. Not this time.
Instead, they walked toward it.
Toward the vanishing point.
Kai clenched the blade from the Archive tight in his palm. The sigil on his skin pulsed in sync with the tremor in the ground.
They turned a corner—and saw it.
A tower of light and shadow, spiraling upward into the clouds, where time collapsed into flame. Floating clocks ticked backward. Birds flew in reverse. Children laughed and then un-aged into silence.
At the center of it all?
A figure.
No face. No eyes. Just heat.
Serai whispered: "That's the Flame. The one even gods feared."
Kai narrowed his eyes. "It's alive?"
Elio: "It's what's left when a timeline dies screaming."
The Flame turned.
And it saw them.
Words entered their minds—not spoken, just impressed like heat into the skull:
"I am what you refused to forget.I am the punishment for memory."
"You carried too many versions.Now you'll burn with all of them."
Kai stepped forward.
"You're just scared. You're scared we chose to remember. That we refused the script."
The Flame flickered violently.
"You are echoes. And echoes must fade."
But Kai raised the memory blade.
"We are rebellions. And rebellions echo forever."
Elio flinched as the Flame surged toward them, not with steps — it didn't need them — but with intention. The ground beneath them twisted, aging and de-aging in waves. Cracks healed. Then reopened. Then healed again.
Time was having a seizure.
Serai forced herself to her feet, trembling. The light from the Flame painted her skin gold and red, like a prophet made of ruin.
"It knows who we are," she said, voice low.
Kai gritted his teeth. "Then let it remember why we survived."
The sigil on his palm flared again — brighter, hotter.
The Flame paused.
As if… considering him.
"You carry the rewrite," the Flame spoke. Its voice wasn't sound — it was memory leaking out of a wound.
"You burned fate before. But the future burns back."
Elio raised his sword. "We've fought gods."
"I am not a god," it whispered.
And suddenly, Kai remembered. Not from this life — but a thousand lives ago.
A city of glass swallowed by fire. A girl made of stars sobbing at a grave. A version of himself begging to be erased.
The Flame had always been there.
Not an enemy.
A consequence.
"You were born the first time someone regretted a wish," Kai whispered.
The Flame pulsed. "I was born the first time someone rewrote the truth."
Lightning cracked across the sky. But it didn't flash — it froze, hanging midair like suspended grief. All around them, time shattered in chunks. Echoes of versions of themselves appeared — Kai as a priest, a king, a villain. Elio as a monster, a martyr, a child.
All of them watching.
All of them… afraid.
"What happens if it touches us?" Elio asked.
Serai didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
Because it had never reached this far before.
Kai stepped forward, ignoring the fear twisting his spine.
"We didn't survive all those lifetimes to die forgotten."
"You did not survive," the Flame said. "You repeated."
"But now we remember," Kai said.
"And that," Serai added, "makes us dangerous."
The Flame shrieked.
Not sound.
Not light.
Just force.
The plaza cracked. Buildings folded in on themselves like ashamed secrets. A firestorm surged outward — but instead of burning, it froze whatever it touched in glowing stasis. Mid-scream. Mid-movement. Caught forever.
Elio was nearly swallowed.
Kai grabbed him, pulled him back — barely.
"You okay?" he shouted.
Elio's voice shook. "My name… it almost took my name."
"That's what it feeds on," Serai gasped. "Identity. That's how it wins — by making you forget who you were before the fire."
Then came the choice.
The Flame reared back, gathering everything it was into one final collapse — a cosmic tantrum made of regret, repetition, and rage.
Kai turned to Elio and Serai.
"We can run."
Serai: "We won't outrun time."
Elio: "Or… we burn with it."
Kai stepped forward and stabbed the memory blade into the ground.
"I'm done repeating," he growled.
And the sigil on his hand glowed bright white.
Blinding.
Then it pulsed once—
—and exploded outward.
The Flame screamed.
And in its scream were the names of every version of them that ever lived.
Burnt.
Rewritten.
Remembered.
Time reversed.
Not reset — rewrote.
And when the light faded, they were still standing.
But the plaza was… different.
New carvings. New sky. New air.
No Flame.
Serai collapsed, whispering: "You rewrote it again."
Kai held Elio's hand tightly.
"No," he whispered. "We did."
A voice echoed from nowhere.
The Playwright.
Soft. Smiling. Tired.
"You finally finished a chapter without dying."
"Now let's see if you can survive the next."