The silence between us felt heavier than the hum had ever been.
My double—no, not a reflection, not a ghost—stood as though he owned the space between the fractured buildings and the cracks in the sky. His eyes burned with something I didn't recognize in myself: conviction.
"I don't understand," I said, my voice hoarse. "If you're me… why are you—"
"Still here?" He cut me off, stepping closer. His presence warped the fragments. They shivered, bowed, and leaned toward him, like metal drawn to a magnet. "Because I chose correctly. I passed when you couldn't. And now you're repeating the cycle again, dragging the world back into fracture."
The scar on my palm flared painfully, reacting to his words. I clenched my fist. "What do you mean, passed? What is this cycle? Why does the sky—"
"Forget its color?" He smiled thinly. "Because that's when the test begins. When the canvas is wiped clean. The letters descend, and one is chosen to reshape the rules. Most fail. Most are consumed. Sometimes…" His gaze sharpened. "…sometimes they fracture into versions of themselves, scattered across cycles, clinging to survival."
A cold weight settled in my chest. "You're one of those fragments."
"No," he snapped. "I'm the original. You're the echo. You're the Kael who runs, who doubts, who fears. Every cycle births another shadow of me, and every cycle you've failed to carry the weight of the words."
The white letter above me pulsed violently, its light shuddering like a heartbeat under strain. I felt it pulling at both of us, as though it couldn't decide which Kael it truly belonged to.
The other Kael spread his hand. In his palm, a scar blazed—the same mark as mine, but deeper, more complete. Letters crawled across his arm like living tattoos, each one glowing faintly with restrained power.
"You shouldn't even exist," he said coldly. "The world doesn't need two of us. Only one Kael carries the true Word."
The fragments surged at his back, twisting into sharper shapes, preparing to move.
I swallowed hard, the weight of the white letter's glow burning into me.
And in that moment, I realized something terrifying: the test wasn't just about the words. It was about which version of me the world would allow to remain.