The morning was quiet.
Too quiet.
Riven wandered through the town, observing life's simple motions — the baker arranging his loaves, children chasing each other through the square, smoke curling lazily from chimneys.Everything seemed normal. Ordinary. Perfect.
But the feeling in his chest told him otherwise.A whisper, faint and persistent: something is wrong.
He paused by the fountain. Water rippled naturally, sunlight glinting on its surface.Then he saw it.
The newspaper boy ran past — and the headline in his hands repeated.Not just the same news, but the same exact words, the same typos.
Riven froze. The hairs on his neck stood on end.This wasn't the loops. Not exactly. But it was a trace. A fragment.
"A fracture," he murmured. "Not a loop… but a memory."
He walked faster, scanning the streets.
A woman carrying groceries stopped mid-step, looked at him, then turned in exactly the same direction she had a minute ago.A man on a bench sneezed — and the sound repeated precisely, echoing backward for a moment before correcting itself.
The paradox was alive.Subtle. Hidden. Dangerous.
Riven clenched his fists.He felt the residual energy from the Paradox Core — small, unstable pulses that whispered of collapsed timelines and unfinished echoes.
He muttered, "I thought I left it all behind… but it's following me."
By noon, Riven reached the square again.
Children were playing near the fountain. One tripped, fell, and stood back up — the motion repeated once. Then the sunlight flickered.And he saw her.
Not Lira exactly — but a flicker. A shimmer in the air, just at the edge of his vision.A fragment of the past. A memory. A warning.
"You cannot ignore this," the Architect's voice said inside his mind."The Paradox lingers. Every echo you carry bleeds into reality. If you do not act, the world you rebuilt will fracture completely."
Riven swallowed hard. His hands trembled."This world… it's fragile. Too fragile to hold what I carry."
He left the square and climbed the hill overlooking the town. The boy from yesterday followed silently.
"Do you feel it too?" Riven asked.
The boy nodded. His eyes glimmered faintly — temporal energy, subtle but real.
"Something isn't right. The world… it's repeating itself… just a little. Not fully, but enough."
Riven put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Then we have work to do. We need to fix the fractures before they grow. Before they undo everything."
The wind stirred around them. Shadows shifted unnaturally for just a heartbeat.Riven whispered, almost to himself:
"I've carried death and love across centuries… I will carry this world too. Whatever it takes."
And for the first time in centuries, he felt the weight of responsibility settle fully on his shoulders — not as a survivor of loops or paradoxes, but as a guardian of a fragile, living reality.