Lying felt different here.
Not easier—cleaner.
In the real world, lies dragged consequences behind them like chains. Doubt. Guilt. The constant second-guessing of what if I'm wrong.
Here, hesitation didn't exist.
I wrote without pausing, without rereading, without that familiar tightening in my chest that came from knowing words mattered.
The city is calming down.
I didn't believe it. I didn't need to.
The sentence landed with a weight I felt rather than saw, like dropping something heavy into deep water and waiting for the ripples to return.
They did.
Images surfaced around me—not visions, not hallucinations. More like impressions. News tickers sliding past. Crowds thinning. Voices lowering their volume as if obeying an unspoken cue.
I realized then what hesitation had always been.
A filter.
A moral delay.
Without it, thoughts moved straight to action.
I tested the edge carefully at first.
People want to believe this will end.
A warmth spread through the space, subtle but undeniable. The tension I hadn't realized I was carrying loosened.
I wrote faster.
Violence is losing its appeal.
Order is returning, quietly.
I didn't see blood. I didn't see faces. Reality handled those details on its own. All I felt was alignment—like the world snapping into a shape it preferred.
Somewhere far away, a machine skipped a beat.
The sound irritated me.
I pushed it aside and kept writing.
Here, I wasn't afraid of being wrong.
Here, confidence was enough.
That scared me—briefly.
Then I lied about that too.
I'm in control.
The fear vanished.
I began to understand the rule instinctively, the way you understand gravity without needing to see it explained.
Truth described.
Lies directed.
Truth waited for permission.
Lies assumed it.
Every confident falsehood smoothed something sharp in the world. Every uncertain truth did nothing at all.
I didn't think of myself as powerful.
Power implies effort.
This felt like cooperation.
As if reality had been waiting for someone willing to speak without flinching.