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Author Note:
' ' = Thoughts
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*A/N: I am back.
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In a cold, dark, silent alley, space suddenly distorted.
The air warped inward, folding upon itself as if reality itself had inhaled too sharply. For a brief moment, it felt as though the fabric of existence was about to rupture entirely—then something was expelled from it. The distortion snapped shut, space sealing itself as if nothing had ever happened.
In the darkness, nothing could be seen.
Then—
THUD!!
The sound of something heavy striking the ground shattered the silence, echoing down the empty alley before fading into stillness. What followed was not movement, but breath—slow, laboured, uneven. Each inhale dragged itself out as though pulled from a failing mechanism, each exhale trembling on the edge of stopping altogether. Minutes passed like this. Long. Unforgiving.
Eventually, the faint sound of someone forcing themselves upright broke the quiet. Footsteps followed—uneven, scraping, dragged rather than stepped. Whoever it was moved as though their body no longer remembered how to obey.
At last, the figure emerged from the alley's mouth, moonlight spilling across it.
A person.
And that person was Kaelthorn.
He had escaped the Entity. Escaped that world.
Or more accurately—
He had been allowed to leave.
The cost of that mercy was absolute.
At a glance, nothing seemed different. His armour, his attire, his mantle—unchanged. The silhouette remained intact. But beneath that familiar exterior, his condition had collapsed into something terminal. His breathing was heavy, strained. The golden heart within his chest no longer radiated its former brilliance; it beat once per minute, each pulse slow, deliberate, and perilously close to silence. For any normal being, this would have already been death.
Only the Kabane virus kept the system from shutting down entirely.
Even so, his body had entered premature final states. His skin was corpse-pale, drained of warmth and vitality. The golden-crimson of his iris and the crystalline pink of his pupil had dulled, their former glow extinguished. Only the dusk-dark void inside remained unchanged—unchallenged, watching. Across his exposed skin, dark violet terminal lines had manifested, branching like fractures across a dying star. They glowed faintly, ominously—evidence of a power invoked too close to annihilation.
Kaelthorn reached the wall and leaned against it, fingers trembling as they searched for purchase. With visible effort, he raised his head and looked toward the moon. He did not study it. He did not reflect on it. He simply acknowledged its presence.
Then his strength failed.
He slid down the wall and collapsed into a seated position, head bowed. The majesty he once carried—the weight of inevitability, of control—was absent. In its place sat something disturbingly mundane: a sickly figure, reminiscent of those confined to hospital beds, staring out at the world through a window they would never reach.
His eyelids grew heavy.
And finally, he let them close.
Sleep claimed him without resistance. Whether someone might find him. Whether something might attack him. Whether death itself might arrive—none of it mattered.
Because Kaelthorn knew—
It wasn't possible.
.
.
.
.
.
Dark Multiverse.
"What is it?"
A graveyard of corrupted realities.
"How vast is it?"
As the name suggests, a Multiverse.
"Are you… certain?"
…
....
...….
What do you mean?
"Let us begin again… from the foundation. What is a World?"
That depends on how one defines it.
"Indeed. Then define it."
…A World is a collection of multiple timelines.
"Mediocre."
A pause.
"But sufficient… for now."
…
"Shall we go deeper?"
…Fine.
"When you speak of a World, are you referring to a Universe? A galaxy? A planet? Or merely an era confined within time?"
A planet.
"Then answer this—when people speak of their 'world,' what do they truly mean? A planet… or something smaller?"
Depends.
If a person is born in a village, lives in it, and dies without ever knowing what lies beyond—then that village is their world.
The same applies to a city. A country. A continent.
Even a planet.
"Hmm…"
A quiet shift. Not approval. Not dismissal.
Consideration.
"Then if such beings conquer their planet… and venture into the cosmos beyond—can they claim they have conquered their world?"
Yes.
A pause.
…From their perspective.
"Oh…"
If one truly intends to conquer a World, they must not only dominate their present timeline, but every alternative timeline that branches from it.
Only then can one claim absolute rule.
"Is such a thing possible?"
…A sufficiently advanced civilization could—
"Wrong."
The interruption was immediate.
Final.
…
"The moment you said civilization… You were already wrong."
…
"No need to look at me like that."
A presence—unseen, undefined—seemed to lean closer.
"I have no intention of answering why."
A brief silence.
"You will answer that yourself… the next time we meet."
…
"Now—let us return."
A shift. The conversation tightened.
"When you described the Dark Multiverse as vast as a Multiverse… what did you mean?"
A pause.
"Did you refer to a single timeline?"
Another pause.
"Or every timeline—across every world, every planet, every galaxy, every universe… without exception?"
…
Everything.
"Hm."
This time, the pause lingered longer.
"Heh… it seems even you are no longer certain of your own answer now."
Perhaps.
"Good."
A quiet satisfaction.
"Then—one final question."
The air itself seemed to still.
Heavier.
"Do you believe… anyone has ever left the Dark Multiverse before?"
…
Silence.
Not hesitation.
Recognition.
"No need to glare."
A faint amusement threaded through the unseen voice.
"I am aware this question has been with you since the moment you arrived."
A beat.
"And that is precisely why you want the answer from me."
A pause.
"But I will not give it."
…
"I want you to answer it yourself."
…
So… it is still within reach.
"Indeed."
A soft conclusion.
Unsettling in its certainty.
"In any case… we end here."
The presence began to recede—not in distance, but in relevance, as if reality itself was forgetting it.
"Our time together is… extremely limited."
A final fragment of awareness remained.
"I expect answers the next time we meet."
A pause.
Then—
A name.
Spoken not as identification… but as recognition.
"Kaelthorn the Hollowborn."
.
.
.
.
.
SCRIT!
SCRIT!
The sound of writing on paper echoed in the room. However, even as it echoed, the sound never escaped the confines of the space. If someone with sharp hearing pressed their ear against the door, they wouldn't hear anything, as if the room were completely empty.
The room was rectangular in shape, with a ceiling that hung just a bit too low, suggesting that vertical spaces are somewhat constrained. The corners of the room were darker, not with shadows, but with a lack of detail. If one stared at the corners for too long, they seemed to deepen into an invitation, as if they could lead to additional rooms that had never been approved.
The air was faintly scented with paper, metal, and something sterile—like a hospital that had closed before admitting any patients.
The floor was wooden, and the planks were arranged perfectly.
Too perfectly.
There was no warping. No dust.
On the right, there was a narrow, minimal bed. The sheets were white but not clean; they neither bore stains nor retained their original color, as if they had forgotten what hue they should be.
Opposite the bed stood a desk beneath a window. The wooden grain shifted subtly in my peripheral vision—currents seemed to flow beneath the varnish. When touched, the surface resisted faintly, almost as if it were alive, pretending to be mere furniture.
On the desk, a small glass ink bottle sat, filled with a liquid that was too dark.
Not black; black reflects faintly when angled toward light. This absorbed it instead.
Next to it was the desk lamp, featuring a metal stem and a circular base, with a single bulb beneath a thin shade. There was no visible cord. When switched on, it didn't cast light outward. Instead, it compressed the darkness directly above the desk into clarity.
Beyond that radius, the illumination weakened abruptly. The lamp hummed softly—not a mechanical hum, but a sound that felt like breathing.
If you listened closely, the rhythm didn't match your own. When turned off, the room did not become darker; it became less defined.
When the desk lamp was on, the ink didn't shine; it deepened in color. Occasionally, without being disturbed, the surface of the ink rippled, as if something beneath it were exhaling.
No dust settled on the bottle. No fingerprints remained.
.
.
A figure sat in the chair beside the desk, occasionally dipping a quill into an ink bottle before writing on sheets of paper. The quill was long and pale, made from an unrecognizable bird. The barbs were intact but subtly asymmetrical. When lifted, it felt balanced regardless of how it was held. The tip was sharp, yet there was no metal to be found.
While the scratching sound of the quill against the paper resonated, the truth was that the paper didn't simply accept the markings—it parted. The sheets appeared ordinary, off-white and slightly textured. They neither curled nor creased, and they didn't seem to end. Each time the person placed a sheet on the desk and wrote on it, the paper effortlessly accommodated the text. When they reached what should have been the bottom edge, more surface area revealed itself—not through extension, but through a refusal to conclude.
Now, let's focus on the person sitting in the chair. They were completely covered in clothing—no skin was visible. They wore a long, hooded black coat lined with white and designed with a structured silhouette. A high-collared scarf masked the lower part of their face, while fitted gloves with reinforced palms offered tactile feedback amplification. Lightweight combat boots featured adaptive grip soles. The matte textures of their attire absorbed light and attention rather than reflecting it. There were no insignias, ranks, or identifiable markings.
Even when observing the upper part of their figure, one could see only darkness, as if there were no one inside.
Before long, the person finished writing. They moved their hand toward the handle of the desk drawer, which was simply made of cold brass—never warming under their touch. When they pulled it, the motion was smooth, almost too smooth.
They placed the quill and sheets of paper inside the drawer, closed it, and after sealing the ink bottle, turned off the desk lamp.
CLICK.
The darkness returned to the room once again. They raised their head and looked at the curtains covering the window. The curtains were made of heavy, textureless grey fabric that absorbed light like ink, rather than blocking it.
They continued to gaze at the curtains with no intention of moving them or looking outside. Shifting their gaze to the side, they turned to the mirror beside the desk. The mirror was rectangular and frameless, reflecting the room with unsettling accuracy.
When they looked into it, they saw themselves. Even when they glanced slightly away, their reflection remained, still looking into the mirror.
Eventually, they averted their gaze, slowly got up from the chair, and began walking toward the bed. Even after standing, the reflection remained seated at the desk for a moment before rising. As both the person and their reflection stood up, the chair automatically adjusted to a default height.
They reached the bed and lay down. The mattress immediately conformed to their weight, too quickly, as if it had anticipated their movement. As they reclined, the ceiling felt rather far away.
'Kaelthorn: Another day has passed… It's time to leave.'
The hooded figure, Kaelthorn, thought to himself before closing his eyes and drifting into a deep slumber.
The room remained visible for a moment, then slowly rotated ninety degrees before settling into place. In this space, sleep was not a means of rest; it was a form of alignment.
.
.
.
After he had rested long enough, Kaelthorn woke.
Not because of light. Not because of sound.
His body simply knew it was time.
The first thing he saw was the familiar ceiling above him—the same low, featureless surface he had come to accept without question. He remained still for several seconds, staring upward, allowing his thoughts to arrange themselves into order. Then, slowly, he lowered his legs from the bed and raised himself into a sitting position.
He did not stand immediately.
For a while, he simply sat there.
If someone had looked closely at the floor beside the bed, they would have noticed faint footprints.
They stood directly beside where Kaelthorn had been sleeping.
One pair.
Barely visible.
As though someone had remained there throughout the night, silently watching him without moving even once.
The marks were already fading.
Their edges softened. Their shape thinned. Then they disappeared into the wooden floor as if they had never existed.
Kaelthorn noticed them.
And ignored them.
He had seen such things too many times to give them meaning.
After sorting through his thoughts, he rose from the bed and walked toward the door. His movements were slow but controlled. The weakness in his body had not vanished, but he did not allow it to dictate his pace. He reached the door, opened it, and stepped outside.
He did not look back.
CLICK.
The door closed behind him.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the room changed.
The air twisted first.
Not violently.
Quietly.
The walls bent at angles they should not have been able to bend. The floor seemed to stretch beneath itself. The ceiling pressed downward, then pulled away. Time inside the room lost its rhythm, slowing in some places and rushing in others.
Even though Kaelthorn had already left, his reflection remained in the mirror.
It stood there.
Facing the door.
Watching it.
Then—
CRACK!!
The mirror shattered inward.
Not outward.
The broken glass folded into the darkness behind the reflection, as though something on the other side had struck it from within. A hand emerged through the broken surface.
Then another.
Both hands gripped the edges of the mirror.
Something was trying to come out.
And it succeeded.
The room began to melt around it.
The walls lost their shape. The desk twisted. The bed stretched into something unrecognizable. The wooden floor split apart and revealed structures beneath it that did not belong to any house, room, or world.
Then the thing pulled itself free.
THUD!!
It landed heavily on the shattered floor.
For a moment, it remained still.
Then it stood.
It looked exactly like Kaelthorn.
Not similar.
Not copied imperfectly.
Exactly the same.
The same height. The same body. The same face. The same eyes.
But it was not wearing the clothes Kaelthorn currently used to hide himself. It wore nothing from this world. It looked like Kaelthorn had looked before he ever entered this place—before the disguise, before the coat, before the need to conceal what he was.
The room began correcting itself.
The floor closed.
The walls straightened.
The desk returned to its place.
The mirror became whole again.
As though nothing had happened.
The duplicate did not look around.
It did not inspect the room.
It did not hesitate.
It turned toward the door Kaelthorn had used and moved after him.
Fast.
.
.
The Interstice.
The Seam.
The Unlit Corridor.
The Backstage of Creation.
There were many names for this place.
In simpler words—
it was the gap between dimensions.
This was where Kaelthorn had arrived after escaping the Entity and the world it controlled.
When he had first entered this place, he believed he had seen a moon in the sky.
Later, he understood there was no sky here.
There could not be.
There was only exposure.
Darkness meant something was hidden.
But in the Gap, nothing was hidden.
Everything was exposed until it became difficult to understand what it had once been.
Light existed here, but it did not behave like normal light. It did not help anyone see. It appeared in weak, pale patches across the endless distance, flickering like dying stars that had been forced to remain awake.
The light did not make things clearer.
It only proved that something was there.
And that was often worse.
Distance did not stretch endlessly ahead.
It pressed inward.
Looking too far felt wrong, as though depth itself had become unstable. It was like realizing that the far horizon was never truly far away—it had only been pretending to be.
The Gap was not simply a place between worlds.
It was what remained when a world stopped holding itself together.
The air felt heavy. Not with smoke, dust, or heat. It was heavy with pressure that had no physical source. Every breath carried a faint metallic taste, like rainwater mixed with old blood.
The ground beneath Kaelthorn's feet appeared to be made of cobblestone.
That was because his mind needed it to be.
He needed something solid.
Something understandable.
But if he stared at the stones for too long, they changed.
A road became the shape of ribcages.
A broken pattern became cathedral arches.
A crack in the ground became the outline of a city.
Sometimes, it became something larger—half-formed worlds that had failed before they could become real.
These were not decorations.
They were remains.
Worlds that had tried to form a stable shape—
and failed.
Time did not move normally here either.
It did not flow forward.
It gave way.
Seconds stretched, weakened, and came apart. A moment could last too long. Or it could vanish before it finished happening.
Sometimes Kaelthorn would breathe out, and the breath would remain in front of him.
Still.
Suspended.
Then it would pull itself back into his lungs.
As if the moment had decided it should not exist.
Memory behaved the same way.
Events did not stay fixed.
A cause could lose its result.
A result could appear before the cause.
A conclusion could become uncertain and return to the beginning.
Nothing here could be trusted to remain in the order it belonged.
The Gap did not reverse progress.
It made progress feel like a misunderstanding.
There was far more to this place than Kaelthorn currently understood.
Trying to explain all of it now would only create more questions.
For the moment, it was enough to know this:
Kaelthorn had entered a place where worlds could fail without dying.
And something wearing his face had followed him into it.
.
.
Kaelthorn walked slowly down what looked like a street.
Calling it a street was easier than trying to describe what it truly was.
There was a path beneath his boots. There were walls on either side. There was enough shape for the mind to recognize the idea of a road.
That was all.
As he moved forward, alleys began appearing beside him.
One.
Then three.
Then dozens.
They emerged where solid walls had been only moments earlier, stretching away into depths that should not have fit within the space available. Some were narrow enough for a single person to pass through. Others were wide enough to resemble ruined avenues. They continued appearing until the street seemed surrounded by an endless maze.
Then they vanished.
A few moments later, they returned.
But not in the same way.
An alley that had been to Kaelthorn's left now stood on his right. A passage that had once ended in darkness now appeared to lead toward a distant red sky. Another had changed from stone walls into the remains of something that looked almost like a living ribcage.
This cycle repeated without end.
Appear.
Change.
Disappear.
Return.
There was no smell in the Gap.
And yet, every alley carried one.
From one passage came the scent of saltwater rot—oceans from worlds that had never managed to keep their tides stable. From another drifted funeral incense, belonging to people who had buried the meaning of their lives long before they buried their dead.
Cold iron lingered in an alley filled with machines that had forgotten why they had been created.
Burned sugar came from somewhere deeper within the maze, carrying the remains of celebrations that had slowly turned into empty rituals.
Wet soil clung to another corridor—earth from an ecosystem that had stopped changing halfway through its own evolution.
Every alley carried the remains of something that had failed.
And each one affected the person standing near it.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
In some corridors, the desire to move forward became heavy and difficult, as though ambition itself had been buried under the ground. In others, a person could begin to lose the feeling of being themselves. Their memories would remain, their thoughts would remain, but the certainty that those things belonged to them would start to loosen.
Each alley hummed.
Not with sound.
With strain.
The pressure of a world trying—and failing—to remain whole.
There were whispers inside those passages. They resembled language, but no sentence ever formed. There were machines running endlessly without producing anything. There were chants repeating without prayer, worship, or purpose.
Every alley led to a world.
But not like a door.
Not like a portal.
Each one was more like a wound.
A place where another reality had begun leaking into the Gap.
The worlds did not overlap because they were connected.
They overlapped because all of them were breaking in the same direction.
A crimson fog drifting from one alley could enter another without crossing any visible boundary. A shadow cast against one wall might belong to something standing in a completely different world. Sometimes, distant footsteps could be heard from a place that had never existed in the same reality as the listener.
The alleys were not passages.
They were veins.
Veins inside a body that had never fully become alive.
Kaelthorn did not look at them.
He continued walking.
His hood remained low. His long coat absorbed what little attention the Gap was willing to give him. His pace was slow because his body had not fully recovered, but every step remained deliberate. He did not wander. He did not hesitate.
He had already chosen his route.
The alleys could change around him as much as they wished.
They would not decide where he went.
After walking for what felt like a long time, Kaelthorn turned once and stopped.
Someone was waiting ahead.
A tall silhouette stood in the middle of the street.
It wore a long trench coat that seemed to have been stitched from the night itself—not ordinary darkness, but the endless black space that existed before a horizon had been decided. The coat did not move in the nonexistent wind. It simply hung from the figure as though the darkness had chosen to take a human shape.
At its side floated a lantern.
Kaelthorn did not look at it for more than a second.
Inside the lantern were fragments of intact reality.
Not light.
Not fire.
Pieces of worlds that had not yet collapsed.
A curve of blue sky.
The edge of a mountain that still obeyed gravity.
A thin line of sunlight falling across an ocean that had not forgotten its tide.
Small pieces of existence still holding together.
Whenever a world somewhere resisted collapse, even briefly, the lantern's glow weakened.
Whenever another world finally exhausted itself and began to fall apart, the lantern flared.
Kaelthorn understood enough to know that staring at it for too long was a mistake.
The figure before him was one of the Inhabitants of the Interstice.
They did not rule this place.
They did not guard it.
They did not punish those who entered.
Their purpose was simpler.
And worse.
They made sure that collapse was shared evenly.
They prevented one world from falling too quickly while another remained untouched. They ensured that no reality could escape the slow pressure of decay simply because it had been fortunate enough to survive longer than the rest.
They were not judges.
They were balance.
Or what passed for balance in a place where worlds came to fail.
Long ago, they had been something else.
Beings.
Entities.
Perhaps rulers of their own worlds.
But they had changed until the Gap no longer rejected them. They had become so completely aligned with this place that it kept them.
Now they walked its endless streets because movement delayed the final collapse.
They were called—
The Custodians.
.
.
Within the Interstice, there were three kinds of beings.
The first were called The Unfinished.
They were not truly alive, but neither were they dead. They were half-formed things made from erased realities—pieces of worlds that had failed before they could become complete. Their bodies never settled into one shape. An arm might resemble human bone one moment, then become something closer to an insect limb, then blur into a structure with no clear anatomy at all.
Their faces were worse.
A smile could appear where fear should have been. Grief could twist across a face that was laughing. Their emotions and expressions never matched. Even their shadows moved incorrectly, often following several seconds behind them, as though the darkness itself had not yet accepted that they existed.
The Unfinished were not decaying.
Decay meant something had once been whole.
They had never reached that point.
They existed in a permanent state of almost becoming real.
.
The second kind were known as The Cartographers.
Their bodies were covered in shifting lines of black ink. The markings moved beneath their skin like living maps, constantly changing direction, crossing over one another, disappearing, and returning somewhere else.
They did not map lands.
They mapped collapse.
They tracked where the Interstice was weakening, where a reality was beginning to leak into another, where an alley might become unstable, or where a path would soon lead into something far worse than its destination.
Their skin was a warning system.
A map written in pain.
The Cartographers traded in futures.
Not guaranteed futures.
Not prophecies.
They dealt in possibilities—small chances that something might happen, fragments of paths that could still exist if the right choice was made. In the Interstice, the future was one of the last things that still pretended to move forward.
The Cartographers did not offer escape.
They offered redirection.
A different road.
A less immediate death.
.
The third and final kind were the Custodians.
Among all three, the Custodians stood above the others.
And they were Kaelthorn's only chance of leaving this place.
There was no socializing in the Interstice.
Not even among its inhabitants.
The Unfinished could stand beside a Cartographer for a thousand years without speaking. A Custodian could pass another Custodian countless times without so much as acknowledging its existence. There were no greetings. No arguments. No questions.
Trying to speak to them was meaningless.
Words had no value here.
Only exchange did.
Not negotiation.
Not bargaining.
Equal exchange.
The Unfinished were the easiest to trade with. They accepted simple things—memories, forgotten names, broken promises, pieces of identity that no longer mattered.
The Cartographers were more difficult. They demanded things with direction: a future decision, a path not taken, a moment that could have changed everything.
But the Custodians were different.
Trading with one was nearly impossible.
They only accepted things that were almost impossible to obtain.
Things too dangerous to keep.
Things too valuable to give away.
Things that should not have existed in the first place.
.
.
Kaelthorn and the Custodian stood silently in the middle of the shifting street.
Neither moved.
The lantern beside the Custodian floated in the air, its dim glow holding fragments of worlds that had not yet completely broken. Kaelthorn did not look at it directly. He had already learned enough to understand that staring too long at intact reality inside a place like this could become dangerous.
Several seconds passed.
Then Kaelthorn removed one hand from his pocket.
Resting in his palm was a small crystal box.
At first glance, it appeared simple.
Then the markings became visible.
Countless symbols, seals, glyphs, and lines covered every side of the box. They layered over one another so densely that no empty space remained. Some seemed carved into the crystal. Others moved beneath its surface. A few appeared only when the eye was not focused directly on them.
None of the markings could be understood.
Not by a normal mind.
Even looking at one small point for too long would have been enough to destroy an ordinary person. Their mind would fail first. Then their body. Then anything that remained of them would be pulled apart until no trace of their existence was left behind.
Kaelthorn held it without hesitation.
The Custodian did not reach for the box.
Instead, the lantern drifted forward and stopped between them.
The figure raised one hand.
Slowly, it placed that hand into the fire inside the lantern.
The flames did not burn it.
They folded around its fingers.
Then the Custodian withdrew its hand.
Resting in its palm was a curved fragment of intact reality.
It did not shine.
It did not glow.
It simply looked complete.
A thin piece of something that still obeyed its own laws. A fragment from a place where time still moved forward, distance still meant distance, and a person could stand somewhere without the world questioning why.
Kaelthorn and the Custodian looked at one another.
Then both released what they held.
The crystal box rose from Kaelthorn's hand.
The curved fragment rose from the Custodian's.
They floated between them.
Slowly, they crossed paths.
The crystal box entered the lantern.
The flames closed around it without sound.
At the same time, the curved fragment entered Kaelthorn's chest.
There was no wound.
No impact.
It simply disappeared into him.
And the exchange was complete.
The Custodian turned away immediately.
No acknowledgement.
No warning.
No farewell.
It walked down the shifting street and disappeared into the changing maze of alleys.
Kaelthorn remained where he was.
His hand returned to his pocket.
For several seconds, he watched the direction the Custodian had gone.
Then something appeared behind him.
A figure stood at a distance.
It wore Kaelthorn's face.
The same height.
The same build.
The same eyes.
But there was nothing behind them.
No thought.
No recognition.
Only emptiness.
The thing had finally found him.
It stared at Kaelthorn's back with an expressionless face.
Then it moved.
One step.
Then another.
And suddenly, it rushed toward him.
Fast.
Too fast.
The street distorted beneath its feet as it closed the distance.
Kaelthorn did not turn fully around.
He only moved his head slightly and looked back at the thing wearing his face.
Calm.
Unhurried.
Then he activated the fragment inside him.
There was no bright flash.
No twisting space.
No grand display of power.
Kaelthorn simply ceased to be there.
The duplicate reached forward—
and touched nothing.
It stopped.
Its hand remained stretched out in empty air.
For the first time, it tilted its head.
Confusion.
It looked around the street. It searched the alleys. It reached outward through whatever connection it had created with Kaelthorn.
Nothing.
Kaelthorn was not nearby.
He was not hidden.
He was not somewhere else within the Interstice.
He was gone.
He had left the Gap Between Dimensions.
The duplicate remained motionless.
Then its body began to tremble.
Slowly, it opened its mouth.
And from it came a sound that did not belong to a human throat.
Iaaaa... fhrrrgh... KTHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
.
.
.
Kaelthorn opened his eyes.
There was nothing around him.
No floor.
No ceiling.
No sky.
No darkness, either.
No matter where he looked—right, left, ahead, behind, above, or below—there was only emptiness. It had no colour. No depth. No shape. It was not a place that could be measured.
And yet, Kaelthorn remained standing within it.
Calm.
Composed.
As though he had expected this.
A moment later, something moved inside his chest.
The curved fragment of intact reality emerged slowly from his body and floated before him. It was small, barely large enough to rest in a human hand, but it carried a weight that did not belong to its size. Its surface was smooth and pale, shaped like a broken piece of glass taken from a world that had never learned how to break.
For several seconds, it remained motionless.
Then it began to draw something out of him.
It was not light.
Not mana.
Not blood.
Something far deeper left Kaelthorn's body in thin, dark currents. It came from his flesh, his mind, his soul, and the part of him that existed beneath all of those things. A formless pressure seeped out from every part of his being and entered the fragment.
Kaelthorn did not resist.
He stood still and allowed it to happen.
The process continued for a long time.
How long, he could not measure.
There was no time in this emptiness. No ticking. No movement. Nothing that could tell him whether seconds had passed or years.
Eventually, the last trace of it was pulled from him.
The fragment gave off a weak, low glow.
Then it vanished.
Kaelthorn did not attempt to stop it.
Its work was complete.
The Interstice was not merely a gap between dimensions.
It was not built from ordinary power—not mana, magic, laws, concepts, or anything else that a normal world could understand.
It was worse than that.
The Interstice was made from contamination.
Not contamination of the body.
Contamination of existence itself.
It was the wrongness left behind when a world failed so completely that even its laws no longer knew what they were supposed to be. It did not simply destroy reality. It made reality understand that it had always been unstable.
That understanding was irreversible.
The longer something remained within the Interstice, the more that wrongness entered it.
It seeped into the body.
Then the mind.
Then the soul.
Then the very idea of what that being was.
In simple terms—
Before entering the Interstice, a person was like clear water.
After remaining there long enough, they became like ink.
And if even a small trace of that ink escaped into a normal world, it would not remain small.
It would spread.
From a room to a city.
From a city to a planet.
From a planet to a universe.
From a universe to countless parallel worlds beyond it.
It would continue spreading until nothing remained untouched.
That was why Kaelthorn had traded with the Custodian.
The fragment had removed every trace of Interstice contamination from him.
It had stripped the darkness from his existence and returned him to something clear again.
Then it had returned to the Interstice, carrying that contamination back to the only place capable of containing it.
Only once Kaelthorn was certain the process had ended did he lower his gaze.
Even beneath the clothing that covered him from head to toe, he could see the faint glow of the terminal lines beneath his skin.
Dark violet cracks.
Marks left behind by the damage he had suffered when escaping the Entity.
They had changed.
Barely.
Their length had decreased by one millimetre.
One millimetre.
After an age beyond calculation.
Kaelthorn had not spent mere years within the Interstice.
Not decades.
Not millions, billions, or trillions of years.
He had remained there for a length of time so vast that numbers had eventually lost their meaning.
And after all of that— the terminal lines had shortened by only one millimetre.
Recovery was possible.
But there were few ways to achieve it.
The first was time.
Given enough of it, the terminal lines would eventually fade. His damaged body would slowly rebuild itself. But the proof stood beneath his skin.
Time was painfully slow.
The second was help.
There were beings capable of repairing damage on that level—beings who could create stories, alter worlds, and reshape the rules beneath existence itself.
But such entities did not help others.
And even if they did, Kaelthorn had nothing they would consider worth their attention.
That path was nearly impossible.
The third was power.
Not ordinary power.
He needed to absorb forces forbidden to lower lifeforms—things too vast, too dangerous, or too incomprehensible for normal beings to even perceive. Such power would not heal him instantly, but it would accelerate his recovery.
That was the reason he had decided to leave.
His journey was no longer only escape.
It was recovery.
It was preparation.
It was the search for powers that could restore what had been damaged.
The one millimetre still mattered.
His body had improved.
He was no longer a dying figure who struggled to breathe after taking a few steps. His heart remained weak. His strength remained far below what it had once been. But he had recovered enough to resemble an ordinary human again.
Not peak human.
Not strong.
But stable.
Functional.
Alive.
The emptiness around him began to fade.
Slowly at first.
Then all at once.
A sound rang out.
DING.
Kaelthorn set his thoughts aside.
He placed both hands into the pockets of his long coat and raised his head.
The emptiness was gone.
He now stood in a long, dimly lit corridor.
The ceiling lights flickered overhead. The walls were pale and sterile. A faint scent of disinfectant hung in the air. At the side of the corridor, large black letters had been painted onto the wall.
B2.
Second basement level.
An elevator stood before him.
Its doors opened.
Light spilled out from inside.
There were two people in the elevator.
A teenage boy and a teenage girl.
The boy had a young face, short brown hair, and brown eyes. He wore patient clothing, the loose fabric hanging slightly from his thin frame.
The girl was smaller than him.
Her skin was pale. Her short black hair resembled a messy bob. One of her eyes was red. The other was hidden behind an eyepatch. She wore a school uniform and held a doll in her right hand.
Before the elevator doors had opened, the boy appeared to have been speaking to her.
Then both of them noticed Kaelthorn.
The boy froze.
Surprise appeared openly on his face.
The girl's expression did not change, but her visible eye narrowed slightly.
For a moment, neither side moved.
It was understandable.
Kaelthorn stood completely covered from head to toe. His hood concealed his head. A full-face visor hid every part of his face. The long coat, gloves, and dark clothing gave away nothing about who he was.
He did not look normal.
He did not look like someone who belonged in a hospital corridor.
Kaelthorn had no intention of making the silence last.
Kaelthorn: Are you getting off?
Both of them seemed to return to themselves.
Boy: Y-Yes… We're sorry.
The boy stepped out immediately.
The girl followed him.
In truth, the girl had reached her floor.
The boy had not.
His stop was somewhere above.
But he had no desire to remain inside the elevator with someone like Kaelthorn. He chose to step out and wait for another elevator instead.
Kaelthorn entered once they had moved aside.
He turned toward the buttons.
Then, before pressing one, he spoke again.
Kaelthorn: What are your names?
His tone was ordinary.
But there was something beneath it.
A quiet authority that made refusing feel strangely difficult.
The two teenagers answered before either of them had time to think.
Kōichi Sakakibara: Kōichi Sakakibara. A student of Yomiyama North Middle School.
Mei Misaki: Mei Misaki. A student of Yomiyama North Middle School.
The moment they spoke, both seemed to realize what had happened.
Kōichi looked surprised by how quickly he had answered.
Mei gave him a brief glance.
She had not expected him to attend the same school. Her own uniform had made her school obvious, but Kōichi wore patient clothing. Nothing about him suggested where he studied.
Kaelthorn: I see.
His voice travelled through the silent corridor as he pressed a button.
Kaelthorn: Let us meet at the school, then. Student Sakakibara. Student Misaki.
Kōichi blinked.
Kōichi Sakakibara: E-Eh? You are a teacher there?
Kaelthorn: I am joining on the same day as you.
Kōichi Sakakibara: Oh… You mean early May.
Before Kōichi could ask another question, the elevator doors began to close.
Kōichi Sakakibara: Wait! What should I call you, Teacher?
The doors narrowed until only a thin line remained.
Kaelthorn spoke just before they shut completely.
Kaelthorn: The Doctor.
The elevator doors closed.
And the corridor became silent again.
.
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Pic: Kaelthorn(The Doctor)
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*A/N: Please throw some power stones.
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