Creation Of All Things

The Endlands – Outer Rim

The portal cracked open like the surface of a dying star—jagged, unstable, hissing with threads of unreality.

Aurora stood at the threshold, cloak drawn tight, her hand raised to stabilize the breach. The space beyond the gate wasn't dark. It was colorless. A smear of absence stretching outward into a place where logic didn't hold.

Behind her, the team assembled.

Kaiden had ditched his usual gear for something heavier—spirit-thread armor laced with anchor sigils Aria had carved herself. His sword glowed faintly with blue heat, reacting to the shift in plane.

Alice was silent, checking the last of her boundary grenades. Her eyes, normally sharp with sarcasm, were hard now. Focused.

Joshua, steady as ever, carried no blade now—just his fists wrapped in layered runes that flickered with protective light. He gave Aurora a nod. No words needed.

Aria moved between them, laying glyphs onto each chest. "These tethers will keep you anchored to your sense of self. If you start forgetting who you are, speak your name. Loud. Often."

Vael muttered something under his breath about contracts and death wishes but still stepped forward, holding out his arm. "Stamp me, spell-girl."

Aria smirked, pressing the seal to his shoulder. "Try not to melt this time."

A pulse rippled across the portal.

Reality blinked.

"Here we go," Aurora whispered.

They stepped in.

The Endlands – Threshold Corridor

The moment they crossed, sound fell away.

Not silence.

Just… wrong.

Like sound didn't belong here anymore.

The sky wasn't black. It was shifting—like oil on water. There were structures in the distance that moved even when no wind blew. Buildings with windows that opened from the inside. Bridges that crossed over themselves. Broken planets floated above them, spinning slowly on invisible threads.

And beneath their feet—bones.

Not of creatures.

Of timelines.

The stone cracked as they stepped, not from weight—but from presence.

Each step made them feel… less.

Kaiden was the first to notice it. "Is it just me, or does your name feel hard to remember right now?"

"Say it," Aria barked.

"Kaiden. Kaiden. Kaiden."

A pulse of light wrapped around his tether. Stabilized.

Aurora frowned. "The air is thinning. Not oxygen. Identity."

Vael snorted. "Cool. I always wanted to forget I existed."

Alice elbowed him. "If you vanish, I'm taking your jacket."

"Fair."

Deeper – The Erased Valley

They followed the pulse Aurora had tracked—an echo, faint, but leading somewhere.

It guided them through a field of collapsed cities—structures made from thoughts, not matter. Fragments of old futures floated midair like shattered glass: a child reaching for a balloon, a father holding a daughter, a kiss that never happened. Each one played on loop before shattering and fading into mist.

Joshua walked through one by mistake.

His body glitched.

His hair turned white for half a second. His age reversed. Then shot forward. Then corrected.

He stumbled back, blinking hard. "That's new."

Aurora helped steady him. "Don't interact with memory ghosts. They bite."

Vael pointed. "There. The spire."

It rose from the center of a crater—twisting upward like a scream carved from metal. Around it, black lightning pulsed in slow-motion. A dome of force held the structure locked inside a temporal loop.

Aria's eyes widened. "That's it. The pulse. It's coming from that structure."

Joshua frowned. "This is where the faction was dragged."

Alice narrowed her eyes. "Then what's holding it prisoner?"

Inside the Spire – Echo Core

The spire door wasn't locked.

It just watched them.

Each of them felt it as they passed through—like being scanned, weighed, judged.

Inside was worse.

Rows of memories—living ones—hung from the ceiling like cocoons. People. Moments. Events. Frozen in the moment of erasure.

The stillness wasn't peaceful.

It was deliberate. Like something waiting for them to breathe too loud so it could punish them for it.

Rows of memory-cocoons drifted in the dim, violet air—glowing like lanterns trapped under water. But they weren't sleeping. They weren't dreaming.

They were gone.

Aurora stepped forward, her hand reaching slowly toward one.

She squinted—trying to focus.

"…not them," she said, voice quiet. "None of them are ours."

Kaiden's steps echoed softly behind her. "What?"

She glanced back. "These aren't our people."

Alice stepped beside one of the floating forms. Her fingers brushed the edge—and the cocoon hissed slightly. Inside, a face flickered—young, scared, unknown.

She turned. "You're right. I don't know this person."

Joshua walked along the edge, checking them one by one. His jaw tightened. "I'm not feeling anything either. No aura resonance. No echoes. These aren't anyone we've ever known."

Vael whistled low from behind a pillar. "Okay. What kind of cosmic practical joke is this?"

Aurora turned to Aria, eyes sharp. "Could the trace we followed have been faked?"

Aria shook her head, quickly typing symbols across her glyph pad. "No. It was genuine. A signature echo from the last remaining ripple of their presence. But…"

She looked up slowly. Her expression shifted—tight. Frustrated.

"But the pulse didn't come from here. It bounced off here."

Kaiden raised a brow. "So we were chasing a reflection?"

Aurora cursed under her breath. "A trap."

Alice's voice dropped. "No… not a trap. A redirection. Someone knew we'd look here."

Vael paced slowly in a circle. "This is bad. Like, 'ancient-horror-pretending-to-be-nothing' bad."

A low hum rolled through the spire.

And suddenly—

All the cocoons turned.

Not moved.

Turned.

Facing them.

Joshua stepped forward, fists glowing now. "Everyone back."

Aurora reached out—trying to track the ripple again.

Her hand froze mid-air.

And she spoke quietly.

"…they're not dead."

Kaiden blinked. "What?"

"They're not dead," she repeated. "The faction. Our family. They're somewhere else. But they were here. Briefly. Like… they were passed through this place."

Joshua clenched his jaw. "So this place was a corridor."

"Or a filter," Aria added darkly. "Something erased everyone else. But let our people pass. Somewhere deeper."

Aurora's grip tightened on her spell-hilt. "Then we go deeper."

Vael groaned. "I knew you were going to say that."

Alice looked up toward the top of the spire—where a spiraling corridor of violet light shimmered like an upside-down waterfall.

"Then up," she said, nodding. "Next layer."

Aurora nodded once, eyes hard.

"We keep going."

Joshua cracked his knuckles. "And next time…"

He stared at one of the watching cocoons.

"…we're not leaving empty-handed."