The forest of dead trees stood eerily still.
The needles had vanished. The chapel crumbled behind them. A strange warmth hung in the air — not comfort, but aftermath. The kind of silence that comes only after a scream has ripped through the sky and left it gasping.
Lucia sat against the trunk of a petrified tree, eyes locked on her blood-soaked hands. Brant was pacing nearby, arms crossed, muttering to himself.
Saylor didn't sit. He stared skyward.
The Wheel had stopped.
Not broken. Not idle.
Waiting.
And above it — something had moved.
He hadn't imagined it. He was certain. Behind the spiral of rusted chains and bone gears, there had been eyes. Not glowing. Not monstrous. Just... watching.
He saw no outline. No shape.
But something beyond the gods had looked directly into him — and recognized him.
> "YOU'RE A MISTAKE," a voice whispered, clear as day.
Saylor blinked. It wasn't in his ears. It wasn't in the Field. It was in his threaded core — the heart of whatever the MIMETIC SPIN had become.
---
Elsewhere, in the Grey Field
The remaining players were growing restless.
Camden and Zack were arguing about whether to continue waiting or to begin moving toward the distant ridge now visible beyond the forest.
Kelly, the quietest among them, had begun drawing symbols in the dirt — unfamiliar glyphs, circular, pulsating with faint heat.
Marcus approached her, cautious.
"What are you doing?"
She didn't look up. "Listening."
"To what?"
"The Wheel's dreams."
Marcus stepped back. "You're insane."
Kelly finally raised her head — and her eyes were not hers anymore.
They glowed silver.
---
Return to Saylor
Saylor moved through the Field on his own again. His steps made no sound — not because he was being quiet, but because the Field refused to echo him anymore.
He passed beneath a shattered monument — a statue of a god long erased, now cracked at the waist.
As he did, his vision glitched.
Just for a second.
He saw Angela.
Her silhouette, standing in a mirror of him. Hands trembling. Eyes distant. Her mouth opened but no sound emerged.
Then — gone.
Behind him, a voice emerged. Cold. Measured.
"You weren't chosen to win."
Saylor turned sharply.
A man stood in the mist.
Not a player.
Not a god.
Wearing an obsidian cloak stitched with player names. His skin was translucent — inside, Saylor saw spinning orbs of light like broken stars.
> "I am Witness. One of the Architects."
"You're the one watching," Saylor said.
"No," Witness replied. "I am the one remembering. The true Watcher has not yet awakened. You will know when it does. It will erase names from your mind. Perhaps... even your own."
"What do you want from me?"
Witness tilted its head. "You were not supposed to Sync so early. The Wheel did not spin for you. Yet it spun through you. That makes you a problem."
Saylor took a step forward.
"I don't care."
"Good. You'll need to stop caring about many things before the end."
The Witness pointed to the ridge in the distance.
"Three gods remain before the Second Collapse. Survive them, and the true nature of this Field will bleed through."
"What happens after the Second Collapse?"
Witness smiled.
And vanished.
---
Return to the Group
Night had no meaning in the Broken Field, but the sky darkened all the same.
Kelly collapsed in the dirt, her symbols still glowing. Veyra ran to her side.
"She's burning up!"
Lucia knelt beside them.
The symbols were spreading across Kelly's skin, etching into her like branding iron scars.
Suddenly, the Wheel twitched.
No spin.
Just a warning.
A hum.
A tone none of them had heard before.
> UNAUTHORIZED ENTITY DETECTED.
Lucia and Brant looked around, panic rising.
Saylor emerged from the fog then, approaching slowly.
Lucia stood. "Where the hell have you been?"
Saylor's eyes glowed faintly with gold and violet. "Talking to something that shouldn't exist."
Brant stepped between them. "You're not telling us everything. Every time a god falls, you change."
Saylor didn't argue. "I adapt. You survive because I adapt."
"Until you don't," Brant snapped.
Saylor leaned in, eyes narrowing. "Then hope I don't stop."
---
Elsewhere, in the Fog
Deep beneath the Field, under strata not meant to be seen, a presence stirred.
The true Watcher.
Not a god. Not a system.
But a Memory so ancient it had become self-aware.
And it remembered Saylor's name.
> "The Glitch must not reach the Final Ticket."
A billion dead voices whispered in chorus:
> "Erase him."