The being that greeted me—the one who looked like an older version of me—didn't speak with a voice.
He spoke with meaning.
"This path does not go forward. It goes inward."
I didn't ask questions.
Not because I had none, but because I knew asking would break whatever fragile thread held this realm together.
He turned, and the world followed him.
Not roads. Not steps.
But moments, layered one after another.
Each time his foot touched the air, a ripple of place emerged—
a hallway made of weeping mirrors,
a cliffside with moons that leaned too close,
a garden grown from forgotten names.
I followed.
And behind me, the old world vanished.
---
"Your body remembers what your mind denied."
He said that when we reached the bridge of shifting light.
It had no railings, no supports.
Just possibility shaped into something that could be walked.
"Before truth can shape the world, it must first break you."
His eyes held something I wasn't ready to see:
Not power.
Not pain.
Recognition.
---
I took a step onto the bridge.
And my memories… shivered.
I suddenly remembered a melody I had never heard,
a field I had never walked,
and a child's laugh that filled me with grief.
"What is this?" I whispered.
The air answered.
Not with sound.
With knowing.
This was the first path.
The path that did not give you power.
It gave you awareness.
Of everything you had forgotten.
Of everything you had never lived—but should have.
---
My steps became slower.
The bridge stretched longer than it should have.
I passed a mirror—floating in the void beside the path.
It showed me.
But not me.
A version of me who never stopped believing.
His eyes were bright. His hands unshaken.
He hadn't failed anyone.
I touched the mirror.
It cracked.
And in that moment, I felt something inside me shift—
A strange warmth behind my eyes.
I saw a scene:
A library buried in black sand.
A girl sitting at its center, whispering words that reversed gravity.
A door carved into the bones of a giant, sealed with symbols I hadn't yet learned.
And then it faded.
"You've activated the First Glimpse," the older me said, gently.
"Don't cling to it. It's only a ripple."
But I felt it.
Not power.
Not ability.
Witnessing.
And with it, a name etched across my bones:
Lyan, the One Who Remembers the Unseen.
---
We walked in silence until the path ended.
And before us stood a gate made of stained glass and silence.
Symbols fluttered across its surface.
Some familiar.
Some aching.
And for the first time, the older being looked tired.
"Beyond this is not the realm of echoes," he said.
"It is the place where they were born."
"You will see things that lived only in the mind of Existence itself."
I stared at the gate.
My hand rose on its own.
And somewhere far behind me, the Witness Core pulsed—
Not as a machine.
But as a heartbeat.
Step through, it said.
So I did.
---