Silence echoes like wind in a hollow skull.
A spiraling descent begins. Five figures—Ren, Aki, Yumi, Rei, Kael—walk down the stairs of Spiral Null, each step made of forgotten decisions, each wall etched with moments that never happened.
As they go deeper, color fades. The Spiral loses shape. The world forgets rules.
---
Kael (lighting a memory-flare):
"Gravity's twitching again. Up is sideways now."
Rei (touching the wall):
"These aren't just dead timelines. They're denied ones."
Yumi (frowning):
"Some of these were mine…"
She touches a flickering panel: a version of herself who never found Aki—who never drew again.
---
Ren trails behind, watching quietly. His pen glows weakly. Creation resists this place.
Ren (thinking):
"This isn't a realm for building. It's where stories were buried alive."
---
Suddenly—the stairs vanish.
The team falls… but not downward. They fall through versions of themselves.
Aki without guilt.
Rei without scars.
Kael never betrayed.
Yumi who chose to forget.
Ren… who never existed.
---
They land, each isolated in their own anti-memory.
---
Aki's Vision
A classroom. Sunlight. His mother smiles. He never got sick. Never entered a coma.
Aki (whispering):
"…Is this real?"
A voice behind him—his mother.
> "You never needed the Spiral. Stay here, son."
He hesitates.
---
Rei's Vision
A battle. One slash. One kill. The war ended in her favor. No losses. No Kael. No Aki. Just victory.
Rei (to herself):
"Peace? Or just loneliness wearing armor?"
---
Kael's Vision
Time runs perfectly. He controls every second. Nobody leaves. Nobody dies.
Kael (staring at his hands):
"Nothing surprises me. Nothing hurts me."
---
Yumi's Vision
A quiet life. No sketches. No Spirals. Just… peace. A job. A partner. A daughter.
Yumi (weeping):
"Did I trade a whole world… for a life that didn't ache?"
---
Ren's Vision
Nothing. Absolute void. No form. No beginning. No Spiral. Just potential.
Ren (whispers):
"So this is what I was before… I was."
A shape forms before him. The Hollow Root.
---
The Hollow Root (softly):
> "You made a world that includes everything... but you forgot to include silence."
> "You forgot what it means to be left out."
---
It offers him a deal:
> "Give me the pen. Abandon Delta Spiral. Let it collapse. No memory. No future. Just rest."
---
Ren looks down at his hand… the pen is fading. The voices of his friends echo faintly, distorted.
Yumi (distant):
"Ren… don't stop."
Aki:
"You're not made of their stories. You're made of choice."
---
Ren lifts his head. His voice cuts through the null like a sword:
Ren (shouting):
"NO!"
---
The world fractures. Illusions shatter. All five wake at once—floating inside the Spiral Null's core. Pale, infinite space. In the center:*
A locked gate. Carved with no symbols. Just absence.
---
Rei:
"…What is that?"
Yumi:
"That's what the Spiral System feared most."
Kael:
"The gate to the Original Erasure. The source of the Hollow Root."
---
Aki:
"Do we open it?"
Ren:
"We don't have a choice anymore. It's waking."
---
Final shot: the gate pulses. Cracks form. From within… something opens its eye.
Pitch black. A single eye glows in the void—a slit-pupil, endlessly deep, watching without blinking. No sound. No breath. Just pressure.
The Spiral Null Gate splits open.
---
A wave of pure silence hits the five—Ren, Aki, Yumi, Rei, Kael—freezing their movements mid-thought. They don't just stop moving. They stop being.
Time doesn't slow. It's gone.
---
Inside the Gate lies not a place… but a concept:
> "Originless."
The place before stories. Before ideas. Before even Spiral 0.
---
Ren blinks—and he's standing alone.
No Spiral. No team. No world.
A voice speaks behind him. The Hollow Root, now taller, calmer, wrapped in black threads of anti-memory.
---
Hollow Root:
> "You broke the system. You gave them hope. And now… they'll vanish for it."
---
Ren (steady):
"I made Delta Spiral so people could write their own stories."
Hollow Root:
> "And yet… here you are. Storyless. Alone. Finally honest."
---
Suddenly, light. Aki appears beside Ren, sketchbook glowing wildly.
Aki:
"I never liked perfect stories."
He slams the book shut. The air ripples, and the others reappear—Rei, Kael, Yumi—each holding something.
Kael: a cracked time gear.
Rei: a blood-bound sigil.
Yumi: a sealed memory—a drawing of them together.
---
Yumi (to Hollow Root):
"You feed on silence. But we've got noise now."
---
*Ren lifts his creation pen, now burning gold. He draws a spiral in midair—not a normal one. This one bleeds into itself, looping, never repeating.
Ren:
"This isn't a Spiral. It's a Paradox Curve."
---
The Hollow Root hisses—cracks appearing across its form. The concept of "Originless" can't hold shape against contradiction.
---
Rei slashes the sigil through the void. Kael throws his time gear. Yumi unseals the memory—it blasts out warmth, laughter, pain, dreams.
---
Ren (roaring):
"We don't erase what we hate. We grow past it."
He slams the Paradox Curve into the core of the Hollow Root.
---
A scream—not sound, but absence fleeing itself—shakes the world.
The Spiral Null shatters. Not into debris—but into possibilities.
---
Cut to Yūgen.
Sky rebuilt. Spiral Delta stabilized. New realms growing outward in every direction like tree branches. People, echoes, and choices walk freely now—no longer afraid of vanishing.
---
Kael (relieved):
"…We didn't just survive that. We won."
Rei:
"For now."
Yumi (smiling softly):
"The Spiral no longer remembers everything. But it chooses what matters."
---
Ren sits beneath the Memory Root, staring up at a blank page.
Aki (sitting beside him):
"What will you draw now?"
Ren:
"Nothing yet. I just want to see what they create."
---
Final shot: across the Realm, new Spirals begin forming—not by force, but by freedom. Names we've never heard. Paths never written.
A voice echoes, soft, not ominous—Ren's voice, in narration:
> "There was once a world where stories chose people.
Now… people choose stories."