Echoes of the Unknown
The Silver Tree no longer sang. Its once-mighty roots clung to the fractured ground, but even this anchor felt fragile, ready to crumble under the faintest breath of chaos. Emiren stood before it, watching the rhythm of the silvery glow that barely flickered through the cracked trunk.
The Hollow approached, his cloak shifting in the air as if the fabric had lost its connection to the laws of time.
— Something is changing, — his voice lacked its usual indifference.
Emiren felt it too. A tension hung in the air, mixed with anticipation. As if the very universe had held its breath.
— Look! — the Waterybearer shouted.
The space above them trembled, and the sky, once a murky gray mass, was suddenly split by thin cracks. They resembled lightning, frozen in place. Each one revealed glimpses of other worlds.
Flamen stepped forward, his hands blazing with red fire.
— These are… echoes.
From the cracks came voices. Hundreds, thousands—countless voices, both familiar and foreign. They overlapped, intertwined, each word reflecting another like a hall of mirrors.
— We’re seeing what could have been, — the Hollow whispered.
But it was more than that.
Through the fragments of other realities, figures began to emerge. Some were mere shadows, ghostly remnants of things that had never come to pass. But others… others seemed too real.
Emiren locked eyes with one of them.
His own eyes stared back at him.
A Meeting with the Impossible
His double was just like him. The same features, the same expression. But his clothes were worn, and in his gaze, there was darkness—something that devoured light.
— You hesitated too long, — he said.
Emiren felt the world around him contract. As if reality had shrunk, as if time was no longer a straight line but a tangled knot where all possibilities intertwined.
— Who are you? — he asked, though he already knew the answer.
— I am what you could become. What you will become if you make the wrong choice.
The Hollow stepped closer, watching the doppelgänger with undisguised interest.
— This isn’t just an echo, — he said. — This is something more.
Flamen looked uneasy.
— If they’re real… If these realities interact…
He didn’t finish, but everyone understood what he meant.
If these echoes could affect their reality, it meant their own fate was still unwritten.
— Have you come to warn me? — Emiren asked.
His double smiled—a sad, joyless smile.
— No. I’ve come to choose.
A Battle for Choice
The world shuddered.
The ruins of the Silver Tree groaned as if sensing the approach of something inevitable. The cracks in the sky widened, and through them, more than just voices and echoes seeped in.
Fragments of other realities.
Streets of cities that had never existed. Mountains rising above the clouds in worlds that were never part of the timeline. Oceans teeming with creatures that were never born.
And through it all—other versions of themselves.
Flamen’s fire flickered.
— They’re just like us.
The Waterybearer clenched his fists.
— But each walks a different path.
Emiren knew what they had to do.
— We must find the point where everything converges, — he said.
His double shook his head.
— No. You must choose.
He extended his hand.
— One reality must remain. The others… must vanish.
And then Emiren understood the truth.
He had thought Eternity could be restored, that it existed beyond time. But that was a lie.
It was a garden.
And a garden could be pruned.
He looked at the Silver Tree.
One choice.
One chance.
The Final Step
He closed his eyes, feeling all possibilities narrowing to a single point.
The choice was near.
And from it, a single reality would emerge.
A single Eternity would become real.
His friends waited.
His double watched.
Time was no longer unraveling.
Time was waiting for his decision.