The figure before them seemed ghostly, composed of fragments of light and shadow that intertwined without pause. It was not yet whole, but it was no longer formless chaos.
Emiren felt the space around them begin to stabilize. The fragments of reality that had previously shifted chaotically now seemed to freeze, waiting for a final choice.
Someone—or something—had decided to become part of this world.
The First Word
Flamen watched the figure intently, his black fire still burning in his palms, ready to ignite at the first sign of danger.
“Speak,” he said, his voice slicing through the silence.
The figure trembled.
And then it spoke.
The voice was strange—not male, not female, neither old nor young. It seemed to resonate from the very space itself, making it vibrate.
“I… remember.”
The word lingered in the air, stirring a gentle wind that swept through the Border.
“What do you remember?” asked the Empty One, stepping forward.
The figure turned its head, and something familiar began to emerge in its features.
“Everything.”
A sense of foreboding gripped Emiren.
The One Who Was Before the Beginning
“This is impossible,” Flamen whispered, staring at the being that was gradually taking on a more defined shape.
The figure no longer shifted chaotically. It was beginning to resemble a human—tall, dark-haired, draped in something that might have been a cloak or the remnants of the essence from which it was formed.
Its eyes glowed with deep silver light.
“I was here… when nothing else existed.”
Its voice was no longer fractured—it had grown deeper, more complete.
Emiren glanced at the Empty One, who shook his head.
“This… is one of the first,” the Empty One whispered.
Flamen frowned.
“The first what?”
“The ones who shaped Eternity.”
These words hung in the air like a heavy weight.
Emiren realized they were standing before someone who might know the answers they had been searching for all along.
But he also understood the danger.
If this being was among those who had created the Eternal Garden, then it could also destroy it.
The Trial of Choice
“Why have you returned?” Emiren asked.
The figure looked at him, and in its eyes appeared something akin to a smile.
“Because you have disturbed the order.”
Flamen clenched his fists.
“We are fighting to save the Garden!”
“You do not understand. The order is not in the Eternal Garden. The order is in Eternity itself.”
Emiren’s mind swirled with countless thoughts.
If the order was not in the Garden itself, then where?
“Are you saying all of this… is a mistake?” he whispered.
“A mistake? No. This was an experiment.”
The air around them trembled.
“You were never meant to exist.”
Flamen lunged forward.
“If you are a threat to us, I will destroy you!”
But he never even touched it.
The being merely raised a hand slightly, and Flamen was thrown backward as if struck by an invisible force.
Emiren felt reality itself beginning to shift around them.
“What are you doing?!” he shouted.
“Showing you the truth.”
And they fell.
Through Time
The Border vanished.
They were falling through something greater than mere space.
It was a current of events—both those that had already happened and those that had not yet come to pass.
Emiren saw the Eternal Garden in its infancy—not yet silver, but transparent, like an idea just beginning to take shape.
He saw the Creators arguing over the structure of time.
And he saw the one who now stood before them.
He was not merely observing.
He was deciding.
The End of the Journey
When they landed, everything had changed.
They stood in a new place.
Before them towered a majestic structure that did not belong to any known world.
The being who had chosen a form stood before them, watching.
“Now you will understand.”
Emiren did not know what awaited him, but he felt certain that it would change everything.