The collision did not sound like impact.
It sounded like a page tearing.
White exploded around Aurelianth's vision as the creature's enormous hand met his glowing one. But instead of being crushed under its strength...Aurelianth fell inward.
His body vanished.
The world vanished.
Lioren's scream stretched into silence.
And he hit the ground of another reality.
Inside the Pulse's Memory
The first sensation was cold.
Not winter-cold.
Not dead-cold.
Empty-cold.....the chill of something unfinished.
Aurelianth gasped and staggered upright.
He stood in a half-formed landscape....
white earth, black sky, no horizon, no sound.
Then the world blinked once and a memory slammed into shape around him.
He stood in a burning hallway.
A different body.
A smaller one.
Scrawny limbs trembling.
Smoke stinging eyes too young.
A child's hand reached out from the flames:
"Aurelianth!"
He recoiled, horrified.
"That's not me.....that's the original....."
A shadow formed behind him.
Long arms.
Hollow eyes.
A cracked body echoing his shape.
The memory-creature.
Inside his mind.
It spoke without moving:
"We are inside the Pulse's record."
Its voice crawled through the walls.
"This is what your fate should be."
Aurelianth clenched his teeth.
"I refuse that fate."
The creature tilted its head.
"But it is the only fate you have."
"No."
Aurelianth stepped back.
"No. I changed the rules already."
The creature's face split in a twisted, mocking grin.
"So did the Pulse."
The burning world flickered...swapping to another memory.
The Pulse Shows Him Death
Now he stood in a cave.
Shallow breath.
Sweat dripping down a small boy's face....the original Aurelianth.
He was tied by runes to a stone altar.
Moonlight seeped from a crack above.
Shadows writhed at the edges.
A voice...hollow, nonhuman....whispered from the dark:
"Aurelianth…come."
The boy screamed.
Not out of pain.
Out of betrayal.
"PLEASE.....
PLEASE.....
I don't want to die....."
Aurelianth's pulse cracked with pain.
"Stop," he whispered. "Stop showing me this."
The Pulse didn't care.
The memory replayed.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Each time the boy screamed louder, more broken until the final loop ended with silence.
The creature stepped into the foreground.
"He died on the third attempt."
Aurelianth swallowed sickness.
"I know."
"And so will you."
"No."
"Yes."
Aurelianth bared his teeth.
"The Pulse didn't expect me to exist."
The creature's eyes widened.
"It did."
He froze.
"What?"
The burning memory dissolved.
The cave vanished.
A new memory replaced them.....
The First Prediction
A child...barely five....stood alone in a stone courtyard.
He had silver veins.
He had trembling runes.
He had one golden eye, one violet eye.
Not the original.
Not the current Aurelianth.
Someone who never got to live.
Aurelianth stared in horror.
"…who is that?"
The creature whispered:
"A prediction."
The child reached out toward something invisible.....
A tear in the air.
Tiny.
Shaking.
The Pulse was watching him.
The vision rewound.
Played again.
Faster.
Slower.
Sideways.
The Pulse wanted this child.
Expected this child.
And then the image cracked.
Time rewrote itself.....when Aurelianth's soul arrived in Lyr's dying body.
The child-prediction vanished.
A new form emerged.
Aurelianth's own.
The creature leaned close.
"The Pulse knew you would exist."
Aurelianth's heart slammed against his ribs.
"No...no, I came from another world....I wasn't supposed to....."
The creature cut him off.
"The Pulse does not watch worlds.
It watches possibilities."
The white landscape flickered.
A massive network of silver threads expanded across the void....branching paths, alternate lives, millions of variations of existence.
And at the center....was him.
Aurelianth.
His heart stuttered.
"…It predicted me."
The creature smiled, wide and terrifying.
"It desired you."
"It.....what?"
"It HUNGERED for you."
The threads all converged into a single black point...the Tear.
"You are the only version of Aurelianth that can change rules."
Aurelianth stepped backward, shaking.
"No. No. I'm just...."
"Deviation," the creature whispered.
He froze.
"You rewrite rules because you are
UNWRITTEN."
His breath faltered.
The world bent around him.
Unwritten.
Not recorded.
Not fixed.
Something dangerous.
Something the Pulse wants.
Not to devour.....
But to complete.
The creature reaches for his face
The memory-creature stepped forward.
Its hand...cracked stone,flickering veins...
reached for his cheek.
Aurelianth stumbled back.
"Don't touch me....!"
Its voice burned the air:
"The Pulse does not want your body."
It crouched down.
Eye to eye.
Its hollow stare crawled into his bones.
"It wants your name."
Aurelianth's stomach dropped.
"…my name?"
"Names shape reality."
"Your name is unfinished."
"Perfect for the Pulse to finish."
Aurelianth trembled violently.
Lioren had always called him Aurelianth gently.
The villagers spoke it in fear and awe.
But the Pulse...wanted it.
Wanted to carve its own meaning into his name.
He whispered:
"I won't let you."
The creature's mouth split.
Not a smile.
A crack.
"You already did."
Aurelianth froze.
"What?"
The creature pointed at his chest.
At the cracked rune.
"That mark is not yours alone."
Aurelianth staggered back, horrified.
"No...NO...I carved that! I wrote that rule! It's.."
"Half Pulse."
The world vibrated.
His veins glowed faintly with black-silver.....a tainted vein.
The Pulse had slipped inside him during the rulebend.
Aurelianth whispered:
"…I let it inside…"
The creature nodded.
"Night Three will not be the Pulse taking you.
It will be the name accepting you."
"NO!" he screamed.
White lightning ripped across the memory realm.
The world shook.
The cracks widened.
The creature distorted.
Aurelianth lunged at it, glowing with raw desperation.....
"I am NOT your ending....!"
But the creature caught his wrist effortlessly.
Its hollow voice echoed like a tomb:
"You are already chosen."
Aurelianth's veins burned with silver fire.
The creature leaned close.
"And on Night Three…your name becomes Hollow."
"SHUT UP!"
He slammed his forehead into the creature.....
Reality shattered.
Back to the world
Aurelianth slammed back into his own body, hitting the ground with a violent gasp. Dust exploded around him.
Lioren was kneeling over him, shaking him desperately.
"Aurelianth....Aurelianth, WAKE UP....!"
He jerked upright, choking on air.
His rune over his heart burned...not painfully but like something inside was trying to wake up.
He grabbed Lioren's wrist, eyes wide and terrified.
"Lioren… it wants my name."
She froze.
"What?"
"It wants my NAME.....my existence.....my story.....my identity.....everything."
Lioren shook her head wildly.
"No. No! That's impossible!"
Aurelianth's voice broke.
"It predicted me, Lioren.
It EXPECTED me."
"What does that mean?"
He stared up at the sky, trembling.
"It means the Pulse didn't come for me…because it found me."
Lioren swallowed.
"….then why?"
Aurelianth whispered, voice ragged:
"It came because I'm the ending it wants."
The creature roared behind them....wounded by his mental strike,but not stopped.
Not dead.
Not done.
Lioren grabbed his face with trembling hands.
"Aurelianth....listen to me....
I don't care what it wants.
I don't care what it predicted.
You are NOT its ending."
He looked at her.
She held his gaze with shaking, furious defiance.
"You are yours.
And you are ours.
And I will NOT let it take you."
The creature lunged.
Aurelianth stood.
And his veins lit with fire.
Not Pulse-fire.
Not stolen fire.
His fire.