"Even steady ground must be trusted before it can hold you."
The Archive of Abandoned Selves faded behind them like a dream shedding its final thread. What remained ahead was a wind-carved plain stretching into a horizon of fractured light, where the sky no longer looked like sky but like a sheet of glass tilted at the wrong angle.
Aarav felt the shift immediately.
The Vale wasn't guiding them now.
It was watching.
Waiting
The path under their feet was narrow, carved through dust the color of old bone, leading toward a cluster of structures that didn't look built so much as grown. Jagged pillars rose crookedly, bending toward each other as if in whispered conversation.
Amar squinted.
"This place looks… wrong."
Arin shook his head.
"Not wrong. Unresolved."
Older Aarav flinched at that word.
Aarav slowed as the pillars drew closer. They were covered in carvings—spirals, fractures, names half-etched and half-erased.
Meera traced the grooves with her eyes but didn't touch them.
"What is this place supposed to be?"
Arin swallowed hard before answering.
"This is the Frontier of Incomplete Worlds."
Aarav blinked.
"Worlds?"
"Not entire ones," Arin said.
"Fragments. Futures that never fully formed. Histories that were interrupted. Possibilities that couldn't stabilize."
Aarav's stomach twisted.
"So… broken timelines?"
"Yes," Arin whispered.
"Broken identities, too."
The King finally spoke, stepping closer to the pillars.
"This region shows the consequences of choices that were made too early. Or too late. It is where unclaimed names attempt to build themselves without permission… and collapse."
Aarav touched his chest reflexively.
His almost-name still hummed quietly inside him.
"So these pillars are… failed versions?"
"Not versions of you," the King said.
"But you will feel them more sharply than the others."
Aarav exhaled slowly.
"Because I refused the storm."
"Because you refused definition," the King corrected.
The wind shifted.
A faint ringing—almost metallic—rose from the pillars, vibrating in low pulses like a warning.
Older Aarav grabbed Aarav's wrist.
"We shouldn't be here," he said, voice trembling.
"This is where the storm in my world grew strong. It fed on unfinished futures. It fed on me."
Aarav met his eyes.
"Then we stay together now."
Older Aarav's breath shook, but he nodded.
They walked deeper into the Frontier.
The air thickened, growing heavy and warm, as though the world were exhaling directly onto their skin. Strange glints of light flickered at the edges of the pillars—memories snagged in stone.
Aarav felt something brush past him.
A whisper.
No voice.
No shape.
Just a sensation.
Like curiosity.
Meera stiffened.
"Did something just move?"
Amar stepped in front of her.
"I felt it too."
Arin raised his staff.
"The incomplete worlds… sometimes they try to stabilize when someone with strong resonance enters."
A soft crackle of energy passed over the plain, racing through dust and stone.
Aarav whispered, "They're reacting to me."
"Yes," the King said.
"Because you carry an unspoken name."
The air shimmered.
In front of them, a shape began to form—
not solid,
not fully there,
but a suggestion of a person made of static.
Aarav stopped breathing for a second.
The figure looked like him.
Not a past him.
Not a future him.
A sideways him.
A version made entirely of what-ifs.
Meera grabbed his arm.
"No. No. Don't go near it."
The figure shuddered, glitching in and out of existence—
limbs reforming at strange angles,
eyes flickering like blue sparks.
Arin muttered, "These are echoes of identities that tried to attach to the wrong resonance. They're drawn to anchors who haven't finished choosing who they are."
Aarav stepped back.
The incomplete version stepped forward.
Older Aarav panicked.
"Don't let it touch you!
If it stabilizes through you, it will rewrite itself over your axis!"
The King raised his hand.
Silver light burst outward in a perfect circle around them.
The incomplete version flinched and shattered into shards of static.
Aarav winced as a faint echo of pain jolted through his ribs.
Meera turned him toward her.
"You okay?"
"Y-yeah," Aarav whispered.
"It just felt like… someone tried to imitate me."
Arin closed his eyes and breathed out shakily.
"That's exactly what it was."
They moved deeper.
The pillars grew closer together, twisting into a narrow corridor. The sky fractured above, shards of color dripping down like slow rain.
Aarav felt his chest tighten again.
"Something's building."
The King spun sharply.
"Yes.
Something is forming a choice."
Aarav clenched his fists.
"Another storm?"
"No," the King said.
"Something older."
A low hum vibrated through the ground, crawling up their legs.
Older Aarav gasped.
"I know that sound—
run."
Before anyone reacted, the pillars behind them slammed shut—
fusing into a wall of dense stone.
The path ahead sealed too.
They were trapped.
But not alone.
The air thickened in front of Aarav, forming a distortion like heat mirage folded into itself.
Aarav's pulse jumped.
A hand formed first—
then an arm—
then a silhouette that slowly pulled itself out of the distortion.
This time, it wasn't a broken version.
It wasn't a failed timeline.
It was complete.
Sharp.
Defined.
And when it lifted its face—
Aarav's heart slammed into his throat.
It looked like him.
Exactly like him.
Except older.
And colder.
And less human around the edges.
Meera stepped in front of Aarav instantly.
Amar raised his blade.
Arin whispered an incantation.
Older Aarav stumbled backward, horrified.
"No.
No no no no—
This shouldn't exist—
Aarav, this one is REAL."
The King's eyes darkened.
"It is not an echo."
He stepped forward.
"It is a parallel."
Aarav stared at the version in front of him.
The version stared back.
Aarav whispered:
"What are you?"
The parallel answered in his voice—
"I am what you become if you choose only strength."
The air cracked.
The pillars trembled.
Arin screamed:
"Everyone back—
this one has an anchor!"
Aarav's blood went cold.
The parallel stepped closer.
"I am not a mistake," it murmured.
"I am not incomplete.
I am what the world becomes when you stop choosing connection."
Aarav's fists trembled.
"I won't become you."
The parallel smiled—a thin, dangerous curve.
"You already could."
The world pulsed around them.
The Vale held its breath.
And the parallel Aarav reached out a hand—
"Let me show you who you are when you stop being afraid."
"He let himself lean, and the floor warmed beneath his weight."