The city did not applaud.
There was no tremor, no collective intake of breath, no moment where the world acknowledged what had just ended. The street returned to its ordinary hum with unsettling speed—as if reality had been waiting impatiently for me to finish.
Cars passed at the intersection beyond the alley. Somewhere, a phone rang. A window opened and shut.
Life resumed.
I stood beneath the streetlamp, rainless now, my clothes damp and cooling against my skin. The air felt different—denser, less forgiving. Like gravity had decided to assert itself more firmly.
"This is it?" I asked.
EG remained silent for a few seconds longer than necessary. His eyes scanned the street, the buildings, the puddles that now reflected only what stood above them. No depth. No disagreement.
"No," he said finally. "This is after."
The word settled uneasily in my chest.
I became aware of something missing—not a sharp absence, but a dull pressure where something flexible had once been. Breathing felt narrower. Thoughts followed straighter lines. When I focused on the space between moments, there was nothing there to open.
No pause.
I pressed my fingers together, half-expecting resistance to blur or reality to soften.
Nothing happened.
"So that's gone," I said quietly.
"Yes."
I swallowed. "Permanently?"
EG nodded. "Seams don't reopen easily. Especially ones closed at the point of origin."
A strange mix of relief and grief tightened my throat. I hadn't realized how much I'd relied on that invisible margin—the ability to slip sideways when things became unbearable.
Now there was only forward.
I turned and began walking. EG followed without comment, keeping pace beside me. The city lights seemed harsher than before, outlines sharper, imperfections more obvious. Cracks in walls. Graffiti peeling at the edges. People arguing loudly at a crosswalk.
Nothing smoothed itself anymore.
At the end of the block, I stopped.
Something tugged at my attention—not from reflections or shadows, but from inside my coat. I reached in and pulled out the pearl.
It was dull.
Not dimly glowing. Not warm.
Just an object now—opaque, cool, heavy in my palm.
I stared at it for a long time.
"It's inert," EG said. "As it should be."
"So it's useless."
"No," he replied. "It's finished."
I let out a slow breath and closed my fingers around it. For a brief, irrational moment, I wanted to throw it into the gutter, to get rid of the weight of everything it represented.
Instead, I slipped it back into my pocket.
"People are going to notice changes," I said. "Aren't they?"
EG considered that. "They'll notice outcomes. Missed coincidences. Doors that don't quite line up the way they used to. But they won't trace it back to tonight."
"And the ones who do remember?" I asked, thinking of the woman from the café. Of the name dragged back into existence.
His gaze darkened. "Some anchors persist. Memory doesn't obey rules as neatly as structures do."
"Is she—"
"She exists," he said. "But not where she was. And not as she remembers."
That hurt more than I expected.
We walked again, this time toward the main road. The traffic light turned red as we approached. For once, it didn't flicker. It didn't hesitate.
We waited.
"This is what you meant," I said slowly. "When you said I'd gain the burden of staying."
"Yes."
I watched people around us shift impatiently, tapping feet, checking watches. No one phased through the moment. No one slipped.
When the light turned green, we crossed.
"I can't fix things the way I used to," I said. "Can I?"
EG shook his head. "You can still fix things. Just not by bending the world."
"That sounds harder."
"It is," he said simply.
The city opened up into a wide avenue. The clouds above were breaking apart, revealing a pale stretch of sky. No thunder lingered. No rain threatened.
Normal weather.
Normal time.
I stopped walking.
"What happens to you now?" I asked.
EG slowed, then came to a halt beside me. For the first time since I'd known him, he looked uncertain—not about the world, but about himself.
"My function here is complete," he said. "I was bound to the seam's instability. Without it…"
"You disappear," I finished.
"Not immediately," he corrected. "But eventually. I'll become… less relevant."
I frowned. "You're not a reflection."
"No," he agreed. "But I was shaped by what reflections made possible."
I turned to face him fully. "You could stay."
"For a while," he said. "But you won't need a watcher anymore."
The idea of that—of being unwatched, unbuffered—sent a quiet shiver through me.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted.
EG's expression softened. "Neither did you before. You learned."
The city noise surged around us. Somewhere, laughter rang out. A busker played a wrong note and corrected it without stopping.
Life, unassisted.
EG stepped back. "This is where I leave you."
I searched his face for something—finality, reassurance, instructions—but found only calm acceptance.
"Thank you," I said. The words felt inadequate, but honest.
He inclined his head. "Stay."
And then he walked away—not dissolving, not vanishing, just merging into the crowd until I couldn't tell him apart from anyone else.
I stood there alone.
For a long moment, I did nothing. No testing. No reaching for pauses that no longer existed.
Then I took a breath.
In.
Out.
Nothing opened.
And for the first time, that felt terrifying—
and real.
I turned toward home, carrying the weight of a world that no longer bent for me, and the quiet knowledge that whatever came next would not be softened by rain.
But it would be mine.