The request came in broken.
Not corruptedbroken.
Aarav felt it before he saw it. A tremor in the narrative lattice. A stutter in probability. A whisper that barely held itself together.
Mira looked up sharply. "You felt that too."
He nodded. "Someone's trying to speak from inside a collapse."
Caelum's eyes narrowed. "That shouldn't be possible."
"Neither was choice," Aarav said.
The signal resolved into a small, dim worldbarely stable, barely coherent. Its continents flickered in and out of existence. Oceans folded into themselves. Time lagged in pockets.
And yet
There were voices.
Not screaming.
Calling.
They stepped through.
The sky was gray and low. The air tasted like static. Mountains hovered, half-faded. Cities were skeletal outlines, constantly rewriting themselves.
People stood in the open, hands raisednot in worship, but in asking.
A young man approached Aarav. His form shimmered like a reflection on water.
"You're the one who let them choose," he said.
Aarav swallowed. "Yes."
The man's eyes filled.
"Then please," he whispered. "Help us."
Mira exhaled sharply.
Caelum stiffened.
Aarav felt his chest tighten.
"What's happening to your world?" he asked.
"We were scheduled for erasure," the man said. "Not collapse. Not transformation. Just… deletion."
Aarav's blood went cold.
"Why?"
"Low narrative yield," the man said. "We weren't dramatic enough. Not tragic enough. Not important enough."
Aarav clenched his fists.
"And now?"
"Now the gods are gone," the man said. "The prophecies are silent. The systems are broken."
Aarav nodded. "So what do you want?"
The man hesitated.
Then said the words that shattered him.
"We want to live."
Not transcend.
Not transform.
Not end.
Live.
A woman stepped forward. "We don't need perfection. We don't need eternity."
A child clutched her hand. "We just want more time."
Aarav's knees nearly gave out.
Mira whispered, "They're the first ones to ask."
Aarav looked around.
This world had no myth.
No destiny.
No grand narrative.
Just people who didn't want to disappear.
He took a step forward.
"I can stabilize this world," he said. "But it will be fragile. You will have disasters. You will lose things. You will suffer."
The man nodded. "We already do."
"You won't be special," Aarav continued. "No divine protection. No cosmic significance."
The woman smiled softly. "We don't want to be special."
Aarav's throat burned.
"You will die one day."
The child squeezed her mother's hand.
"So will you," she said.
Aarav laughedbroken, disbelieving.
"You're choosing a hard life."
"Yes," the man replied. "But it will be ours."
Aarav closed his eyes.
This time
There was no moral paradox.
No tragic beauty.
No philosophical horror.
Just people asking for tomorrow.
He placed his hand on the fractured ground.
And listened.
Not to laws.
Not to systems.
To them.
He didn't make the world perfect.
He made it possible.
Mountains anchored.
Oceans settled.
Time stabilized.
Not forever.
Not safely.
But long enough.
The world shuddered.
Then held.
People fell to their kneesnot in worship, but in relief.
They cried.
They laughed.
They hugged.
Aarav collapsed.
Mira caught him.
"You saved them," she whispered.
He shook his head weakly.
"No."
"What?"
"I didn't choose for them."
He looked at the child, now chasing birds made of light.
"I just… didn't ignore them."
Caelum knelt beside him.
"You've created a new metric," he said.
"For what?" Aarav asked.
"For worth."
Aarav stared.
"They didn't matter because of prophecy," Caelum said. "They mattered because they asked."
Aarav closed his eyes.
"I can't save everyone," he whispered.
"No," Caelum agreed.
"But now," Mira added softly, "the ones who want to live… get a voice."
Aarav sat up slowly.
"That's worse."
Mira blinked. "Worse?"
"Yeah," he said. "Because now I have to hear them."
Above them, the sky brightened for the first time.
Not with glory.
With morning.
And somewhere
In a reality still forming
A small world that was never meant to exist…
Was alive.