Freedom didn't feel like wind in your hair.
It felt like silence.
Aarav sat alone on the highest balcony of Crossfall, where the city folded into nothingness and stars drifted like forgotten thoughts. There were no alarms, no collapsing worlds, no voices calling his name.
Just… quiet.
It should've felt peaceful.
It felt empty.
He pressed his palms to the cool floor, grounding himself in something real. Mira was gone. Not erased. Not dead.
Gone by choice.
And that made it worse.
Because he couldn't fix it.
Couldn't save her.
Couldn't rewrite it.
He had taught everyone how to choose.
Now he had to live with it.
Caelum approached quietly.
"You are destabilizing," he said.
Aarav laughed weakly. "Join the club."
"You've lost your emotional anchor."
Aarav didn't respond.
Caelum sat beside him.
"You could follow her."
Aarav's breath caught. "What?"
"You could leave," Caelum said. "Live in a world that doesn't need you."
Aarav shook his head. "That would make everything I've done meaningless."
Caelum tilted his head. "Or complete."
Aarav stared at the stars.
"I didn't want freedom to cost this much," he whispered.
Caelum nodded. "No one does."
A rift opened above themsoft, non-hostile.
A world appeared.
Not collapsing.
Not burning.
Just… confused.
A civilization that had lost its prophecy overnight.
They weren't dying.
They were lost.
And they were asking:
What do we do now?
Aarav felt the pull.
Not obligation.
Invitation.
He stood.
Then stopped.
"What if I don't go?" he asked.
Caelum studied him. "Then they will decide without you."
"And they might fail."
"Yes."
"And they might suffer."
"Yes."
"And they might die."
"Yes."
Aarav's hands shook.
"That's the price," Caelum said.
"Of freedom."
Aarav swallowed.
"I hate that price."
"So did every god before you," Caelum replied.
Aarav looked at the world.
Then away.
He sat back down.
"I'm not going," he said.
Caelum's eyes widened slightly.
"You are choosing not to intervene."
Aarav nodded.
"I'm choosing to let them be wrong."
The world flickered.
Then stabilized.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
They were talking.
Arguing.
Trying.
They didn't need him.
And that
That hurt.
A lot.
Aarav felt something tear inside him.
Not power.
Identity.
If he wasn't needed…
Who was he?
He whispered, "Mira was right."
Caelum said nothing.
Aarav leaned back.
"I made a universe where no one is in charge," he said. "But I don't know how to exist in it."
Caelum answered quietly.
"No one does."
Silence.
Then Aarav said, "I don't want to be special anymore."
Caelum replied, "Then stop acting like it."
Aarav closed his eyes.
And didn't move.
For the first time
A world made a choice without him.
And the universe didn't end.