Lorien froze, shock locking his muscles like rigor mortis. The images from the Low Liceas disaster were still seared into his eyelids, each frame of horror burned clear as acid etchings. But the world before him now was more real than his memories, more solid than anything he had experienced in what felt like years compressed into moments.

  If anything, everything related to the skyport and the Nebuchadnezzar Vault felt like a vivid nightmare that had trapped him mid-daydream, a fever breaking only to reveal a worse illness beneath.

  However, as different as New York City was from the floating metropolis above the clouds, both places were about to suffer from the same phenomenon. The same curse. The same unraveling.

  Lorien turned around, standing like a stone in rapids, surrounded by erratic currents of people each trying to save their own lives. Their screams created a symphony of terror: the high notes of children, the bass of grown men reduced to animals, the percussion of bodies hitting pavement.

  Two places in two different times, both under siege by the adverse effect of divine powers. Both paying the price for humanity’s reach toward godhood.

  Once more, Lorien did not quite understand why he found himself in the middle of such a situation, and he lacked any knowledge of what to do or where to go.

  It was only when he saw the woman with the sharp hazel eyes that his body started running, ignoring all the dangers ahead, instinct overriding reason, recognition deeper than thought.

  Larissa used the back of her pistol to break the window and free a couple of siblings who had been abandoned in the back of their crashed car. Both of their parents had vanished from existence before they could do anything about it, mid-scream, mid-reach, turned to salt or nothing or something worse.

  Larissa, Larissa! Lorien thought as he approached, heart hammering against ribs that suddenly felt too fragile to contain it. But when it finally was time to meet, another word came naturally from his mouth, a word that felt both foreign and inevitable.

  “Mom!”

  She, wearing the dress uniform of the United States Marine Corps, crisp despite the chaos and medals gleaming even through dust, looked at him with the same sharp gaze he had been used to, the one that could dissect lies and weakness with surgical precision.

  “Lorien, help me get them out of the car!”

  And so Lorien tried to pull the door by the handle, only to notice that he lacked the strength he expected to have. His arms were thinner, weaker, a child’s arms rather than a young man’s.

  It was only when he looked at his reflection in the mirror that he noticed how much younger he was. His image slightly overlapped with the one he had as a student in New Liceas, which he now barely remembered. Two versions of himself existed simultaneously, neither quite solid, like a photograph exposed twice.

  “Lorien, stop fooling around!”

  Abiding by Larissa’s orders, Mom’s orders, Lorien climbed through the shattered front window in order to release the child safety lock, eventually getting the two kids out of the car. They clung to him with the desperate grip of the drowning, their small hands like vises.

  Just when he thought that he could catch a breath, Lorien got pulled from wihin the car by a white man with dark blond hair and singular blue eyes, features he somehow recognized despite never having seen them before.

  “Thomas!” Larissa shouted, but the man quickly interrupted her with urgency that allowed no hesitation.

  “Go, go, go! We need to go, now!”

  He barely pointed toward the facade of the nearby building and how it had become surrounded by the white sparks, the phenomenon Lorien knew too well, the harbinger of transmutation, the herald of anti-causality.

  It did not take long for it to transform into a multiplicity of smaller and larger objects, which altogether caused it to collapse. The structure multiplied into chaotic superposition. Bricks became pebbles and boulders at once, steel beams fragmenting into needles and girders simultaneously. Then gravity remembered its job.

  Larissa and Thomas ran with one child each, along with Lorien, as they fled from the cloud of dust overtaking cars and people alike. A gray tsunami swallowed everything in its path, indiscriminate and merciless.

  By that point, the entirety of Manhattan had been covered by the red sparks, destruction and chaos spreading everywhere, geometric and unstoppable, the city being unmade one block at a time.

  As the cloud of dust cleared, Lorien saw people being overtaken by the effects of anti-causality, getting maimed, turning into other things, or disintegrating. Bodies transmuted mid-step into glass, into water, into concepts that had no business being physical.

  It was indeed the same nightmare in flesh and bone repeating itself, and all he could do was ask himself why none of that happened to him at all.

  ...Why? ... Why am I still whole when everything else breaks?

  In fact, not even his parents were able to escape the curse of anti-causality, as they were suddenly surrounded by the aggressive white sparks crawling across their skin like living things, hungry and relentless.

  “No! No!!”

  Knowing what fate awaited them, both parents fell to their knees in order to hug their son. Their arms wrapped around him with fierce protectiveness he had felt before, in another life, in another world, in a memory that should not exist but did.

  “You are the most important thing to us in the world.”

  Having turned into statues of salt, their bodies immediately collapsed, becoming only mounds of white dust that the wind began to scatter grain by grain.

  Overtaken by confusion from a heart that did not know what to feel, what was real and what was not, he still noticed the presence lingering behind him. The air grew colder, shadows deepening despite the apocalyptic light.

  It was Laplace, who simply stood still. He extended his thin claws toward the boy, offering him help to stand, a grotesque parody of comfort.

  “Shall we go?”

  But before he could do anything, they both noticed a tear in the red sky. Beyond that tear was a world where everything and anything was possible, one without start or finish, one where there was no such thing as permanence. Chaos in its purest form leaked through.

  A dark humanoid figure descended from that chaos, surrounded by the horns and the trumpets that announced the end of the world. Despite not being able to see him, Lorien noticed his grace, surrounded by sparks of all the different colors under the rainbow and several that human eyes had no names for.

  “Lorien, there isn't any more time.” Laplace insisted, urgency finally cracking his usual calm.

  Lorien opened his eyes, surrounded by a world of only white. There was no depth or distance. Everything felt both infinitely close and infinitely far, existing everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The absence of anything made it impossible to measure time. Although it had only been an instant, part of him felt as if he had been there forever, like a fly trapped in amber.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  His head still spun from what had happened before. He thought about the destruction he had unleashed after destroying the Nebuchadnezzar's Vault. Then there was the other world destroyed by the adverse effect. New York. Earth. A place he had never visited, yet somehow remembered with perfect clarity.

  Even though he had never seen such a setting before, he knew countless details about it. Skyscrapers and subways. Yellow taxis and hot dog vendors. The Statue of Liberty and Central Park. Memories that were not his filled the spaces between his thoughts.

  Needless to say, there was also the moment he had called Larissa his mother, and the other man his father, before they died horribly. They had turned into salt in his arms while telling him he was loved.

  Finally, the memory of that human figure invading the world lingered in his mind. The one surrounded by all graces. The image burned into his thoughts like an afterimage on his retinas.

  Slowly, Lorien felt himself slipping toward insanity, losing every sense of identity he believed he had. Who was he? Which memories were real? Where did Lorien end and these other lives begin?

  "Why is this all happening to me?" he asked in agony.

  A familiar voice answered beside him. Calm. Sardonic. Honest in its own way.

  "The explanation might be a lot to take in."

  His nonchalant tone and dry sincerity were unmistakable. It was shadow fiend Laplace.

  Lorien was no longer surprised by his presence. Laplace had already proven that he could appear anywhere; seeming capable of existing beyond ordinary rules.

  "I don't care whether I understand or not... I just want to know."

  "You made the choice of destroying the Nebuchadnezzar's Vault, rejecting the power you believed it held. However, as I told you after I introduced myself, it was a very special item. You witnessed the connection it had to powers that represent the impossible. But did you never wonder why it remained unaffected by them?"

  Lorien's thoughts raced back through his memories. Every time he had used the power, the Vault had remained untouched. Reality twisted and shattered around it, yet the cube stayed pristine, as if protected by an invisible barrier.

  "In truth," Laplace continued, "the Vault existed somewhat outside the usual flow of time. It remained unchanged while the adverse effects that manifested around it were postponed further along the causal chain. In other words, destroying the container allowed the immediate release of all the accumulated adverse effects it had absorbed."

  Laplace paused, letting the meaning settle.

  Lorien suddenly understood. The Vault had been like a dam. Every transmutation had added pressure. Every miracle stored its cost for later. And he had just shattered the barrier.

  "So… it was all my fault…" Lorien murmured, lowering his head. The weight of the realization pressed down on his shoulders. "Laplace… New Liceas, was it completely destroyed?"

  The shadow remained silent for a moment.

  The silence answered more clearly than words.

  "Where are we…" Lorien finally asked, desperate to understand his situation.

  "I call this 'Nowhere', and it 'exists' outside both space and time. What you perceive as a second can stretch into an eternity or collapse into the briefest instant. Physicality does not truly exist here. What you perceive as your body is merely the idea of it."

  "But that doesn't make any sense. How can it be 'nowhere' and still be a place?"

  "In the realm of the divine, paradoxes are simply part of a greater structure. For example, on a Cartesian plane, the positive and negative are opposites. Yet if you change the perspective to a sphere, they become part of the same line."

  Lorien struggled to understand how a human boy like him could exist in such a place. A place that should not exist at all.

  "Since this location lies outside reality, it cannot normally be reached. There is only one remaining possibility. You were summoned, called by something with the power to reach across the boundaries between what exists and what does not. "

  "Summoned?"

  "However, by connecting to this place, you began receiving the influence of its lack of space and time. That caused you to experience jitter from both your past and your future simultaneously."

  As Laplace spoke, Lorien's appearance shifted unpredictably. Younger. Older. Taller. Frailer. Different versions of himself flickered in unstable succession.

  "Meanwhile, 'Nowhere' became anchored to your personal experience of time. That amplified its chaotic nature within reality."

  Lorien suddenly raised his right arm. It was surrounded by metal. He felt nothing, only the rigid motion of mechanical fingers responding like a puppet.

  The disconnect made him nauseous.

  "There is one thing I still don't understand… you said I was called here… and if you are also here, that means you knew where I would be."

  "I only had a vague idea," Laplace replied while studying his clawed fingers. "An educated guess. I could explain it, but there are more urgent matters. Because you exist outside space and time while remaining connected to reality, your body is slowly merging with every other version of yourself across existence. At this rate, your connection to reality will collapse. You will become one among infinite ideas, losing any sense of self you still possess."

  A much younger version of Lorien looked up at him. Barely ten years old.

  "Is there any way I can stop this from happening… ?"

  Laplace's grin widened. The expression of someone who had been waiting for that exact question.

  "I'm afraid this would be impossible for most people. But if it is you… there is one thing you might try. Close your eyes the same way you do when performing transmutation. Then think about everything that makes you… you."

  It sounded absurdly simple. Too simple for a problem so impossible.

  But Lorien had no alternatives.

  So he tried.

  He thought about his appearance. His life in Low and New Liceas. The inn. Larissa. The endless shifts he worked. He remembered Father Ben and Professor Zenith. Every mistake he had made. Every regret he carried. Those scars belonged to him.

  Yet other memories surfaced as well.

  New York City. The planet called Earth. Five thousand years of human history he had studied in school. A house in Arlington, Virginia. His parents Larissa and Thomas. A retired Marine and a criminologist. People who had loved him. People who had died for him. People who had never existed.

  Lorien realized that those memories had already fused with his mind. They clung to him like stains that refused to fade.

  But if he failed to resolve this, he would lose everything. The memories would blur together until nothing remained of the person called Lorien.

  So he concentrated again and again.

  As he focused, darkness surrounded him. The opposite of the white emptiness of Nowhere. Within that darkness, he could see himself clearly. Like a candle burning against infinite night.

  When he opened his eyes, he stood in his own body again.

  Whole and Singular.

  Himself.

  "...How did you… know it was going to work?"

  "Another educated guess," Laplace replied, still smiling.

  Now Lorien could stand. A floor existed beneath his feet, or at least the concept of one.

  "Laplace… I need to go back to New Liceas and fix what happened, but…"

  "But?"

  "Is it really possible? If not, what am I supposed to do from now onwards?"

  "Just as I told you before, there are others who wield similar powers and wish to impose their own vision upon the world. By now you should understand that such power is merely a vector for Chaos to spread into reality. You may not wish to become God yourself. But will you allow someone else to become God instead?"

  Lorien could not answer.

  His mind was too exhausted to decide.

  "Even so, I cannot intervene any further," Laplace continued. "What happens next depends entirely on you."

  The boy did not bother searching for him. Laplace had already vanished.

  As Lorien processed everything that had happened, he looked across the strange landscape around him. Keeping Laplace's words in mind, Lorien began walking toward the empty horizon. Each step carried the weight of regret and uncertainty.

  Eventually, he reached the limit of his resolve. There, his silver eyes met the only other presence in the hollow world.

  A tall humanoid figure sat upon a white throne. Its form was angular and regal, composed of sharp edges that formed a body of polished marble.

  At first it seemed like a statue, but it moved.

  The cavities where its eyes should have been resembled empty voids capable of devouring everything. Yet within that darkness burned two brilliant arcs of light, shining like miniature suns.They stared at him with relentless obsession.

  The tyrant rose from its throne. Its immense pressence made Lorien feel like an insect standing before a mountain.

  "And so it means to happen, regardless of chance or might."

  Its voice filled all of Nowhere despite the absence of a mouth. The words simply appeared inside Lorien's mind.

  "You… brought me here."

  The being observed him silently before answering.

  "To grant an audience to the unheard and unwanted."

  Each word struck his mind with familiar weight.

  After all, he had heard them before.

  "And so we meet once more, Lorien."

  With no space and no time, they confronted each other as pure ideas. Essence facing essence.

  "What do you want from me?"

  The figure descended the steps of the throne until it stood directly before him.

  "For you to become the realization of my will."

  Lorien felt reality itself pause as the final question emerged.

  "Lorien, would you like to become God?"

  The words struck him like a physical blow.

  Why would someone weak like him deserve godhood?

  Yet the temptation was overwhelming. If he accepted, he could fix everything. Restore New Liceas. Bring everyone back. Rewrite reality itself.

  But he remembered Father Ben's warnings, and he remembered what had happened when he briefly wielded such power.

  Every attempt to help had only made things worse. Cities destroyed. People turned to salt. Chaos spreading everywhere.

  He was not wise. He was not worthy. He was just a boy who had tried to save others and ended up destroying them.

  So despite everything, he forced himself to answer honestly.

  "I… don't."