They were falling—not through space, not through time, but through meaning.
The Fold unraveled like a tapestry yanked from the wall of the universe, threads of reality twisting and snapping around them. Cecilion and Zixuan plummeted through layers of what should have been: colors that didn't exist, sounds without origins, the taste of forgotten names clinging to their tongues.
Zixuan screamed, but no sound came. His body twisted unnaturally, pulled in too many directions at once, and yet he never broke. Something was holding them—no, reading them—as if they were books being skimmed in haste. Every regret, every secret, every shard of memory laid bare.
Beside him, Cecilion burned. The runes etched into his skin shimmered as the Key remained clutched in his hand, unaffected by the chaos. His eyes were wide open, unblinking, caught in a communion with whatever watched them from beyond the Fold.
They crashed.
Not onto ground, but into stillness.
