The scent of scorched parchment clung to the air like a prophecy denied.
Nexis City had barely begun to adapt to the rewritten world—the breathing alleyways, the skyline that shifted with thought—when the first scream tore through the metaphysical veil. It wasn't human. It was memory unmaking itself.
Darius stood atop the Obsidian Spire, Kaela at his side, Nyx cloaked in shadow. Their eyes tracked the growing distortion in the east—a fissure in space itself, through which a creature crawled into reality.
It didn't walk. It unhappened.
The thing was wrong. A beast made not of flesh, but of unwritten moments—all the things that could have been but never were. It had too many limbs and none. Its form rippled in loops of almost-recognition. A child's imaginary friend. A forgotten god. A murdered dream.
"They're here," Kaela murmured. Her voice trembled, not with fear, but awe. "Echo-Beasts."
Darius frowned. "How?"
