Ego Sum

The laughter died.

Eden was gone.

That thought was simple. It was a fact, like gravity or death. My mind circled the truth, unable to absorb its finality. I looked at my hands.

My tears stopped. Emptiness was all that was ever left. I didn't know what to feel anymore. It was as if I was back to being the doctor, the same feeling I've always felt back on earth.

Yet despair was absolute.

I had played my part. I had followed fate. From a hospital in one world to another. I had been the doctor, the baker, Conall's friend, the hero, and the tragic lover.

And I was worn out.

A feeling deeper than anything physical settled into my soul. It's like a part of my mind was sealed off, and now it's like breathing fresh air. I realized something weird.

A single, nagging thought—why was it all so easy?

I had stumbled into this world, a soul from elsewhere, into the conveniently empty vessel of an orphan. A perfect blank slate.

My first act of "choice," helping James, led me directly into the path of the Redguard.

My second "choice," burning their guild, provided the perfect, chaotic cover for Eden’s real mission—a mission she was already there to perform. I hadn't chosen to intersect with her life; I had walked onto her stage precisely on cue.

Then, Conall. A boy who had never left his home, who had no contact with the outside world, just happened to have a ring from his childhood, a unique, magical item that could unlock a vision to the lines.

He gave it to me without a second thought. And his grand, lifelong scheme of patricide? It was a lock that required a very specific key: an unknown, powerful outsider who could be framed and bear the Reverse Death curse.

And there I was, delivered to his doorstep.

What are the chances that the son of the person I worked under was a knight of the Froste family that allowed me to get deeper into the conspiracy of Wonder?

The dread deepened, becoming a physical chill.

I thought of the duel. Of Gilbert, a being of absolute power, preparing to erase an entire island. His focus, his attack—it was unstoppable.

Yet it was paused. Paused by the single most illogical act imaginable: a maid kneeling.

Lilith's plea shouldn't have mattered. It was a statistical impossibility, a butterfly stopping a hurricane. But it gave me one perfect, clean, priceless second. The exact amount of time I needed.

My heroism, my friendships, my tragedies... they felt less like a life I had lived and more like a series of functions I had performed. Something was weird.

I was tired of being a character.

I had been told my life was not my own. A doctor for my parents. A son for Dorothea. A tool for Conall. A friend for Roman. A hope for Eden.

What were they?

I looked inward, seeing the lines, but I couldn't comprehend what they were. I pushed past the layers of identity I was in. I put my hand deep inside my chest; the sound of crushing meat and bones melting.

Deeper and deeper I went, searching for the core of my being.

And then I saw it.

It wasn't mine. It was a single line with the color of orange. It was my soul, or at the center of where it should be.

This wasn't me.

It was the soul of the boy I had replaced. Marik. The original. He was the one binding me to this world; if I cut it, what would happen? Would I return to death? Or would I simply cease to be?

I didn't matter. This was the only choice I wanted.

I couldn't cut the lines of others without the ring; that was what I learned. Yet I knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that my own soul was different. I could sever its ties myself. Another mystery for another life, perhaps. I was too tired to care.

I reached deeper until I touched my heart, a beating heart. Closing around it slowly.

I would end this miserable story.

As my grip tightened, the world started becoming blurry, and then one final vision flooded into my consciousness.

The air was warm; black darkness was everywhere around me.

In front of me. A young boy stood alone. In the middle of the darkness. He couldn't have been more than ten; his hair was black, and his eyes were bronze. They were Marik's eyes. My eyes.

He was holding a newborn lamb in his hands.

The creature was tiny, its wool a dirty white, and it shivered violently. Its breaths came in ragged bursts. It was dying, but there was something wrong with it. Its eyes, usually dark, were yellow, melting outside their sockets.

The boy didn't see anything wrong with it; he showed no fear, no disgust. He simply looked at the dying creature with an expression of empathy. He saw its pain, its loneliness, and its state.

He hugged the lamp more, his small arms wrapping around its trembling body. He rested his cheek against its soft wool.

Then a single, perfect tear traced its path on his cheek and fell onto the lamp.

Stay with me, too, the boy thought.

And in that moment of pure innocence, a lonely soul is reaching. I understood.

This wasn't a memory.

This was Wonder.

It promises to fill the hole inside that lonely boy's heart. And in return, it's asking him to live.

The thing that Wonder got wrong is that it's not talking to me. The boy it was reaching for, Marik, was already gone. But it had found him first. The original infection had been in him long before I ever arrived.

I laughed. In the end, I was just like Wonder. Maybe I am a parasite who promised Marik something and somehow took over him. But that didn't matter.

My grip on my heart tightened, and the bronze line started moving around like an animal held in a cage.

I pulled, and the world tore apart.

It was with the sound of ripping. The watercolor painting I saw started unfolding.

The colors and everything were being unmade from my view. I was, in a sense, dying. My memories—I saw them, over and over.

I heard the sound of humanity, everyone on this planet talking. Then silence. I was finally over.

In the wheat field, two dead bodies were on the ground. Lying there, reaching their end.

Then a figure stepped onto the field, his boots making no sound in the crushed wheat.

It was Mars. He looked older. He wore a simple black robe, and in his hands, he held the Ars Notoria. The book was open.

He didn't acknowledge the two bodies on the ground with any sense of grief or surprise. His focus was entirely on the gaping hole in my chest. He watched it writhe like a worm on a hook.

Mars raised the book.

He simply presented the open pages to the dying entity. A soundless scream echoed in my fading consciousness as the yellow thread was pulled, unwillingly, into the book. He then turned his dispassionate gaze to Eden's still form, and the fainter dying yellow line within her met the same fate.

He snapped the book shut.

He tucked it under his arm. He glanced at our bodies.

Without a word, he turned and walked away, a silent silhouette against the rising moon.

I should've been dead. But I was there and saw all that happened.

Then I heard a sound.

It was a sound that shouldn't exist; it was as if I were the only one who heard it. It was the sound of the collective scream of every human who had ever lived and ever would live, and woven into it was their laughter. Every moment of joy, chuckle. It was the sound of birth and death, of hope and despair, all compressed into my ears to hear.

Then, nothing.

I opened my eyes.

I was lying on a soft, sun-drenched green hill.

The grass was gentle, dotted with tiny yellow flowers. The air was clean, and the sky was a perfect, aching blue. I sat up, looking at my hands. There was no scar.

The memories of Eden, of the fire, of everything they felt like a story, a terrible dream.

A gentle voice came from behind me. A voice I knew with certainty.

"Are you lost?"

I turned. A young girl stood there, a basket of flowers in her hands. Long, straight black hair. Lavender-colored eyes.

"My name is Lilith," she said, offering a smile that was innocent. "Do you need help?"

Behind her, a shepherd in simple clothes watched his flock, his face full of boredom as he stared at the sky.

My heart started beating faster. I should be dead. I had willed it. I had felt my soul tear apart. This place...

I was here before. Long before I could remember.

A blurry silhouette came into my mind: a stage, an audience, and stars.

My gaze drifted from Lilith to the yellow flowers in the grass to the clouds in the sky, and a single question clawed its way up from the absolute center of my being.

Who did I promise to stay with?

(Volume 1: Story. End)