Chapter 41 — The Weight of Glass

"I…" The words hung in Yusuf's throat. The whispers pressed against his ears, against his bones. The square itself vibrated with their hunger.

He looked at the faceless child. Their empty face tilted up, inscrutable, but their tiny hands clutched the Codex as if it burned.

Then Yusuf said it.

"I will remember."

The scholar's lined smile stretched wide, and her hand closed on his wrist.

Glass broke.

It wasn't the square—it was him. His mind splintered, breaking like a mirror struck with stone.

Voices poured into him, a thousand thousand lives rippling through the fragile walls of his self.

A boy racing after his kite across roofs of marble.

A woman writing names on tablets till her fingers were smeared with blood.

A soldier clutching his dying brother, singing a song to drown the clock's unyielding tick.

A girl praying to be forgotten because remembering hurt too much.

It all slammed into Yusuf like a flood. He screamed, falling to his knees, clutching his head as if he could hold his skull together.

The faceless child shouted—distant, distorted—“Yusuf, stop! You’re not them!”

But he was them. For a moment, he was all of them. All the sorrow. All the joy. All the regret. His skin shook under the weight of centuries. His own memories—his father, the museum, the first time he had laid hands upon the Codex—threw like wet vellum into the flood.

The scholar's face moved closer, her glassy eyes a whisper from his own. "Yes… let us in. Bear us. Carry us, Archivist."

Cracks deepened within her. Her voice echoed through his skull.

And then—

The Codex caught fire.

Pages blew open in blinded light. Threads whipped through air, tying Yusuf as chains, as anchors. They tugged at the flood, trying to pin shards into form, to keep him from scattering.

The faceless child grasped his shoulders, their blank face nearly pressed against his.

"Don't become them. Anchor yourself! Say your name!"

Yusuf's lips trembled, blood welling where he'd bitten his tongue.

"I… I am… Yusuf…"

The voices wailed. Some struggled, clawing at him, pleading to be remembered whole. Others wept for happiness.

The Codex creaked as the ink spread across its pages, shrouding shards into shattered entries. Not whole lives, but shards. Enough to be. Enough to keep them from dissolving.

And then silence.

The scholar released him. Her form throbbed, glass fractures spreading inward. "You showed mercy… but mercy is paid in price."

She withdrew into the crowd. The citizens' heads turned as one, glass eyes flashing with fragile life.

Yusuf stumbled, gasping, his skin slippery, his head seared with borrowed rumors. The Codex snapped shut in the child's hand.

The faceless child stepped forward, their voice on the verge of trembling.

"You lived. But each piece you hold now… is an entrance."

Yusuf looked up, eyes fading, and caught sight of the square extending out into endless glass streets. The crowd stood in silence, waiting.

And somewhere, beneath the rhythm of the unobserved clock, he heard it—

a laugh. Full. Familiar.

His father's.