Chapter 58 – The Last Memory

Part 1 – The Broken Advance

The world heaved like a pained giant. Each breath Yusuf took was harsh, each step resisted by a tide of unseen weight, as if the Tree itself had determined he no longer belonged. The earth itself thrashed beneath him, veins of light bursting open across the broken ground. They pulsed like a heartbeat, wild and violent, casting shards of brilliance that seared his eyes.

He lurched forward, holding the Codex to his chest. It weighed more than ever, as if it absorbed not just memory but every doubt, every failure into his chest. Behind him, the devastated ruins of all the shattered worlds twinkled faintly, their echoes ready to disappear. He did not look back. If he did, he believed that he would see the faces of the ones he had failed—faces that would blur, disintegrate, and disappear like smoke.

The roots emerged first. They burst from the ground with a violence that rattled his bones, coiling like stone and bark snakes. One swooped past his shoulder, tearing a jagged path through the air. Another coiled around his ankle, thorns piercing flesh. Stinging fire coursed through his leg, but Yusuf brought the Codex down, pages afire with light. The blow severed the root, recoiling in screaming pain with a voice that was not sound but remembrance itself—screaming in forgotten tongues, pleas torn from lips erased.

The scream pierced Yusuf's skull. Again he staggered, clutching at his head. Not yet. I can't fall yet. He hauled himself to his feet, staggering along the jagged terrain towards the looming trunk ahead. The Tree loomed as a cathedral of decay, its branches reaching for the sky, its roots tunneling into the earth of every life he had ever known. Its bark shifted with each second, etched with silhouettes of lost lives: a woman laughing, a soldier perishing, a child making circles in the dirt. Each vision shone, then dissolved to ash.

"You devour them all," Yusuf panted heavily. "Every story. Every life."

The Tree replied with silence, but in this environment, silence was never empty. It pressed down on him, heavy and oppressive, with a thousand reverberations.

He earned the base of the trunk. Here, the air smelled of iron and smoke but nothing was burning. The roots curled upwards, arching into an open doorway. Beyond it, darkness pulsed—a hollow heart hungry to consume. Yusuf lingered in the doorway, and in that, the roots struck again.

They lashed in pairs this time, scythe-shapes crossing. Yusuf rolled out of the way, a crouch on the broken ground, the Codex held tight against him. He landed in a crouch, pages already spinning. Light erupted outward, weaving a web of threads. The roots hit it, scattering sparks over the void. The threads wavered, fraying at the ends, but endured long enough for Yusuf to stumble ahead.

The block of flame broke a second later, deteriorating in waves of extinguishing fire. Roots slammed into the ground where he had stood just moments before, digging deep furrows into the earth. Yusuf did not look back. He couldn't. Every thread of his awareness was needed for what was coming.

The archway opened wider as he walked toward it, but stepping into it was like entering a storm. Wind screamed in his ears, and no breath stirred. Broken-off voices slammed against him from every direction: pleas, blasphemy, half-forgotten tunes, the gentle whispers of ancient lovers. They battered his head, insisting they be remembered, insisting they be heard.

Yusuf staggered. His legs trembled, and the Codex nearly dropped from his grasp. He gripped it tighter, grumbling under gritted teeth, "Not yet. I promised. I swore."

The storm shifted. The sounds turned harsh, stitching into words that he recognized. A reader of dates. His mother calling his name. His father's voice, hard and cutting, reminding him that the lesson of no love was only a list of names. The noise cut more than a thorn. He doubled over, his breath torn from his chest.

This is the price, he understood. The Tree does not just fight back with roots and demolish—it fights with memory itself.

Darkness ahead of him stirred. Shapes formed, leaping like silhouettes on fire. He saw the face of Rae, Elarra's Archivist, reaching out to him. He saw the faceless child standing silently, head tilted. He saw the companions who had smiled at him when they were returned to their worlds and remembered him no more. Each shape came closer, each set of eyes wide with outrage.

"You left us," Rae panted, though his lips didn't move. "You made us remember."

The boy's head tilted further, voice faint and distant. "You promised you'd find me. Why aren't you here?"

Yusuf stumbled back. His heel hit a root, and he slumped hard against the ground. The Codex thumped onto his chest, breath ripping from his body. He looked up, his throat closed.

The sky was not the same. Shattered light no longer—instead, it was hollow, as if the heavens had been excavated. Stars oozed across it like infected wounds, each blinking with memories of a world. They faded, one by one.

"No," Yusuf croaked, scraping at the ground as if he might pull himself closer to the archway. "Not yet. Not until I'm done.".

The bodies drew in tight, their edges trembled. He could look past them—look into the nothing devouring their shapes, as if they'd already been devoured halfway. They touched his arms with hands that were icy to the touch.

Yusuf screamed and pushed himself upright. The Codex burned, strands of light cutting out. They ripped through the illusions, unbending the shadows into nothingness. Rae vanished. The child was gone. The voices fell silent, though the silence held their absence like an open wound.

Gasping, Yusuf staggered out through the archway. The darkness engulfed him.

Inside was no chamber, no hollow heart of bark. Instead, he stood in a place that was not a place—a vast expanse where time curled back upon itself. Memories floated like shards of glass in water. His own moments lay mingled among them: the drawn smile of his mother, the smell of ink on paper in his father's study, the quiet corridors of the museum where he had worked cataloguing artifacts. Each shard turned sluggishly, his face reflected back at him broken and endless.

Ground was no ground. It shifted every second, sometimes stone, sometimes sand, sometimes nothing at all. He forced his legs to move, though each step was perilous. The Codex struggled against him, its pages flapping though there was no wind. It wanted to open, to feed, but Yusuf held it closed with both hands.

In the distance, at the heart of the emptiness, roots curled into a mighty coil. They shone with light, a knotted heart pumping memory into the Tree. Every throb shook the world, tearing more stars from the sky above.

Yusuf clenched his teeth. His body trembled, his lungs scorched, but his will firmed. This was the center. This was where he must strike.

He took one step forward. Another. The vacancy trembled, and the circle of roots shuddered as if feeling his approach.

The war had only just started.