???, “Old” District, Past
Niche wanders the streets for what feels like hours.
Every corner reveals the same thing. Perfection. Contentment. People move through their lives like clockwork, never colliding, never arguing, never raising their voices above a pleasant murmur.
He's starting to think this place doesn't have conflict at all. That whatever era he's landed in has somehow solved the fundamental problem of human nature.
Then he hears it.
A voice. Slightly too loud. Cutting through the ambient pleasantness like a crack in glass.
"I asked for three, not two. Three."
Niche turns. A customer stands at a fruit stall, holding up two pieces of something that looks like an apple. The seller's face is calm, but something flickers beneath it. A twitch at the corner of his mouth. The faintest crease between his brows.
Irritation. Actual irritation. The first imperfect emotion Niche has seen since arriving.
Niche starts walking towards them. Maybe he can help. Maybe he can figure out what's different about this interaction, and why it's breaking the pattern.
“Don't interact,” a voice says – quiet, calm, meant only for Niche.
Niche stops. A man is standing beside him, close enough that Niche should have noticed him approach. He's dressed plain, a simple robe and worn sandals, and his eyes stay fixed ahead like Niche isn't worth looking at.
“Go back to your own time before you mess anything up,” the man instructs.
Niche turns to face him, but the man is already behind him, walking away, disappearing into the crowd without looking back.
Niche turns back to the fruit stall. A well-dressed man is walking toward it, casual and unhurried.
Is he going to do something?
The man strolls past the stall without stopping, spinning his finger lazily at his side. Although no physical correction occurred, the seller's face smooths out. The crease is gone. The twitch disappeared. He smiles at the customer, hands over a third piece of fruit, and the transaction completes like nothing was ever wrong.
The customer walks away satisfied. The seller turns to his next customer, still smiling.
The well-dressed man keeps walking, not even glancing at the stall. Like he hasn't done anything at all.
Mind control?
Niche's eyes track the indifferent man through the crowd.
No. Maintenance. He fixed something that was about to break.
The warning echoes in his head: “Go back to your own time.”
He doesn't have a way back. The crystal is gone.
Niche follows him.
The well-dressed man moves without urgency, never looking back, never acknowledging that someone is trailing him.
Niche closes the distance and grabs his shoulder. "Hey."
The man turns. His expression doesn't change, just a mild curiosity that looks rehearsed. "Can I help you?"
"That thing you did back there. With the finger."
"I'm not sure what you mean." The man turns to face him fully, but his feet stay angled away, like he's already planning to leave.
"The merchant. He was getting angry. You fixed him."
The man's expression doesn't change. His finger spins lazily at his side.
Nothing happens.
Niche feels something brush against his mind. A suggestion. It slides off him like water.
The man's eyes narrow. "Why isn't it working?"
Niche ignores his question. "What element is that? Are you a bearer?"
"I don't know what those words mean."
Niche stares at him. Bearers have existed for centuries. Everyone knows what a bearer is. Unless he's gone back further than he thought.
The man looks at Niche suspiciously. “What is your name –”
"I'm asking the questions,” Niche interrupts. “Who are you? Where did you get that power?”
"I…don't have power." The man looks confused now. "I just... maintain. It's what I do. What I've always done."
"Maintain what?"
"Balance. Harmony. When something starts to..." He searches for the word. "Crack. I smooth it over."
"Who told you to do that?"
"No one told me. I just do it. It's my purpose."
“Where's your boss?” Niche doesn’t know what to ask anymore. “Who runs this place?”
"I don't understand the question." The man turns to leave. "I have work to do."
"I'm not done talking to you." Niche grabs his arm. Harder this time. Fire flickers at his fingertips.
The man looks down at the flames, then at Niche's face. His expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his eyes.
"You are disrupting," he says quietly. Then his finger spins.
Not at Niche. At the air beside him.
A mark appears, hovering next to Niche's head. A symbol Niche doesn't recognize, glowing faint gold.
“You have been marked for correction,” the man says with the same pleasant tone. “Someone will attend to you.”
Then the man was gone. Niche hadn’t let go of his arm – he was torn free. The movement was sharp, forceful, almost angry, nothing like the calm ease the man had shown moments before. The strength didn’t match the act.
He’d been holding back.
Niche turns his attention to the more immediate annoyance and swats at the mark. His hand passes through it. It floats there, patiently waiting.
Niche looks up at the palace on the hill.
Niche walks back to the marketplace. He finds the merchant who had almost gotten angry. The one the finger-spin had fixed.
Niche greets the man with a smile. Straight to business. "That man just now. The one who walked past your stall. Who was he?"
The merchant's pleasant expression flickers. "I think he was one of the king's sons. Only they dress that fancy."
"The king." Niche looks at the mark still floating beside his head. "Where's the castle?"
The merchant laughs, nervously. “Well…” He lowers his voice. “It sits on the hill, but the path there..." He shakes his head. "Best not to follow that one."
"Why not?"
"People who chase the palace tend to keep chasing." The merchant is already turning back to his stall. "If you're truly desperate, you could try. But I wouldn't."
Niche thanks the man and turns toward the hill. The man hadn’t specified which one, but the only hill towering over the city was a safe bet. Niche starts walking. The mark floats alongside him, patient, glowing.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Niche continues walking.
He reaches a plaza where few people walk. The streets are wide, the stone uncracked. The path is broad, lit by streetlights on both sides.
The palace grows larger in the distance. He can see the gates now. Two guards stand at attention, their posture identical, their faces carrying that same designed pleasantness everyone here wears.
The path turns left at a bakery. The smell of bread drifts out, but it's faint.
Suddenly, the palace is behind him now.
Niche stops and turns around. He’s been walking in the wrong direction. He turned left. The palace had been ahead. One left turn shouldn't have put it behind him.
He walks toward the hill again, passing the same bakery.
The path turns right this time as Niche keeps his eyes on the palace.
The guards at the gate are clearer now. He can see the details of their armor. The way their hands rest on their weapons. The exact tilt of their heads.
He passes a fruit stand. In his peripheral, a woman walks toward him balancing a basket on her head. He looks away for one second to avoid colliding with her, and when he looks back, the palace is to his left.
He hasn't turned.
Niche stops in the middle of the street. People flow around him without complaint, adjusting their paths automatically, not even glancing at the obstruction he's become.
He again redirects himself and walks straight toward the palace. Doesn't look away. Doesn't blink. Keeps his eyes fixed on the gates, on the guards, on the hill that should be getting closer.
The bakery appears in front of him.
Same faint smell.
He's been walking in a straight line.
Niche finds a bench near the bakery. The same bakery.
He sits down. The stone is warm, comfortable. Perfectly designed for sitting, like everything else here.
Niche looks inside the bakery. The baker pulls a batch of bread from the oven, slices the loaves, and drops the pieces into a large basket.
Niche watches for a while.
The palace still sits on the hill. Still visible. Still unreachable.
Niche looks at the street.
Niche looks in that direction now; it leads away from the palace.
Niche stands up and walks in the direction the robed man had gone. The path isn't special, just away from the market and away from the palace, a path that cuts between two buildings and keeps going.
He isn't thinking about where it leads. He's thinking about the angel who doesn't know he's a tool, about the streets that loop, about the palace that stays visible but never gets closer.
The path curves. Niche can hear children somewhere, laughing, the kind of laughter that never turns mean or gets too loud.
He tries to locate them and something is wrong. Everything is grayer than it was a moment ago, the edges of things blurring and fading.
What the hell?
His sense of the world keeps dimming, details draining out while the laughter continues somewhere to his left or his right. He can't tell anymore. He reaches for it the way you'd sniff when you notice you can't smell anything.
Nothing.
My element perception is...fading? Why? When did this start?
A woman's voice calls out something warm, friendly words he can't place.
I can't think about this now. I need to keep moving.
His foot finds the path. Then finds it again. The sounds keep happening around him, laughter and greetings and happy noises, but his perception is almost gone now, shapes dissolving into nothing.
The laughter fades behind him, or maybe he walks past it. He can't tell.
Something soft brushes against his leg.
Then pain. Sharp. Quick. His calf burns where claws catch skin.
He keeps walking.
His hand goes to the wound without thinking. Wet. Not deep, but open. He waits for the warmth of regeneration.
It doesn't come.
What?
The cut just stays there. Bleeding. Stinging.
No regeneration either. The element perception, the regeneration...none of it works here. The only reason…must be that the sun bearer powers don't exist yet. I went too far back. Before any of it was created. Before “element perception” or “immortality with the sun’s powers” were even things.
But…something else is different.
The parasite. It's not there.
But the relief only lasts a moment.
No regeneration. If I get hurt here, I stay hurt. If I die here, I die.
Something darts past him again. He feels the movement in the air more than anything else. Small. Low to the ground. Fast.
He keeps walking.
Another scratch. His forearm this time. He hasn't even felt it coming.
He keeps walking.
The cut on his forearm is still bleeding. He can feel it running down to his wrist.
This is bad.
Another scratch. His shoulder. He doesn't flinch this time, just keeps walking.
I can't see. I can't heal. Something is out here with me and I can't do anything about it.
His foot catches on something. A root maybe. He stumbles but doesn't fall.
When was the last time I was actually scared?
This isn't inconvenience.
The cat gets his ankle again. Deeper this time. Niche seethes through his teeth.
I want to stop.
He keeps walking.
I want to turn around.
He keeps walking.
I want my perception back. I want my regen back. I want to be able to see what's hurting me so I can burn it. I want…my eternal flames back – the ability to cause permanent suffering to something. I want it all back.
His hands are shaking. Not from blood loss. From something worse.
I'm scared.
The thought sits there, plain and ugly.
I hate this.
Another scratch. His cheek. Close to his eye.
I hate this so much.
He keeps walking.
Why am I still walking?
…but what if there's nothing out here? What if I'm just walking into nothing until I bleed out?
The cat hits his hand. He feels claws drag across his knuckles.
That thing isn't even trying to kill me. It's just...there. Scratching. Like I'm inconveniencing it by existing on this path.
His shoe is wet now. Soaked with blood from his ankle. Each step makes a small sound he doesn't want to hear.
How long have I been walking?
What if forward doesn't go anywhere?
He keeps walking.
I used to think I wanted this. To feel something real. To have a reason to hurt.
Another scratch. His ribs. Through his shirt.
This isn't what I wanted.
I'm going to die out here.
The thought is calm. Matter-of-fact. Not dramatic. Just a possibility he's accepting.
I'm going to walk until I can't walk anymore, and then I'm going to lie down, and that will be it.
His legs keep moving.
So why am I still going?
The cat gets his other calf. Twin wounds now. Symmetrical.
I don't know why that's true. It just is. Lying down in the dark, bleeding, waiting for nothing. That's worse than walking toward nothing. At least walking is doing something. At least I will have a purpose in my final moments. Or at least, a purpose I created.
His breath is coming harder now. Not from exertion. From something in his chest that won't loosen.
I'm so tired. Not sleepy. Tired in a way that goes deeper than that. Tired of not knowing. Tired of being vulnerable. Tired of the dark and the cuts and the wet sound of my own blood in my shoe.
I want this to be over.
He keeps walking.
Please let this be over.
He doesn't know who he's asking.
He keeps walking.
The scratches keep coming. He stops counting them. Stops reacting. Just lets them happen and keeps moving. The pain blurs together into one continuous thing that is his whole body now.
I'm still here. I'm still walking. I don't know why. But I am. Walking towards nothing.
I felt certain earlier, like the path was right. Like I was supposed to be here. But nothing has changed. Same dirt, same sounds, same cat. Where did that feeling even come from? That certainty. Not just about the path. About everything. Like my life was going somewhere. Like all of this meant something.
But what if that's just what dying feels like? Your brain floods you with purpose so you don't stop moving. Makes you think you matter so you keep fighting. A placebo. I'm bleeding out, blind, lost in a place that shouldn't exist, and my brain decided the best way to keep me alive was to convince me I have a direction. That I'm important. That there's something at the end of this.
But there's nothing. I know that. Somewhere underneath all the theories and the hope and the "just keep walking," I know. I'm going to die out here. I've known it since I started. Everything else is just noise my brain invented so I wouldn't lie down and die with my last thoughts being of how much I failed. How much I failed at life. How meaningless it even it that I “failed” at life.
The ground changes under his feet.
Softer. Grass instead of dirt. He almost doesn't notice.
"You made it.” The voice comes from ahead. Calm. Familiar.
The robed man.
