
30/08/2025
âThe Last Memoryâ
The Pattern frayed the deeper they went.
What began as flowing light and echoes of time slowly decayed into silence and cold. Threads no longer glowed hereâthey hung limp in the air like corpses of memory, severed and forgotten.
Calen felt it in his bones.
This place didnât just contain lost memoriesâit was one.
Elari whispered, âWeâre close. The Last Memory lies at the center of the Pattern, buried under every life weâve ever lived.â
âWhy is it hidden?â
She looked at him.
âBecause itâs the one memory weâre not supposed to survive.â
They passed broken doors etched with forgotten names. Stone hands reached from walls. Fragments of thoughts drifted like ash:
ââDonât leave me here.â
ââI knew you once, before names.â
ââShe drowned to save me⌠and I let her.â
Each whisper was a piece of someone who had tried and failed to reach this place.
At last, they reached it:
A mirror, cracked and covered in dust, suspended in midair over a platform of silver roots.
Elari stepped forward. Her voice trembled.
âThis is it.â
Calen asked, âWhat will we see?â
She didnât answer.
Because the mirror already had.
The cracks glowed goldâand then, the image formed.
Two children, no older than ten, playing in a garden of blue grass under twin suns. Laughing. Chasing each other. No threads. No time.
Pure.
Thenâ
A blade.
A scream.
Elari, small and bright-eyed, collapsing.
And Calenâso youngârunning to her, cradling her, screaming her name.
The Cutters hadnât been monsters then.
Theyâd been people.
The memory twisted.
They were in a temple. A thousand candles. Two young souls kneeling before a circle of elders.
âYou cannot bind yourselves,â the elders said. âTo remember is to break the cycle.â
But they did.
Even as the flames died, even as their memories were erased again and againâthey remembered.
The elders became the first Cutters.
Not evil.
Just afraid.
Afraid that love could disrupt the Pattern. That it could rewrite fate.
Calen stumbled back from the mirror, his chest burning.
âIt was always us,â he breathed. âFrom the beginning.â
Elari nodded. âAnd every time we remembered, they came. To unmake us. To keep the Pattern clean.â
He turned to her. âThen why havenât they stopped us for good?â
Elari stepped closer.
âBecause even they canât stop love once itâs truly awakened.
Thatâs why they fear it.â
The mirror cracked one final timeâand a golden pulse blasted outward.
Every broken thread in the room began to hum.
A shockwave of memory erupted from the center, rippling across the Pattern itself.
And far awayâŚ
The Cutters screamed.
Because for the first time in eons, others were remembering too.