The Nothing We Become

"The end isn’t a bang, nor a whimper," Nira whispered, her voice curling like smoke through the dim room. "It’s an empty silence... a silence so deep it swallows even the memory of sound."

Eryn stood across from her, his gaze averted, trying to hide the unease tightening his features. Nira’s prophecies had always unnerved him, but there was something about this one—its simplicity, its fatalistic promise—that sank beneath his skin like a thorn.

Eilea and Kaelen listened in silence, the atmosphere thick with tension. Nira was seated cross-legged on the floor, her dark, hollow eyes fixed on something unseen. Her small figure looked fragile, a wisp of shadow against the cracked walls of the abandoned sanctuary where they had taken refuge. Eryn could feel the weight of her gaze, not on him, but through him, as though she were seeing beyond his physical form into something he could never understand.

“Tell me,” Eryn said finally, his voice low. “What exactly do you mean by nothing?”

Nira’s gaze drifted to him, her lips curling into an eerie smile, the kind that children wear when they’ve glimpsed something forbidden. “Nothing,” she echoed softly, her fingers tracing idle circles on the stone floor. “The emptiness that eats itself, swallowing all that is and was, leaving only the shadow of what could have been. If anomalies like you—like us—keep existing, we’ll draw reality into a void.”

Beside him, Eilea inhaled sharply. “Isn’t there... something we can do to stop it?” she asked, her voice betraying a tremor.

“It’s not a matter of stopping.” Kaelen’s smooth, dark voice interrupted. “It’s a matter of choice.” His gaze slid to Eryn, piercing and intense. “Do you still think you can ignore it? Pretend like you can stay apart from us, stay apart from everything?”

The question hung, each word like a pulse beating against Eryn’s mind, pressing down on him until he had to look away, fists clenched.

Eilea moved to stand beside him, her hand brushing against his arm, grounding him in her warmth. “You don’t have to answer him, Eryn,” she murmured. “Not like this.”

But Kaelen chuckled softly. “Oh, but he does, Eilea. He has to make a choice eventually. You all do.” He turned his gaze back to Nira, whose eyes shimmered with a strange light.

“If the anomalies continue unchecked, they will dissolve,” Nira whispered. “And when we dissolve, reality crumbles. Time shatters. Memories become dust. All existence... fades into the nothing we’ve created.”

Eryn swallowed, the weight of her words sinking in. The void she described wasn’t just an abstract concept—it was something he could feel gnawing at him, a vast, unfathomable darkness coiled at the edges of his consciousness. He had always brushed off such fears, but now, as he looked into Nira’s eyes, he felt that darkness staring back.

“What exactly are you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I am a beginning,” she replied, “and an ending. Just as you are.” Her voice grew softer, her gaze shifting. “We’re not here forever, Eryn. None of us are. But the choice is yours: will you let us vanish... or will you let us devour?”

The room fell silent, each word hanging like frost in the air, crystalline and cold.

Kaelen’s face softened, though his eyes stayed sharp. “Eryn,” he murmured, “don’t you see? This is your opportunity. You’re stronger than any of us. You have the power to hold it all together—or to tear it apart. No one else can choose but you.”

A sharp pain shot through Eryn’s temples as he clenched his fists, feeling the strain of his powers quivering just beneath the surface. He could tear through reality with a mere thought, twist it to his will. But for what? The price, he now understood, wasn’t just destruction. It was emptiness.

But he wasn’t about to give in to Kaelen’s seductive words, not without a fight. “You think I’d choose to annihilate everything?” he snapped, meeting Kaelen’s gaze with fierce resolve. “I’m not like you.”

Kaelen’s smile was bitter. “We’ll see about that.”

Eilea reached out, her hand lightly touching his shoulder. “We don’t have to let it get to that point,” she whispered. “We’re stronger together. Maybe we can find another way—without tearing everything apart.”

Nira’s eyes flickered, and suddenly, her voice rang in their minds, a disembodied echo that layered itself over their thoughts.

"A choice that isn’t a choice. Freedom that binds. We’re fragments, scattered across time. When we meet, we consume. A prophecy long forgotten—by becoming, we unravel."

The air grew heavy, and with a sudden shudder, Eryn realized that reality itself was beginning to warp. The edges of the room blurred, the colors dulling and distorting as if someone were smudging paint on a canvas.

“Nira,” Eryn said, his voice tense, “what did you do?”

Nira tilted her head, her eyes innocent yet knowing. “I’ve merely shown you the truth. The world you’re trying to save is already slipping. You think you can hold it together, but can you really bear the weight?”

He could feel it now—the sensation of the world’s instability magnifying, amplifying with every beat of his heart. It felt as though he were standing on the edge of a precipice, and one wrong move could send him plummeting into the void below.

“Stop!” he shouted, his voice thick with power. His hands instinctively rose, fingers curling as he willed the room back into place. The walls steadied, colors sharpened, and the ground beneath them stopped shivering, but he could feel the strain it took, like trying to hold back a flood with his bare hands.

Kaelen chuckled. “Do you feel it, Eryn? That pull? That exhaustion?” He leaned closer, his voice lowering to a whisper. “You are the flood. One day, you won’t be able to stop yourself from breaking everything.”

Eryn pushed him back, his eyes blazing. “I won’t let that happen.”

But Kaelen’s laughter continued, cold and haunting. “Then I hope you’re ready to die holding the pieces, because that’s the only way to stop it.”

Silence stretched out as Kaelen’s words sank into them all, and for a moment, no one spoke. The sense of looming dread weighed down upon them, like the shadow of an enormous wave waiting to crash. Nira’s gaze held Eryn’s, her eyes sad yet resigned, as if she, too, understood the inevitable.

“Then I’ll bear it,” Eryn said finally, his voice steady. “I’ll hold everything together. I don’t care what it costs me.”

Eilea reached for his hand, squeezing it. “You won’t have to bear it alone,” she murmured, her voice a lifeline cutting through the void that threatened to consume him.

Kaelen’s expression darkened, but he said nothing. For the first time, a hint of doubt crossed his features, and Eryn felt a small spark of satisfaction, though he knew it was fleeting.

Nira’s gaze softened, and for the first time, her expression showed something close to relief. “Then you’re ready,” she whispered. “Ready to face the end... and whatever lies beyond.”

Eryn held her gaze, the weight of her words settling over him like a shroud. He could feel the world shifting around them, reality itself trembling as he pulled it back from the edge. But even as he stood there, his power straining to hold it all together, he knew that Nira’s prophecy hung over him, an unspoken reminder of the price he would one day have to pay.

For a brief moment, he felt something akin to peace—a fragile, fleeting sensation that he knew would shatter all too soon. But for now, with Eilea’s hand in his and the world steady around him, he allowed himself to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, he could fight against the nothing they were destined to become.

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