They arrived at dusk, though no sun had set.
The city stretched below them like a corpse in denial — buildings slumped, but upright; lights flickered, but without source; streets curled into themselves like worms ashamed of being seen. No walls. No gates. Just a subtle threshold they stepped over, and the feeling of being observed by memory.
Tirian hesitated. "What is this place?"
Elías squinted. "A city without a name."
In fact, the signs were blank. The banners torn. Even the wind refused to speak. It was as if the entire place had been redacted from reality.
A child passed them — no eyes, no mouth, no expression. Just a face like smooth wax, and the faint echo of laughter that did not belong to it.
"What kind of city forgets itself?" Tirian asked.
Elías answered with a whisper:
"One that was told to."
---
They wandered the streets, watched by statues that hadn't been sculpted. Stone shapes formed by regret, not chisels. Every corner they turned led them back to where they'd been. Every door opened to an identical room: one table, one candle, one chair, always slightly warm — as if someone had just left, or never arrived.
In the center of the city stood a tower. Not tall, but dense — impossibly narrow, yet reaching somewhere no eye could follow. Its stones were made of erased intentions. Words nearly spoken. Thoughts nearly confessed. It pulsed with the weight of half-truths.
Elías approached it. The door was locked, not by key, but by memory. On the handle, a question:
"Who are you when no one remembers you?"
Tirian turned away. "I hate this place."
But Elías whispered:
"I think it remembers me."
The door opened.
---
Inside, there was nothing.
Not silence — not darkness — but the absence of consequence.
And at the center: a throne, again. But this one was different. It was empty, not because no one sat on it… but because everyone had.
Elías stepped forward.
And the City spoke.
---
Its voice was not one.
It was thousands.
Children, lovers, enemies, friends — all overlapping in one chorus of broken recollection.
"Do you want to be remembered, Elías?"
He didn't answer.
"Do you deserve to be?"
He still said nothing.
Instead, he reached into his cloak and pulled the feather — white, still bleeding, still alive. It pulsed violently here, like it recognized the city, or feared it.
The voices rose again.
"We forgot ourselves to keep you hidden."
Elías staggered.
Tirian gripped his shoulder. "What does it mean?"
"It means," Elías said slowly, "that something in this place… was made to protect me."
---
Suddenly, the throne cracked.
Not from force — but from remembrance.
Ghosts began to emerge from the walls. Not spectral. Not magical. Just unfinished people. Shapes given up on. Thoughts that had almost become. Each bore a piece of a story Elías had once lived… but had left unwritten.
They bowed.
Not in reverence.
In forgiveness.
---
And then — she appeared.
A girl.
Not older than ten.
Hair like smoke. Skin like dusk. Eyes hollow — not from blindness, but from being watched too long. She held a book bound in cloth, stitched closed by tears.
"Elías," she said.
He knew her.
But could not name her.
She offered the book.
He took it.
The moment he touched it, his vision collapsed inward. Memories not his flooded his thoughts — lives parallel, mistakes rewritten, moments rewritten again and again, as if the universe had tried hundreds of versions of him before settling on the broken one.
And one truth whispered from them all:
"You are not the first Elías."
---
The throne vanished.
The girl vanished.
Only the book remained.
And one word etched itself on the last page:
"Begin."
---
Outside, the city collapsed.
Not with violence. With relief.
Its walls folded into mist. Its streets curled into questions. The people — if they had ever been — returned to dust that remembered emotion.
Tirian looked at Elías. "So what now?"
Elías opened the cloth-bound book.
It was empty.
He raised the feather.
And for the first time in weeks…
He hesitated.
Because for once, the page didn't demand power, or blood, or confession.
Only… intention.
---
They walked.
The ruins behind them whispered farewells in languages that no longer had names.
And as they left the threshold, Tirian asked:
"If the world forgets you…
can you still change it?"