Thuta hadn't remembered falling asleep.
One moment he was staring at the scroll, watching a single phrase flicker — "If the second flame is lit, the war begins anew"— and the next, his world tilted sideways.
But he wasn't dreaming. Not really.
He stood in a half-formed world of colorless ash. Buildings flickered in and out of shape around him. Trees burned in reverse — flames sinking into blackened wood, restoring life.
He reached out to touch a nearby wall and his fingers passed through it like smoke.
In the center of the warped city stood a tower — jagged, blackened, cracked by some great force. Atop it, a glowing red circle hovered in the air.
His sigil.
And then—
The world shattered.
Flashes. Faces. Screams.
Alchemists in long red robes turning on each other, hurling flame and symbols like weapons. The sky above them cracked with glowing script. Soldiers ran through smoke carrying scrolls that bled ink as they moved.
A voice cried out: "Seal the vault! The soulfire is breaching!"
Then another scene — a stone hall, burning scrolls, a figure in a wide-brimmed hat standing calmly as flames roared past him. The Watcher. Untouched. Watching.
And another — a child screaming as a glowing sigil was pressed into his chest by trembling hands.
Then darkness.
Thuta gasped and sat upright, drenched in sweat. The scroll lay before him, still glowing faintly, but its edges were curling — burned.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched it, a new line emerged.
"Memory is the lock. You are the key. Do not forget."
He leaned back against the wall, heart thudding. These visions weren't visions anymore. They were memories — fragments bleeding into his mind through the sigil.
He wasn't just connected to the Zawgyi's power.
He was connected to their past.
---
Outside, Yangon was already bustling. Thuta kept his head down as he made his way toward the university. Something was gnawing at him — more than paranoia. A pattern. The visions weren't random. They were trying to show him something.
He pushed open the door to U Sein Myint's office.
It was empty.
Worse — it was wrecked.
Papers littered the floor, shelves knocked over. A chair broken in half. His heart dropped.
"Professor?" he called.
No answer.
A single page lay untouched on the desk, ink still fresh.
"If you reach the third seal, the past will reach for you."
It was written in the professor's hand.
But below that, another line in darker ink — shakier — not his handwriting:
"We are all being watched."
Thuta took the page and left.
---
By noon, he found himself by the river, sitting on a bench, trying to think. The sigil on his palm had been hot all day, like it was impatient.
He looked at the scroll again. The top layer had flaked away, revealing part of an ancient map etched into the parchment beneath. Just one location was marked — a red spiral over the hills west of Sagaing.
No name. No label. Just the spiral.
Thuta stared at it.
Another seal?
A warning?
Or an invitation?
---
He didn't notice the man at first — not until he heard the soft scrape of a boot near the edge of his vision.
He turned. No one.
But on the bench beside him was a mark — drawn in dust:
A spiral. With a line through it.
The sigil.
He wiped it away.
---
That night, as he tried to sleep, he kept hearing whispers — not outside, but in his room. They came from objects. His bag. His door.
Even his pillow.
When he touched the scroll, the voices stopped.
And then, one last line wrote itself across the bottom:
"You carry the war's echo. And the echo remembers you."
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