Skyler's eyes snapped open.
But he was no longer in the chamber.
He stood… in memory-space—a place not physical, not imagined, but recorded. A realm made entirely of recalled echoes, scattered thoughts, and the flameprints of forgotten gods.
Above him: a sky of swirling pages, each one burning with symbols in languages he had never learned—but somehow understood. Beneath him: the infinite Archive Sea, glowing with gold, red, and flickers of violet.
From the horizon, a single word echoed across the mirrored air:
"Veritas."
Skyler turned—and saw himself. Or rather… another him.
Same eyes. Same face. But older. Wiser. Wounded.
This Skyler wore robes woven from timelines. His eyes burned with divine memory. His chest was marked with all seven glyphs, fully unlocked.
The figure approached, and Skyler felt the weight of eons press down on him.
"You have broken the Second Seal," the Witness said.
"And now, you must decide—will you walk the path as Skyler, or as Veritas?"
Skyler stepped forward, his voice cracking. "Why do I have to choose?"
"Because Skyler is the part of you that feels. Veritas is the part that remembers. And once you awaken the Third Seal… you may never feel again."
Skyler's breath caught.
He looked into the sea below—and saw flashes:
Aeria Novaah, screaming in fire, sealing a god behind a flame sigil
Orias, crumbling into nothing, but leaving his memories inside Skyler
Saya, whispering a name that kept shifting through realities
Himself, standing at the edge of the seventh seal, completely alone
He whispered:
"This blood… it never asked to be divine."
The Witness nodded.
"Divinity is not a gift, Veritas. It is a wound that never closes."
"You are the final piece of an archive that even gods tried to forget."
Skyler looked down at his hand.
The glyphs now burned in layers—two of seven. His palm pulsed not just with flame, but with truth. A kind of pressure he couldn't fully explain.
"What happens when all seven seals break?" he asked.
The other him turned.
"The Flame of Total Recall will ignite. You will remember the First World. The Last Lie. And the real reason the gods made the multiverse forget."
Skyler shuddered. "Will I survive it?"
"Skyler won't. But Veritas might."
The world around them began to burn—not destructively, but revealingly. Like peeling back a layer of illusion.
The vision dissolved.
Skyler woke back in the chamber, heart racing.
His mother knelt beside him, hand on his chest.
"You were gone for seven minutes," she whispered. "But your flame—your blood—burned like it had touched the Source."
Skyler sat up. His skin glowed faintly. The second seal glyph had fused into a circular spiral across his collarbone.
Saya stood in the doorway. Her voice hollow.
"It's started, hasn't it?"
Skyler didn't need to answer.
Because now, even his blood whispered memories he hadn't unlocked yet.
He was a Witness. He was a Novaah. He was a curse. And he was the only one left who could remember the truth of everything.