The air tasted familiar, and that was what worried me.
✦
After the chaos of dreams, after rivers of glass and voices of reflection, waking up should've felt like clarity.Instead, it felt like déjà vu written by someone else.
[ System Notice: Reality Layer — Stable. ][ Narrative Consistency — 100%. ][ Deviation Probability — 0.00%. ]
That last number was the problem.
Nothing in reality ever scored a perfect zero. Not chaos, not fate, and definitely not me.
✦
I walked through the village again — the same one that had smiled too perfectly days before.This time, the people smiled less. More human. Slightly uncertain.
That should've been reassuring. It wasn't.
The baker waved from across the street. "Ishaan! Back from your trip?"
"Yeah," I said automatically. "Wasn't gone long."
He laughed. "You? Gone for three months? I was starting to think you'd turned into mist."
I stopped."Three months?"
"Since you went to the northern ruins, right?"
✦
