Chapter 5 – The Memory That Bled Through Time
Dawn arrived like a reluctant confession—slow, uncertain, reluctant to illuminate what had happened the night before. The campfire had long died to embers, but faint warmth still lingered in the soil, whispering the shape of a night spent half-awake. Ren sat beside the fading glow, his body still, his mind a whirlpool of echoes.
He hadn't slept. Every time he closed his eyes, the forest bent around him—its trees contorting into faces, its wind whispering half-formed words. The Logbook lay before him, its pages open, but it was no longer just an object. It pulsed faintly, like a slow heartbeat.
Ren reached out and touched the corner of a page. The texture was strange—not paper, but something halfway between silk and skin. The script shimmered with the faintest silver hue, words rearranging themselves as if shy under his gaze.
He read them again, slowly, like tasting forbidden fruit:
The soul is not a single thread, but a tapestry. To pull one memory is to risk unraveling the whole.
Ren's breath hitched. The previous night, the logbook had written a single, simple sentence in his mind — "You are the keeper, not the author." He hadn't known what that meant. But now, in the pale light of morning, he began to feel it — a tension beneath his skin, something alive and restless.
His memories.Or… someone else's.
He shut the book gently.
The forest was different by morning. Birds flitted through the mist, their songs carrying across the dew-laden air. Each note echoed strangely in Ren's head, awakening fragments that didn't belong.
A battlefield.A crimson flag torn by the wind.A hand reaching for his — no, for someone else's — while a city burned behind them.
Ren pressed his palms against his temples. The images were sharp, too vivid to be dreams. He remembered the smell of blood, the metallic tang in his throat, the way the sky had looked before the fire consumed it all.
But he had never been there.
He forced himself to breathe evenly. The Logbook's pages rustled, though there was no breeze. It was listening again — he could feel it.
"Are you doing this to me?" he whispered.
No response. Just silence, deep and patient.
Later that morning, Ren followed the stream downhill, trying to focus on the rhythm of his steps rather than the pulse behind his eyes. The landscape unfolded before him — wide plains of wild grass, dotted with the remnants of an ancient road, its stones fractured by roots. The world was beautiful, but there was a sorrow in its bones — a kind of forgotten age buried just beneath the surface.
By noon, he reached a ridge overlooking what once might have been a settlement. Ruined arches jutted out from the earth like ribs. Moss clung to cracked masonry. And in the center, a single obelisk stood, weathered but unbroken.
Ren descended carefully. The closer he got, the more he felt a pull — the same magnetic sensation that came whenever the Logbook reacted.
The obelisk was engraved with spiraling patterns, looping into themselves endlessly. At its base, faint writing glimmered under the sunlight. The language was unfamiliar, yet… familiar. His mouth began to move before his mind understood.
"Aethra qui fallor aeternum..."
His voice trembled.
As soon as the words left him, the obelisk shimmered. The air rippled outward in a slow pulse, bending light like heat haze. The world dimmed, sound collapsed inward — and then he wasn't standing in ruins anymore.
He stood in a city of glass.
The vision came with the cruelty of clarity. The streets stretched endlessly, lit by twin suns. Towers curved upward like spires of crystal, reflecting the blue-white brilliance of an alien sky. People walked past him — their clothes woven with silver threads, their faces serene and distant.
They didn't see him.
He turned, calling out, but his voice was swallowed by the air itself. And then he saw it — a figure on the balcony of a tall spire, dressed in white, holding a book identical to his.
The figure's face was blurred, but the posture was unmistakable — confident, steady, regal.
He tried to step forward, but something held him back. A hand gripped his shoulder.
Ren turned sharply — and froze.
It was himself.
Or someone like him — same eyes, same faint scar beneath the jaw, same expression of haunted clarity.
But older. And colder.
"You shouldn't have come this far," the other said. His voice was calm, but underneath it lay exhaustion. "You're not ready to remember."
Ren tried to speak, but the air warped again. The city flickered, colors bleeding like wet paint.
"Who are you?" he shouted, or thought he did.
"I'm what you left behind."
The older Ren reached out and placed a hand over the Logbook. Instantly, Ren felt something surge through him — heat, light, and unbearable grief.
"Every world you've touched," the voice whispered. "Every life you've borrowed — it's written here. But you keep running from what you were."
And then the vision cracked.
The city shattered. The sky folded into a thousand ribbons of glass and sound. Ren fell — through time, through memory, through himself.
He gasped awake on the ridge again, chest heaving, skin slick with cold sweat. The obelisk stood silent before him, but the ground was scorched around its base, the grass turned to ash.
The Logbook lay open beside him, glowing faintly. A new entry had appeared across the page in a fluid hand:
Recollection #01 — The City of Two Suns. Access: Fragmentary.Subject remains unstable. Reintegration delayed.
Ren stared at it, breath still uneven. His fingers trembled as he turned the page. Beneath the entry, in smaller script, were words he hadn't written:
Do not seek the others yet. Their memories are volatile.
He didn't know who "the others" were — but deep inside, something in him stirred. He could almost feel them, distant but real — faint presences scattered like echoes across unseen worlds.
He wasn't the only one tied to the Logbook.
That night, Ren made camp again near the ruins, though his thoughts wouldn't rest. The firelight danced across the Logbook's surface, reflecting faint blue hues.
He tried to remember his last real life — before all of this. Before the fall, before the awakening. But memory slipped away like sand between fingers. He remembered only fragments — the feel of a storm against glass, the smell of antiseptic halls, a countdown echoing in a mechanical voice.
He had died. That much he was certain of. But now, even death felt like one more door between infinite hallways.
He looked up at the stars — twin constellations circling each other, spiraling eternally.
"Why me?" he whispered.
The Logbook did not answer. But the fire crackled once, as if in response.
Ren closed his eyes.
For the first time since awakening, he allowed himself to feel it — the full gravity of his existence, stretched between worlds, burdened with memories that weren't his, haunted by versions of himself that might still be living elsewhere.
And yet, in that fear, there was also wonder.
If he had lived before… if there were others like him… maybe there was still a path to understanding what he truly was.
Not a lost soul.Not a reincarnated shell.But a fragment of something greater — the infinite record of existence itself.
When dawn came again, he was ready.
He packed what little he had — a flask, a length of cord, a stone knife — and slung the Logbook across his shoulder.
The ink on the last page shimmered faintly, rearranging itself into a single new line:
Path 2 — The Vale of Mirrored Time. Entry permitted.
Ren's pulse quickened. He didn't know where the Vale was, but the words pulled at him like gravity.
He turned toward the east, where the light bled gold across the horizon. The air smelled of rain and iron. Somewhere beyond those hills, the next fragment of his past — or his future — awaited.
He tightened his grip on the Logbook and began to walk.
Behind him, the ruins were silent again. Only the wind spoke, carrying faint whispers that dissolved into the morning mist.
Every memory costs something.Every life leaves a scar.
Ren didn't look back. The pages fluttered once in the wind, and then closed.
The journey had truly begun.