Elisa opened another portal once again and descended.
The rift dragged her into universes beyond any known limit. These were no longer worlds separated by time or logic, but pure fractures in existence itself—dimensions where the laws of reality had completely dissolved.Forbidden places, never meant to house consciousness.
There, the hat did not vibrate with energy…It vibrated with fear.
The first world she entered was a cemetery of thoughts. A dimension where every idea ever forgotten by a living mind took form… only to wither away instantly.
The hills were made of shattered dreams. Rivers flowed with words never spoken.And in the sky, thousands of faces screamed names that no one remembered.
Elisa walked cautiously, but soon felt her own memories beginning to dissipate.Her name became blurred.Her purpose, confusion.
She had to cling to the hat to stay sane, to avoid losing herself in her own thoughts.Only then did she manage to seal the rift—at the cost of another tear she did not know why she had shed.
The next opening led her to an inverted universe, one where time disintegrated everything and thoughts became horrific deformities. There, beings built their bodies from what others thought of them.
Elisa was attacked by creatures made entirely of borrowed hatred, formed from the fears that some versions of her had inspired in other worlds.
She saw a version of herself where the rejection and marginalization she suffered on her home planet drove her to destroy it. A version where her desire to be recognized and accepted by all caused her to lose herself. And a version where her thirst for knowledge and power led her to place her entire universe beneath her feet.
"What… what the hell are you?" Elisa said, incredulous, her voice trembling.
"Please… Elisa, you know us very well—but not completely," said one of the deformities.
"We are you… shaped by what our worlds forced us to become," said another.
"You… you look so whole. Why couldn't I be like you?" said the last.
Elisa stood petrified as her dark versions lunged at her, driven by a mixture of envy, rage, and contempt. She dodged and tried to counterattack, but every time she was about to strike, she stopped herself.
She was facing the cruelest images of herself… and she could not defeat them. She did not have the mental strength to erase herself—even if they were only distorted versions.
She barely managed to escape the dimension, sealing the rift with great difficulty, her heart pounding like a war drum.
"I… I'm not an ideal version of myself either… I don't have a good story. You shouldn't envy me," she said once she was safe, then lifted her hand and looked at her brown hair."I'm a deformation too."
Through another rift, she fell into a bottomless sea where fragments of unborn universes floated—nebulae of worlds never created, inhabited by incomplete beings who did not know they were alive.
A faceless child took her hand.
"Are you going to forget us too?" the child asked, his voice broken.
Elisa barely managed to seal the rift before that child—and the entire cosmic ocean—were reduced to absolute oblivion.
But nothing prepared her for the final place she was dragged into.
A dimension corrupted at its core, where existence itself had been infected. Everything pulsed, soft and organic, as if the universe had skin… and a heartbeat.
Every step was a mistake.Every breath, a wound.
Colors screamed.Shadows bled.
And at the center, a colossal rift—so wide it seemed to laugh. Elisa grew more and more terrified, unable to stop herself from wondering: if these universes were already this horrifying, how corrupted must the First Existence have been?
Elisa tried to seal it.
But the hat did not respond.
And then she saw it.
Something… something was emerging from the rift.A fragment of the original error.A shred of the Failed First Existence.
A formless monster, yet unmistakably present. Something that should not be seen—something that should not exist.
Elisa ran, driven by a primal instinct for survival. Every fiber of her being screamed that she had to run or she would die—not because the creature was stronger than her, nor simply because it was terrifying. It was because of how corrupted it was. A being with an aura so malformed that it ruined existence merely by standing there.
She ran with all her strength as space itself corrupted and disintegrated in its wake.
The hat trembled, as if begging her to let it go.
Her feet shattered.Her soul trembled.
And in that moment—when no hope remained, when she was about to be corrupted by that being—
A golden light erupted.
Elisa was torn from the place in a blinding flash.
The dimension, the rift, and the monster sealed shut behind her with a howl that did not sound like something alive… but like the multiverse crying.
When she opened her eyes, she was in a stable dimension. Calm. With ground, sky, and… silence.
Standing before her was Astrid. Her brooch still glowed.
"You are not invincible, Elisa," Astrid said firmly. "But that does not make you weak."
Elisa was still breathing heavily, covered in dimensional ash.
"You saved me…" she said in a faint voice.
"Because we are not done yet."Before she could continue, Elisa noticed Astrid was eating something she hadn't seen before and asked, confused, what it was.
"Oh! Of course—where are my manners? Would you like some? This is delicious." Astrid extended her hand. Elisa saw that it was only a handful of wild berries.
"Huh? But they're just berries—nothing special," Elisa said.
"Heh, so that's what they're called—berries. Still, it bothers me a little that you say they're nothing special. My species, unlike yours, doesn't eat. We feed directly on stellar energy. That—and a few other things—are evolutionary advantages of my kind. So these berries, and something I ate some time ago called bread and oranges, are the only things I've consumed since I began my journey through the multiverse and learned new concepts like eating. Heh… it's funny how something can be so common to one person and a treasure to another. I suppose everything is a matter of perspective."
Elisa remained silent.
Astrid finished the last berries, wiped her mouth, and took a step forward.
"Anyway, changing the subject—I think it's time we talk."
"About what?" Elisa asked, looking at her with a mix of doubt and fear.
"About what we are.Why we are here.And what we are supposed to do."
The wind of that place began to blow.
Both of them fell silent, staring at one another.
Like two halves that did not yet know whether they should unite… or destroy each other.
And so, as the universe held its breath,the debate was about to begin.