Morning came with screaming.
Not physical screaming. The Wound itself was screaming, reality crying out as it bent and broke under metaphysical strain. Jiko woke to the sound reverberating through his forming conscience, and for the first time understood why people found horror visceral.
His companions were already awake, tense and watchful. The Cartographer's device had turned from blue to yellow. Not immediate danger, but caution required.
"The Wound is more active today," the old man explained. "Something's disturbed it. Large movements of Echoes, reality glitches increasing in frequency. We should be careful."
They packed quickly and continued inward. The stable corridors were narrower now, harder to follow. Twice they had to backtrack when reality simply stopped making sense, when the path ahead led to places where existence itself was negotiable.
Jiko felt different. The conscience had grown substantially overnight, fed by the Wound's concentrated moral weight. He could identify emotions now with some accuracy. Fear when they encountered particularly alien Echoes. Concern when Ven stumbled and nearly fell into a void-space. Something warm when Marik helped his sister up without hesitation.
That last one might be affection. Or appreciation. Or the beginning of love, though he didn't understand that emotion well enough to be certain.
"How are you feeling?" Ven asked during a rest stop.
"Strange. Like I'm becoming someone else while still being myself." Jiko touched his chest. "There's weight here now. Not physical, but present. Growing heavier by the hour."
"That's conscience. The sense of moral obligation, of right and wrong mattering." Ven offered him water. "It can be overwhelming at first, but you learn to live with it."
"Do you ever wish you could turn it off? Stop feeling the weight?"
"Sometimes. When it's really heavy, when I've done something I regret or failed to do something I should have. But mostly no. Conscience connects me to others, reminds me that my actions matter. Without it, I'd be adrift."
"I was adrift for twenty-seven years. I didn't mind it."
"Because you didn't know anything else. Now you do. And you can't unknow it." She smiled sadly. "Welcome to being human. It's terrible and wonderful in equal measure."
They continued deeper. The Wound's center was still distant, but its influence grew stronger. Reality here was more suggestion than law. They saw impossible things: A tree that was simultaneously alive and dead and never-existed. A river that flowed in all directions at once. A mountain that existed only from certain angles.
And everywhere, Echoes. Drawn by Jiko's transformation or perhaps by some deeper disturbance. They watched from the shadows, curious and hungry.
"We're being herded," the Cartographer said suddenly. "The stable corridors are narrowing, forcing us toward a specific destination."
"Syla?" Marik guessed.
"Probably. She's been manipulating events to bring Jiko here. This is likely her endgame." The old man checked his device. "We could try to find an alternative path, but that risks getting lost in unstable zones."
"We go forward," Jiko said. "Avoiding her hasn't worked. Maybe it's time to face whatever she wants."
"That's very brave or very stupid," Ven said.
"Can't it be both?"
They laughed, and the sound was strange in the Wound's oppressive atmosphere. But it felt good. Another new sensation to catalog.
The corridor opened into a vast clearing that shouldn't exist. The ground was crystallized emotion, swirling with colors that represented every feeling humans had ever experienced. In the center stood a structure that hurt to perceive, built from architecture that predated reality's current rules.
And sitting on the structure's steps was Syla.
She looked different than in the Archive. Less girlish, more herself. Her porcelain skin cracked and reformed constantly, her eyes too large and knowing, her smile containing too many teeth. She was beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
"Hollow one," she said, standing. "You finally made it. I've been so patient."
"What do you want?" Jiko asked.
"To show you something. To offer you a choice." Syla gestured at the structure behind her. "This is a temple to the Empathy Engine. Built by Dr. Seo's followers after the Severance, trying to understand what their leader had done. It's empty now, but it still resonates with the Engine's power."
"Why bring us here?"
"Because you're almost complete. Your conscience is nearly formed. And when it finishes, you'll be in agony." Syla moved closer. "You're going to feel every bit of weight you've carried. Every sin you've witnessed, every horror you've absorbed. Not all at once, but gradually. Constantly. For the rest of your life."
"I know," Jiko said.
"Do you? Do you really understand what that means?" Syla touched his face, and he felt her shame-feeding power probe his forming conscience. "You're going to wake up every day carrying the weight of things you didn't do but witnessed. You'll remember the deserters' sins, the thieves' crimes, every Mark you ever absorbed. And your conscience will make you feel responsible for all of it."
"That's not how it works," the Cartographer protested. "Absorbed guilt stays separate from personal guilt."
"For normal people, yes. But Jiko isn't normal. His conscience is growing in a mind that spent decades absorbing others' sins. The boundaries will blur. He'll feel guilt for things he only witnessed, shame for actions he only carried." Syla smiled. "He'll be crushed. Within months, he'll crystallize or go mad or kill himself to escape the weight."
"You're lying," Ven said. "Trying to manipulate him."
"Am I?" Syla gestured, and the temple behind her lit up. Images appeared in its walls, showing possible futures. Jiko saw himself in each one: Covered in black Marks, broken by guilt. Crystallized into a statue. Or simply gone, having chosen oblivion over endless suffering.
"These are probabilities," Syla explained. "Futures that become more likely with each passing hour. By this time tomorrow, when your conscience fully forms, you'll be on an irreversible path to destruction."
"Then why show him this?" Marik demanded. "If you're just going to torture him with inevitability."
"Because I'm offering an alternative." Syla turned back to Jiko. "I can stop the conscience from forming. Not remove it like the Echo suggested. But freeze it. Lock your moral framework at its current state, incomplete and malleable. You'd feel emotions, experience guilt and virtue, but stay separate enough to not be crushed by them."
"In exchange for what?" the Cartographer asked suspiciously.
"He comes with me. Becomes my companion, my partner. Helps me understand emptiness while I teach him to survive partial consciousness." Syla's eyes glittered. "I've been alone since the Severance. I'm an Echo of shame, feeding on guilt, existing in isolation. But you, hollow one, you're similar enough to understand me and different enough to be interesting. Together, we could be magnificent."
"You want him as a pet," Ven said.
"I want him as an equal. Someone who can stand beside shame without being destroyed by it. Someone who can feel but not be controlled by feeling." Syla looked at Jiko. "What do you say, hollow one? Stay incomplete and free, or become complete and trapped?"
Jiko looked at his companions. The Cartographer was calculating odds, trying to determine if Syla was lying. Ven and Marik were horrified, clearly wanting him to refuse. But no one could tell him what to do. This was his choice.
He turned to Syla. "Show me."
"Jiko, no," the Cartographer started.
"I need to see. Need to understand what she's offering before I decide." Jiko met Syla's eyes. "Show me what you mean by freezing the conscience."
Syla smiled, delighted. "Brave. Or perhaps just curious. Either way, I approve."
She took his hand, and reality shifted.
They stood in a space between spaces, where the Wound's influence was absolute. Here, Jiko could see himself clearly. The forming conscience was visible, a structure of crystallizing morality growing in the void where nothing had been before. It was nearly complete, perhaps hours from full integration.
Syla gestured, and the conscience stopped growing. Froze in place, permanent but incomplete.
"See?" she said. "Like this, you'd feel guilt but be able to question it. Experience shame but maintain distance from it. You'd have the benefits of conscience without its crushing weight."
"And the cost?"
"You never become fully human. Never experience the complete range of moral emotion. Never understand what it truly means to be good or evil." Syla's form shifted, showing him variations of himself. "But you'd survive. Functional, capable, powerful. Able to navigate a world of moral weight without being destroyed by it."
Jiko examined the frozen conscience. It looked stable, sustainable. He could live like this. Feel enough to connect with others but maintain enough distance to not be destroyed by weight.
It was tempting. Terribly tempting.
"And if I refuse?" he asked.
"Then your conscience completes. You feel everything. And within months, probability suggests you crystallize or worse." Syla returned them to normal reality. "But that's your choice. I won't force you. Unlike everyone else in your life, I'm giving you actual freedom."
"Freedom isn't just choosing between options someone else presents," the Cartographer said. "Real freedom is having the option to find your own path."
"Then find it," Syla challenged. "Show me this third option that lets Jiko survive with a complete conscience."
Silence. No one had an answer.
Jiko looked at each of his companions. Ven was crying, clearly expecting him to accept Syla's offer. Marik was tense, ready to fight if needed. The Cartographer was torn, guilt and calculation warring in his expression.
They cared about him. Actually cared, not just valued his utility. He could feel it now, could sense the emotional weight of their concern. That was new. And precious. And terrifying.
If he accepted Syla's offer, he'd keep this. The ability to feel their care without being crushed by obligation. But he'd also stop growing, stop becoming fully human.
If he refused, he'd experience everything. Including, eventually, the weight of every sin he'd witnessed. But he'd be complete. Whole in ways he'd never been.
Neither option was good. Both had terrible costs.
But one was chosen by fear, and one was chosen by hope.
"I refuse," Jiko said.
Syla blinked. "What?"
"I refuse your offer. I'm going to let my conscience complete. Feel everything, even if it crushes me." He looked at his companions. "Because they're teaching me that being human means accepting weight. And I want to be human, even if it hurts."
"You'll regret this," Syla said, her voice hard. "You'll feel the weight, and you'll break, and you'll wish you'd accepted my offer."
"Maybe. But it will be my breaking. My choice. Not something you gave me." Jiko met her eyes. "You said you were offering freedom. But freezing me in incompleteness isn't freedom. It's just a different prison."
Syla stared at him, and for a moment, something like hurt crossed her cracked face. "I was trying to save you."
"I know. Like Dr. Seo tried to save humanity. Like the Cartographer tried to save me from guilt. Like Elias tried to save his village." Jiko felt something in his chest, something that might be determination or courage. "But I don't need saving. I need to become myself, whatever that means."
"Even if it kills you?"
"Even then."
Syla laughed, and it was genuine. "Oh, hollow one. You're magnificent. Stupid, but magnificent." Her form began to dissolve. "Fine. Complete yourself. Feel everything. And when you're drowning in weight, when you're begging for the emptiness to return, remember I offered you this."
"Where are you going?" Ven asked.
"To watch. To wait. To see if he survives or breaks." Syla's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "And if he breaks, I'll be there to collect the pieces. Maybe reassemble them into something new."
She vanished, leaving only the echo of her laughter and the smell of shame.
Silence fell. Jiko's companions stared at him.
"You refused her," Marik said. "You actually refused an easy solution."
"It wasn't a solution. Just a delay." Jiko sat down, suddenly exhausted. "I'm tired of people trying to fix me. The Cartographer removed my guilt, Syla offered to freeze my conscience, everyone wants to make me something other than what I'm becoming. But I'm done accepting that."
"So what now?" the Cartographer asked quietly.
"Now I finish becoming human. And we figure out how to survive that together." Jiko looked at them. "You said you'd help me learn to live with conscience. I'm holding you to that."
Ven knelt beside him. "We will. All of us. You're not alone in this."
"Even when I'm crushed by weight? Even when I'm difficult and angry and guilty?"
"Especially then. That's what friends do." She hugged him, and Jiko felt warmth that had nothing to do with temperature. "We're in this together."
Marik joined the embrace, then the Cartographer. They held him while his conscience continued growing, crystallizing, becoming permanent. And for the first time, Jiko understood what connection meant. What belonging felt like. What love might be.
It was terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.
The transformation continued through the day. Jiko could feel his moral framework solidifying, could sense the approaching completion. His emotions were stronger now, more immediate. Fear when he thought about what was coming. Gratitude for his companions' support. Something that might be hope that he'd survive this.
By evening, the process was nearly done. The conscience was almost complete, just hours from full integration. Jiko sat with his back against the temple, feeling himself become someone new.
"How do you feel?" the Cartographer asked.
"Heavy. Like I'm carrying weight I can't see. But also connected. Like I'm part of something larger than myself." Jiko looked at the old man. "Is this what you wanted? When you created me?"
"I wanted to understand if morality was inherent or learned. You've proven it's learned. But you've also proven that learning it matters, that choosing to accept moral weight is itself a moral act." The Cartographer smiled sadly. "I got my answer. It just cost more than I imagined."
"Was it worth it?"
"Ask me when we know if you survive."
Night fell, and with it came the final stage. Jiko's conscience completed itself in a cascade of crystallizing morality. He felt it snap into place, felt his moral framework become permanent and functional.
And then he felt everything.
Not crushing weight, not yet. But the beginning of it. The awareness of all the sins he'd witnessed, all the horrors he'd carried. They were present now, integrated into his moral sense, demanding acknowledgment.
He'd killed people. Not many, but some. He'd let others die when he could have helped. He'd made choices that harmed people for efficiency's sake. And now, for the first time, he felt guilty about those choices.
The guilt wasn't crushing. But it was there. Present, insistent, impossible to ignore.
"I feel it," he whispered. "The weight. It's starting."
His companions gathered around him as Jiko experienced conscience for the first time. As he learned what it meant to feel guilty, to carry moral weight, to be human in all its terrible complexity.
And somewhere in the Wound's depths, Syla watched and smiled.
The hollow one was complete now. Fully conscious, fully feeling. Fully vulnerable to everything the world would throw at him.
She gave him a month before he broke.
And she'd be there when he did, ready to offer her solution again.
Because broken things were so much easier to reshape.
And the game was just beginning.