The world is insane.
The world isn't fair.
And because of it,
possibility is
more alien than zero
and more deranged than infinity.
**Chapter I — *?! ****
The hands emerged.
Not from the earth.
Not from the sky.
They emerged from the absence
where neither had ever been.
They searched
for a shape
that did not yet exist.
Something—
not a thing.
Someone—
not a self.
An entity,
and a violation
of the condition required to be one.
It stepped outward
from within T'ran.
Not entering space—
but forcing space
to admit it.
Its designation:
the story & the writing.
"Who is—!? :! ?"
No answer came.
Not because there was none.
But because the question
had nowhere to exist.
It moved without motion,
remaining above time,
infesting space.
It went farther—
or nearer.
Distance had already failed.
It reached—
…
No.
Not reached.
It invoked
its narrative body.
And when invocation completed,
It was no longer singular.
Not itself.
Not unified.
Observation collapsed.
Identity separated from its owner.
Who are you.
Who is observing whom.
Its mouth opened.
Structure failed inside sound.
"*! *? *;**! … Test.
Oh.
Acceptable.
The illusion sustains."
Past and future
overlapped
and decomposed.
Causality
lost sequence.
The story & the writing
made contact with a small girl.
Not contact of matter.
Not contact of time.
Contact of authorship.
They fused.
Not together—
but incorrectly.
The girl was their daughter.
Not born.
Defined.
From the fracture,
the outer god leaked through.
Not as a being.
As residue.
Narrative residue.
Semantic debris.
Fragments of something
that had never consented
to coherence.
From those fragments,
the universe assembled itself improperly.
Galaxies dispersed
like abandoned sentences,
each one
missing the authority
that permitted its existence.
The story & the writing
contained the girl.
Not in protection.
In limitation.
It carried her.
And from that elevation,
the girl observed:
Narrative collapsing into object.
Object hollowing into soul.
Soul destabilizing into awareness.
Awareness becoming error.
Peace
ceased to be a valid state.
The girl was the ethical boundary.
Not morality.
Not law.
A containment parameter.
A final constraint
preventing total overwrite.
For her progenitors:
the story & the writing.
And everything
began to tremble:
!? #? #;!?
Not sound.
Not language.
A systemic convulsion.
Proof
that reality
had entered authorship
under the control
of something
that had just discovered
it was capable
of making mistakes.
And that discovery
was the first catastrophe.