The Hall of Unmade Monts cracked like glass under a hamr.
The perfect mories burst around Damon in blinding flashes—shards of light that dissolved into smoke before they could hit the ground. The floor lurched violently, rising and sinking like a living sea. Lira stumbled, grabbing Damon’s sleeve. Shadow and Ember circled them, snarling at shadows that weren’t shadows at all.
They were fragnts of choices. Echoes of futures. Unborn possibilities trying to claw themselves into reality.
Perfect Damon lunged again.
But this ti, the world lunged with him.
The ground split open between the two Damons, a jagged wound swallowing whole mories—Damon’s alternate childhood, a perfect sunset, a life where he’d never known fear. They flickered once, then vanished forever.
Perfect Damon hissed. “You’re destroying everything!”
Damon steadied Lira and glared across the chasm. “No. YOU brought us here. YOU pushed this on . I’m just refusing it.”
“You’re refusing salvation.”
“I’m refusing delusion.”
The double’s face twisted with rage—sothing pure, sharp, and far too human for soone who claid to be perfect.
The Hall answered his anger.
Towers of fractured possibility rose around them, spiraling upward like broken ribs. Distance beca impossible to judge—so pillars were a hundred miles tall, others only inches. Ti warped. Sound bended. Every breath tasted like a mory slipping away.
A low, rumbling howl swept through the air.
Shadow’s fur bristled. Ember pressed against Damon’s leg.
Lira’s eyes widened. “Damon... sothing’s waking up.”
The ground trembled in pulses—like heartbeats.
Damon realized the truth.
“The tear isn’t just a doorway,” he whispered. “It’s alive.”
Before Lira could respond, a monstrous ripple surged beneath the ground, rising into a towering shape. Not a creature. Not a ghost.
A mory-storm.
It twisted like a serpent made of half-ford faces and unfinished monts—arms reaching, mouths whispering, eyes blinking through versions of lives that never were. It lashed toward Damon, sensing the anomaly. Sensing the one who resisted.
Perfect Damon stepped forward, raising a hand. “Stop.” His voice was calm—authoritative.
The storm froze.
“I still control this place,” the double said. “And you still belong to it.”
Damon grit his teeth. “I don’t belong to anything.”
The double smiled faintly. “Then prove it.”
The storm hurtled at Damon.
Shadow leapt first, teeth glowing with a strange light as he bit into the storm’s tendrils. Ember slamd her body into another, scattering it into flickering sparks. Lira thrust her palms forward, unleashing a burst of raw, desperate energy that carved a hole through swirling mories.
Damon sprinted through the opening.
Straight at his perfected self.
Their collision wasn’t physical. It was like two versions of a life slamming together—light, pain, and mory exploding outward. Damon grabbed the double’s collar, forcing him back.
“You wanted a choice?” Damon growled. “Here it is.”
He slamd his forehead into the double’s.
The realm scread.
The storm detonated.
The Hall splintered into blinding white—
And Damon felt the ground vanish beneath him.
Again.
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