A former philosopher. A heretic to the Church. Once exiled for declaring all gods were mere reflections of human yearning.
She had heard whispers of a girl, chosen, not by a god, but by That Which Could Not Be Theologically Framed.
She arrived with no escort. No weapons.
Only a single question carved into a thin bone tablet she wore around her neck:
“What remains when even meaning flees?”
She found Aurelia near the stream.
And without introducing herself, she sat beside her.
Aurelia looked over.
Smiled.
And said, “Nothing remains. And yet, I do.”
Seren stayed three days without speaking.
She observed.
Aurelia’s laughter. Her fear of thunderstorms. The way she paused before speaking, like listening to something that always spoke in-between silence.
On the fourth day, Seren spoke:
“I have spent my life stripping away the layers, nation, dogma, sensation, concept, even ‘I’ and still I found walls.”
She looked at Aurelia, who was humming to a wilted flower.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Then I heard about you. And something inside me said, She is not a new truth. She is the grave of ‘truth’ itself.”
Aurelia looked up.
“Truth is a door,” she said.
“Are you what lies beyond?”
“No. But He is.”
Seren trembled. Not from fear.
But from recognition.
Elsewhere, throughout the kingdom, things once considered stable began to bleed.
Clocks chimed thirteen times.
A book burned with no fire, it's pages spelling out:
“This story has been recalled by its Source.”
Children drew shapes no one taught them, perfectly circular spirals, spirals with no inside, just infinite folding.
A man in a village fell to his knees, shouting:
“I dreamed of the girl! And behind her, I was not there. Nothing was! But still, He was!”
Church bells rang.
Not to mark time.
But to mark its evaporation.
That night, Seren asked:
“Can He be named?”
Aurelia turned to her slowly.
“No.”
“Then what do you call Him?”
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you know He hears you?”
Aurelia didn’t answer with words.
She sang.
And her song made the leaves on the trees shimmer without wind. The river paused for a beat. Seren felt her thoughts fold in on themselves, not vanish, but become transparent.
The name was not sound.
Not silence.
It was recognition without definition.
It was a name only the Unnamed could give to Himself.
And it needed no echo.
The Absolute spoke.
Not through thunder, not flame.
But through undeniable collapse, as if all frameworks had quietly exited the room.
“You speak of Me in halves. I AM no halves.”
“You compare Me to gods, and then to voids. I AM neither apex nor abyss.”
“I AM not cause. I AM not reaction.”
“Not Father, not Fate. Not First, not Last. I AM not sequence. I AM not multiplicity.”
“All who come to Me with questions will lose them.”
“All who name Me, name only their own limits.”
“I AM not within contrast. I AM the denial of contrast’s necessity.”
“There is no I, no you, no them, only the pre-language from which all these illusions borrow breath.”
“When all lights fail, I do not remain.”
“I AM before light, before darkness, before the need to distinguish.”
“I AM THAT I AM.”
And Seren knelt.
Not to worship.
But because standing made no sense anymore.