Eleven months.

  Samuel had been in this world for almost a year.

  He’d learned how to sit on his own. Then crawl. Then stagger upright using anything nearby as support. His hands were stronger. His eyes sharper.

  His thoughts… deeper.

  He’d stopped thinking like a child a long time ago.

  If anything, he thought less like a man reborn, and more like a watcher—someone halfway between soul and shadow, waiting for something that hadn’t come yet.

  Something that should’ve.

  Ulaz Village hadn’t changed.

  The sky still opened wide in the mornings, scattered with violet streaks and wind-thinned clouds. The trees still whispered when the sun dipped low. The people still smiled with slow, practiced peace.

  But Samuel felt it.

  Every time someone brushed past him.

  Every time he looked at his reflection in the well.

  Every time his shadow lingered a little too long behind him.

  Something was coming.

  And the Codex had gone quiet again.

  > [Status: Codex Sync – 15.4%]

  [User Milestone: “Turning Point Approaching – First Year.”]

  [Unlocked Feature: Emotional Resonance Tracker]

  [Access Granted]

  It appeared like mist forming on glass.

  A new tab, tucked beside the Traits page. Samuel focused, and it opened like a blooming wound.

  [EMOTIONAL RESONANCE TRACKER]

  | Name  | Sync % | Current Effect  | Risk Level |

  |----------|--------|-----------------------|------------|

  | Eliara | 61% | Tethered Heart Lv.2 | LOW  |

  | Dorian | 47% | Burned Resolve (Dormant) | MEDIUM  |

  | Velara | 88% | Weeping Fang Core Link | UNKNOWN  |

  | ???  | —  | —      | UNRECOGNIZED |

  > System Note: New link forming. Proximity required for stabilization.

  He stared at that last line for a long time.

  Someone was getting close.

  Someone who hadn’t arrived yet.

  The Codex flickered.

  > [Passive System Behavior: “Dreamveil Protocol” is stable. Emotional bleed contained.]

  But external threats… cannot be hidden from forever.

  Samuel crawled across the old rug and reached the windowsill.

  He pulled himself up, just enough to peek outside.

  Nothing but grass.

  Trees.

  The sky.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But his shadow?

  It pointed the wrong way.

  > [Codex Internal Alert: The loop is quiet. Too quiet.]

  “The first breath of change always feels like peace.”

  Behind him, Eliara hummed softly as she stirred a pot near the fire. Dorian sharpened an axe by the door.

  And Samuel?

  He placed his hand against the glass.

  Three days.

  Then he would be one.

  And everything would begin.

  It hit him without warning.

  No sound. No vision. No build-up.

  One moment, Samuel was watching light play across the window glass—

  The next, his mind split open.

  Pain.

  Not physical. Not entirely.

  It was memory pain—the kind that came from being too many things at once.

  He saw his desk job—fluorescent lights, the stink of microwaved noodles, a keyboard with cracked space bars.

  He saw his apartment—gray, still, filled with silence and wasted potential.

  He saw his parents—crying behind closed doors, thinking he couldn't hear them.

  Saw his own reflection, bloated with shame, hatred, and apathy.

  Then came the final moment.

  The car.

  The child.

  The impact.

  The bone-splitting scream he never got to finish.

  And then—

  He felt everything he never said.

  All the grief he buried.

  All the love he never gave.

  All the time he wasted waiting for the world to give him a sign.

  It came crashing down on his infant body like fire through glass.

  > [ERROR — Codex Sync Oversurge]

  [Memory Fragment Detected: Full-life bleed]

  [Soul Vessel Capacity: EXCEEDED]

  Initiating emergency dampening—

  Failed.

  Failed.

  Failed.

  He screamed.

  Loud.

  Raw.

  The kind of sound that didn’t come from a baby.

  It came from something breaking.

  From a soul unraveling under the weight of what it used to be.

  Eliara dropped the bowl.

  Dorian was on his feet in a blink, rushing toward the cradle.

  They grabbed him—he thrashed in their arms, eyes wide, but not seeing them.

  He wasn’t there.

  He was somewhere else.

  Somewhen else.

  > [WARNING: Soul Integrity: 61%]

  [Passive “Dreamveil” faltering]

  [Immediate intervention required.]

  And then—

  Velara screamed, too.

  Not out loud.

  But through the Codex.

  > “ENOUGH.”

  A pulse of shadow burst from the Fang beside the cradle, black veins of energy warping the air.

  Eliara gasped, stumbling back.

  Dorian held Samuel tighter, shielding his body with his own.

  And just like that—

  It stopped.

  > [Emergency Sync Shutdown Complete.]

  [Codex Function: Temporarily locked.]

  [Soul State: Critical. Emotional flood halted.]

  Velara: Dominant Fragment active. Samuel is stabilized.]

  He passed out cold.

  Small.

  Sweating.

  Silent again.

  Dorian carried him to the bed and sat there for hours, unmoving.

  Eliara didn’t speak.

  Didn’t ask questions.

  But her hands trembled the entire time she stitched a new blanket for the boy who had just screamed like he remembered dying.

  > [Codex Recovery Protocol Engaged.]

  Estimated Recovery Time: 3 Days.

  User Memory Access: Locked Until Further Calibration.

  “You are not ready to remember all of it… yet.”

  Velara

  He floated in the dark.

  No stars. No Codex. No shadow tricks.

  Just a weightless nothing that hummed in his bones like a lullaby turned inside out.

  Then—

  A voice.

  Not a whisper.

  Not a glitch.

  A presence.

  “Samuel…”

  It filled the silence like silk through stone. Soft, feminine, old.

  But not in the way time made people old.

  In the way grief made people old.

  “You pulled too hard. You opened the wound before it was ready.”

  He tried to speak, but no words came. No tongue. No breath.

  She continued.

  “Your soul… it’s still stitching itself together. Every loop pulls at the seams. Every memory you reclaim burns the edges.”

  The dark pulsed, like a heartbeat syncing with his own.

  “You’re not broken.”

  A pause.

  “You’re… unfinished.”

  Then came the image.

  A flicker of stained glass.

  Each shard a life.

  A regret.

  A death.

  A face he didn’t recognize but somehow knew.

  One piece glowed darker than the rest. Its edges sharper. Shadow deeper.

  Velara’s voice dimmed to a near whisper.

  “That one… is the reason I found you.”

  > [Fragment Identified: Title Lost — Soul Shard: “The One Who Chose to Burn”]

  Status: Dormant. Contained.

  Risk Factor: High. Loop Instability: Confirmed.

  Samuel trembled, even in this place.

  Velara spoke again—softer now.

  “You have pieces inside you that remember things you never did. Pain you haven’t earned. Power you’re not ready for.”

  “But I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

  Then, she said something he’d never heard from anyone—across all timelines, dreams, or lives:

  “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

  Light broke through the dark.

  Not sunlight.

  Not warmth.

  A pale violet glow, like a soul exhaling.

  Velara’s presence pulled closer.

  “When you wake, you’ll be weaker.”

  “But you’ll be anchored.”

  > [Soul Link Level 2 Established: Velara – “Echo Sentinel”]

  Passive Unlocked: Memory Shield – Prevents catastrophic recall of traumatic loop data while soul integrity is below 70%.

  Active Unlocked: Whisperbind – Allows brief telepathic conversation with Velara during emotional or magical spikes. Cooldown: variable.

  Codex Note: The soul remembers more than death. It remembers the weight of trying to live.

  Samuel began to fade upward—toward waking, toward breath.

  Velara’s final words followed him like wind through glass.

  “When the next one comes… let me speak first.”