Light.

Gentle, warm light, peeking through the edge of the curtains. The warm softness of the mattress. The smell of salty breakfast food. The distant sound of people talking and laughing.

Soothing, everyday things.

How long had I taken that sort of thing for granted? How long had it been since I'd intellectualized pain, and forgotten what it was like to feel real fear and palpable despair?

Staying in comfortable apartments... Going to fancy schools in big cities... Doing fun things with friends all day... For someone who was supposed to be punishing themselves, I sure had lived a nice, carefree life.

In a way, staring at Ran's corpse in that moment, having lost everything...

That was the most I'd felt like myself in a long time, wasn't it? Like my real self.

In that moment, I hadn't been thinking of absolution at all. The only thing I'd wanted... Was to be safe. To be somewhere warm and gentle, where the source of my pain simply did not exist. Where it hadn't happened.

It was so strange. Could it be called a blessing? Or a curse?

Why the world seemed so happy to grant my wishes, but only when they were selfish?

Thud, thud.

Someone was knocking at the door.

I groaned, struggling to open my eyes. My head hurt, though only a little, like you'd expect from the last hour of a fading migraine. I rubbed my eyes, blinking repeatedly and looking around.

I was in the bedroom which had been assigned to me in the abbey, lying in bed in my pajamas. Nothing seemed amiss in the room. The painting of the original version of the lodge still hung beside the bed frame. The water clock, currently displaying 10:38, was still sitting on the bedside table, along with the adventure novel Ran had loaned me, now turned with its back facing the ceiling. The floor was intact. My things still laid on the dresser.

Everything... Seemed normal. And, yet--

Thud, thud. Another knock. "Hey," the voice said. "Anyone alive in there?"

I recognized the husky, aloof voice. It belonged to Sacnicte.

Sacnicte..? But--

I rubbed my eyes, scrunching my brow. "...yeah," I said blearily. "What is it?"

"Sorry to wake you," she said, not sounding like she actually cared one way or the other. "Your friend asked me to come check up on you since it's so late. And to say that we're about to clear out breakfast, so if you want anything, you better come down now."

"Okay," I replied. "Thanks."

I heard her stepping away, but I kept staring at the door for a few seconds longer, my eyes slowly widening. I looked over the room for a second time, unable to quite accept what I was seeing.

I sat up properly, reaching over for my glasses. I pulled my bed sheet back, looking over my body.

Everything... Was normal. My chest and legs were completely unharmed.

Cautiously, like I was worried the whole room was going to explode, I stepped over to the dresser where I'd left my logic engine, and pushed my palm into the false iron. I consulted its internal clock.

It was the 30th of April. The day after the conclave.

The day I'd just lived.

I heard voices again, this time from a different angle. I stepped over to the window and drew back the curtain, my eyes squinting at the artificed light.

There, wandering beneath the wooden eaves of that carefully-cultivated yet half-wild garden, were figures I recognized setting out in the direction of the Order's inner sanctum. I saw Seth and Bardiya talking together, with Ptolema a little behind, distracted by a golem trimming a rosebush. Yantho was there too, carrying a sack of dirty laundry, with Theodoros pushing his father in a wheelchair behind him.

It was just like the last time I'd looked out this window. I'd been here before.

However... This time...

𒊹

I showered. I dressed. I went downstairs.

"Ran, pass me the vegan cream, would you?" Kam asked, from behind the dining room door.

"They already put it back in the cold locker," she replied aloofly. "You'll have to go fish it out yourself if you want it."

"Tch, bugger that," she replied. There was the sound of a metal spoon scraping against ceramic. "I'll content myself with just the sugar. With this lousy replicated milk, it's essentially nothing but that and fat anyway. Might as well stick the butter in."

"You're sure cheerful this morning," Ran said dryly. "How come you're not with the others, anyway? Don't you want to get first dibs on one of the 'personal consultation sessions' they're offering, or whatever?"

"Please, I'm not desperate. And what's my competition at this point, anyway? Ezekiel, Seth, and perhaps Theodoros and Ophelia are the only ones who I suspect will care much about making connections. Everyone else is either too young, too ideological, too foolish and rich, or too self-important to bother." She paused. "Well, or literally sitting in front of me, and presumably not bothering for her own reasons."

"Kinda defeats the point of not naming names if there's four categories and only four people you could actually be talking about."

"Five, by count," Kam corrected her. "And the 'too foolish and rich' category is looking rather spacious. In any event, my point is that the council shan't be wanting for time, and will probably be more amicable later in the day, once they've shaken off their morning crusts."

Ran snorted. "You sure you're not just still mad about how they took your presentation?"

"Ugh, don't even bring that up," she muttered, her tone darkening. "I still can't believe that Professor Apocyrion was the only one who didn't seem eager to pick it to pieces. I never would have imagined the Order's sympathies would be so proletarian."

Ran gave a low chuckle at this.

"What's so funny, hm?" Kam asked confrontationally.

"Nothing," Ran said.

"Gods, don't you start acting like Su with me," Kam told her derisively. "Just one is more than enough."

I stepped through. The room was mostly emptied. Empty plates and leftovers - mostly the same stuff as from the first morning, save for the addition of some Inotian omelette casserole - were being quickly carried away by golems, leaving only the few still claimed by the last few people seated at the table: Kamrusepa, Ran and Mehit, only the latter of whom were still eating, her eyes tired and expression disengaged. Ran was reading her dragon book, while Kam sipped from a cup of coffee. Both of them turned to look at me as I entered.

"Mm, speak of the devil," Kam said. "Good morning, Su, technically. Ran was concerned you'd died."

Ran gave her an irritated look for a moment, then turned towards me. "You missed the last call for the proper stuff, but I saved you some eggs and a couple of the stuffed buns you like. It's a bit cold, but these things are smart enough to heat stuff up for you in the kitchen if you want." She gestured to one of the golems. "Or you could just have some cereal, I guess. They've got an artifice that keeps the milk cold."

"For the cow's milk," Kam corrected her, leaning her head against her hand. "None to spare for the rest, apparently."

I remained in the doorway and stared vacantly at the two of them, my face frozen. My mouth hung open slightly.

"...Su?" Ran asked, with a wary frown.. "You okay?"

I kept staring at her in particular. The way she was sitting on the seat. Her plain-colored robe. Her small, piercing eyes.

"...uh, yeah," I said. "Sorry."

"What's wrong, Utsushikome?" Kamrusepa asked. "You look spooked."

"I-It's nothing," I said. "Just... Thinking about something."

𒊹

After breakfast, I'd gone back to my room to confirm - as best as possible - that I could contact the outside world. I'd called Iwa, wanting someone with absolutely no connection to the Order or even to academia in general, and had her recite a bunch of information only the two of us could possibly know. Then, when she asked what was going on, I told her I was in an underwater facility, and if I died mysteriously it was the Order's fault, and she should go to the Censors.

I tried to phrase it like it was a joke, in case the conversation was being monitored.

After that, I went for a very long walk. Once it was finally over, I ended up sitting alone in the arboretum, on a wooden seat beneath one of the trees.

I'd barely spent any time there, so I hadn't really been able to appreciate it. But it really was a pleasant little area. The sculpting of the land and the pathways between the trees with intermittent benches and quaint landmarks I'd missed on my prior visits - like a statue of Deml, the Dying Goddess of the natural world - managed to give it the feeling of a proper park. Unlike the other bioenclosures, there was even artificed wind that blew every so often, creating the genuine illusion of an outdoor space.

I stared in the direction of the Nittaimalaru, lost in my thoughts, my body half-leaning against one of the armrests. My hair wafting back and forth in front of my face.

I remembered everything.

The events of that terrible, unending night. The sanctuary in that tenebrous, overwhelming darkness, the murders, the countless profane secrets of the Order that had come to light. The spiral of violence and horror that had seemed to unravel reality itself. Bardiya's destroyed face, the smell of Fang's blood and brain matter splattered all over my clothes, Ran's vacant, dead eyes. My own death, and the sense of terrible, all-encompassing cold that preceded it. All engraved into me, so tangible that it felt like I could close my eyes and be there again. My fear, my hope, and my despair.

And, despite what she'd said, the conversation with my other self too... Though the details on that part were a little fuzzier. Every revelation, and every further mystery, clearer even more than they'd been in the moment.

But those recollections were layered on top of something else, like an extra page stitched crudely into the middle of a novel. Preceding them, my memories also contained an entirely different version of not just that one day, but the whole weekend, beginning from that Friday morning in the carriage. Just as Fang had suggested.

Most of it was the same. Events transpired in more or less the same order, and we had roughly the same conversations. Kam still gave her speech, and we still argued about her weird beliefs, after which I'd still gone out with Ran until Ptolema took me to see Professor Nindar. We'd taken the same route to the sanctuary and met up with the boys group at the same time.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Small deviations began to occur upon our arrival, but were mostly trivial. I hadn't been questioning my sanity, so the tour didn't start until the second day, and had instead spent most of that part of the evening getting shown around Linos's personal laboratory in the research tower alongside Ran and Kamrusepa, before running into Neferuaten on the way back and spending a shorter span of time with her in the abbey garden. Theodoros had still wanted to speak to me, which I'd still completely forgotten about after the argument during dinner.

The second day had followed more or less the same pattern. Everything had more or less happened the same way, with even many of the same ominous occurrences-- I'd found the note in the book Professor Nindar had loaned me, which had led to planning to investigate with Kamrusepa, though the tour had been cut off before we actually made it to the third floor. Balthazar and Ophelia had still run into each other and caused the prosognostic event, though Balthazar himself had come across extremely differently, seeming genuinely embarrassed about imposing on our group and trying his best to be authentically friendly. Zeno had still given me the strange object, and Seth had still had his apparently-orchestrated fight with Bardiya, although I hadn't seen him on the way to meet Sacnicte in the security center, so there was no way to say for sure if that had happened or not.

Finally, Fang had still shown up at the last minute with the mysterious component for the Apega and derailed the conclave. But that was when things diverted.

There'd been no threatening message snuck on to Kam's logic engine - nor any other, for that matter. No appearance of 'young' Anna, just a visually impressive test of the Apega followed by our class being hurried back upstairs. No strange figure in the bird mask beyond the glass. And according to Kamrusepa over breakfast - who apparently had taken it upon herself to investigate the third floor - no corpse in the armory to speak of, just guns and explosives.

And today... On the day it was all supposed to have gone wrong... Nothing.

I hadn't taken Kamrusepa's word for it, nor my own mind's word for it. I'd set out after just a few minutes at the table and explored the whole sanctuary on my own. I'd checked the site of every murder; the guesthouse kitchen, the mask chamber (none were missing), the security center and the box with Ptolema's dirty tools. I'd gone into the bedroom I'd awoken in and the bathing hall opposite. I'd inspected Samium's tower from the outside, making sure none of the windows were broken and there was nothing around the ground.

Then I'd investigated all the other places which were pertinent to the murders. The sealed door underneath the research tower - I cast a little Divination, and from what I could tell based on the microbes dying in the area, the original story from Linos had been true after all, and it was nothing more than a little dock. I peeked through the keyhole to the Order's initiation chamber to see if anything had been trashed, but it hadn't. I checked around my room and the changing rooms below to look for any indication of the fight between Seth and Ezekiel that was supposed to have destroyed it, but there was nothing to find.

And of course I'd checked the pantry, but it was just that-- A regular pantry stuffed full of normal, well-preserved food. The only place I hadn't been able to check was the hidden bioenclosure. I'd thought about chancing it, but decided it wasn't worth it. With the sanctuary in an actually stable state, I'd be caught by the security for sure.

After all that, I wandered around listlessly, listening in on people talking. Durvasa having a conversation with Seth about his career and hopes of entering medical practice out in the gardens; he sounded gentler than he had at dinner or during the conclave. Linos giving Ophelia some generic-sounding advice in the main hall. Neferuaten, Lilith and Bardiya discussing art in the gallery. Mehit having some quiet and personal conversation with Hamilcar in his private chambers.

None of them were discussing anything out of the ordinary, nor was there any indication of something brewing beneath the surface. It was just... An ordinary day.

Had it all been a dream? A vivid, inscrutable fantasy of my grief-stricken mind?

No, that wasn't possible. After all, I'd seen plenty of things over the course of that nightmare that I shouldn't have been able to know about. While I couldn't confirm the grandest ones without drawing attention to myself, there were others that were mundane and easily verified. For example, in this... Reality, I'd never visited the upper part of the main hall and seen the miniature version of the Gilgamesh mural, but it was there. So was the hidden passage to the arboretum from the transposition chamber, or even more trivial details like which mask belonged to which council member that were easy to confirm.

So... It had to have all been real. Yet, only I remembered. Just as the other me had said I would.

I didn't know how to feel. Should I have been happy? That all of those tragic events, and even the circumstances that precluded them, had simply been erased? Obliterated from reality?

I didn't feel happy. Mostly I was just confused.

I wanted to understand, but I didn't even know where to begin. What would I even do? Go to Ran or one of the others and try to explain that I suddenly remembered a different version of today where they were horribly killed, and for the boys, possibly a murderer themselves or at least complicit in several times? It sounded like a great way to get me referred to a mental health counsellor, especially since I'd struggle to even prove it without causing some kind of incident.

I'd run into Theo while looking around in the library, his head deep in a book, and had tried not to look like I'd just seek a snake crawl out from under my pillow while we exchanged hello's. What would I say to him? 'Hey, Theo, I visited an alternative reality where you were a serial killer, and I can prove it by the fact I know you have a crush on me?' It was conceptually psychotic.

Approaching one of the Order members was an even more absurd proposition. I could hardly accuse them with the details of Linos's confessed plan of staging a mass-killing to, for reasons I still didn't understand, fake their own deaths. Because it hadn't happened.

Why hadn't it happened? Had the circumstances that were supposed to lead to it somehow been altered, or never existed in reality at all? There was no physical evidence for it to be found, not even things you'd have expected to be prepared like the ritual circle involved in Durvasa's disappearance.

I didn't know what to think about it. Perhaps it wasn't something that could be thought about.

There was no sane explanation for what had occurred. The Power cannot affect the mind, so it wasn't as though those memories could have simply been fabricated wholesale and artificially inserted; again, it had to have happened, in some capacity. But though parts of it obviously corresponded to reality, there was no way to say if all of it did. Not without knowing the cause of the phenomenon in the first place.

In terms of that, I'd found only one piece of evidence. When I'd asked Kamrusepa and Ran whether they'd noticed anything strange happening overnight, the latter mentioned something Bardiya had brought up over breakfast: That while restless and awake late into the night in the garden, he'd noticed the light from the Everblossom brighten briefly, then go out altogether for around a minute.

It had to be connected. The Apega had always been the only candidate in terms of things in the sanctuary that could conceivably warp space and time on such a scale - to theoretically renew the whole world, as Zeno had put it.

Yet, it was a dead end. I'd come out here hoping to notice something different about the Nittaimalaru, but even if there was, I wouldn't know what to look for. It wasn't like I understood how it worked.

So I just sat there. Wondering if I could convince myself it had been a dream after all.

It would be really convenient if I could.

Eventually, after a while passed, I heard slow, soft footsteps approach on the grass. I could tell who it was, but my mind felt too saturated to turn or greet her. All I could do was keep staring at the strange colors from the bizarre, spiralling structure/plant beyond the grass.

Fortunately, she didn't seem to mind.

"It seems you're quite taken with it," Neferuaten said, as she moved to stand aside the bench, her hands clapsed together behind her back. "I suppose I ought to be flattered, but honestly, Durvasa handled most of the aesthetics." She bit her lip, frowning slightly. "Though I've never been sure why he decided to make the shape so peculiar. I suppose he wanted to take advantage of the fact that my design of the fundamental matter means it is almost completely unbreakable regardless of gravity, but it is a little over the top."

I should have been relieved to hear her voice, and I suppose I was. But still, I kept staring, my brow slowly furrowing as I gazed deep into the strange, oily core. Like I would suddenly understand everything if I just saw it in correct light.

Neferuaten tilted her head. "Forgive me, I don't mean to disturb you if you're not in the mood to talk."

I hesitated, my focus finally breaking and flicking over to her. "U-Uh, no. Pardon me, grandmaster," I said stiffly. I took off my glasses, rubbing my eyes. "Why did Durvasa work on the project, anyway, if it's connected to my grandfather's project in the underground?" I'd almost said the name, before I remembered I wasn't supposed to know it. "I thought he hated him."

She chuckled. "You think he hates him? Is this about his absence yesterday evening?"

Neferuaten was of course referring to the meeting with the Order where they'd offered to make me an honorary member, which had also taken place in this version of reality. It hadn't amounted to much. Hamilcar had given me a short speech talking - in extremely vague terms - about how important a figure my grandfather had been in the organization and conferred the offer, and I'd thanked him profusely (and uncomfortably) but told him that I wasn't interested. He'd said he was sorry to hear it and let me leave.

As for the council member's feelings on the whole affair, they hadn't bothered to be particularly subtle. Zeno and Linos had clearly approved, Anna had clearly disapproved, and Hamilcar and Neferuaten had come across as distantly and conflictedly neutral respectively. Durvasa, though, hadn't even bothered to show up.

I rubbed my eyes. "That and some other context clues, I suppose."

Neferuaten hummed to herself, looking up at the ceiling. "Personally, I wouldn't presume to know what truly lurks in the cockles of the man's heart," she said with a small smile. "But he got along with him well, once upon a time. The years just made the two of them different people, as they so often do."

I nodded distantly.

"Incidentally, a little bird told me that you've spent the last three hours wandering the sanctuary like a zombie," she added.

I turned to look at her. The image of her body strung up on the bell tower shot into my mind. "A little bird?"

"A little bird named Sacnicte," she clarified, her tone one of gentle amusement. "I think she was concerned you were scouting out the premises with some sort of theft in mind. Of course, I know you well enough to be sure you'd never be so sloppy, were that your intent."

I smiled awkwardly.

"Is there something on your mind?" she asked. "It's alright if you'd rather not spend your Sunday cozying up to a pack of old snakes like us, now that the mandatory parts are over. But I'd hate it if something unpleasant were happening to you on my watch."

I glanced downwards. "No, I... It's nothing," I said.

"I didn't see you at dinner last night, either," she said, crossing her arms as she herself turned to regard the Everblossom. "Did something happen during your meeting with Samium? I don't wish to pry, but..."

My lips tightened. "No, that's not it." I shifted uncomfortably, looking off to the side. "Can I ask you a question, grandmaster?"

"Of course," she replied. "Go right ahead."

I took a few moments to think about it. "...if I were to tell you that I'd had a dream where this weekend had played out entirely differently, and something awful had happened, what would you say?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure." She considered it for a moment. "I suppose I'd say you should be glad it was just a dream."

"Even if it was an incredibly vivid one?" I asked. "One you could swear on your own life was reality?"

Another gust of artificial wind blew through, sending the fabric of her white robes dancing. "Well," she said, "if you're here now, would it matter whether it had been real or not?"

"I feel like it would," I said.

"We all feel things," she told me. "But life is what is material in the present moment. In the end, there's nothing more or less to it than that."

Maybe I could have pushed harder. If Neferuaten did know something, she was obviously signalling her unwillingness to talk about it. But if I laid everything out, maybe I could have forced a response, even at the risk of having her think I was genuinely insane. I mean-- She'd been the one who had masterminded Fang's attendance in order to reactivate the Apega, and based on the context clues, had probably been deeply involved in the project. And of course she was part of the Inner Circle, so she'd know the truth of whatever they'd been planning.

But was that wise? I didn't really understand how this had happened. Maybe, even though the world I was now in seemed bereft of all the factors which had caused the tragedy to unfold in the one I remembered, some still bubbled beneath the surface regardless. Which would mean it was possible to ruin this new state of affairs, and set it all off once again.

That possibility seemed far worse than just being confused.

What had the other me said?

That she wanted me to take what I'd experienced as a lesson in how things could always be worse.

Even if a lot of what she'd told me had felt viscerally wrong, that, at least, was a good point. I didn't want Ran or Neferuaten, or any of the others, to die. Even if they had done things which were wrong.

Rationally, if I wanted answers, the smartest thing to do would be to wait. I had Neferuaten's contact information. I could just wait until we were safely back in Old Yru, then try to resolve this at a safe distance.

So that's what I did.

𒊹

Of course, one other thing had played out the same way, too: My meeting with Samium.

The only difference was that in this case, I'd reacted to it quite a lot more spectacularly. I hadn't even taken the book he offered with me, instead - as Neferuaten had alluded to - retreating back to my room in tears, where I'd remained until the morning. I'd missed dinner. The first time I'd seen Ran since it had happened had been at the breakfast table.

I needed to tell her what had happened. But I still felt like I was in shock from having seen her corpse. I didn't know how to speak to her. I didn't really know how to speak to anyone.

What was this feeling? Survivor's guilt, even though no one else had even died?

After I got tired of looking at the Everblossom, I just went back to wandering around, except this time without any particular goal. I ended up drifting about the graveyard area, unsure whether or not to go inside the inner sanctum and look for Ran, or else make some token effort to make professional connections with the Order, just so people wouldn't ask questions. I kept looking over at the pond, wondering whether I should dive in to see if the fifth bioenclosure existed after all. Maybe they'd just figure I wanted to go swimming and thinking nothing of it. But of course I didn't go through with it.

Eventually, Ran found me.

"Hey, Su," she said, coming from the direction of the conference hall.

"Oh," I replied, muted. "...hi."

She glanced around as she finished her approach. "Just hanging around the graveyard, huh."

"Y-Yeah."

"You thinking of raising a few wraiths, or something?" she joked. "Tear this place down?"

My mind flashed back to what I'd done with Ezekiel's body, and then to Theodoros after the fact, and my gaze wandered into the middle distance.

Ran stared at me awkwardly for a few moments. "...uh, so, pretty much everyone is goofing off in the main hall at this point. Zeno's shown up in that weird body again, and Kamrusepa's making an ass of herself trying to talk to them without acting like she finds it weird as hell." She paused. "Might be fun to watch."

"Hh." I exhaled. "Yeah."

"They're gonna hold a vote on what to have for dinner for this last night, too, apparently. Seems like the cook is planning to go all out." A pause. "...I mean. If you wanna get in on that, since you weren't at breakfast. Or lunch."

"S-Sorry," I said. "I think, I um." I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly, my dry lips smacking against themselves. "I just need a little time to clear my head."

"Right," she said, frowning slightly.

Another moment passed. I stared at one of the graves. The name on it was Wu Mao. She'd died 300 years ago.

"Look," Ran said, glancing away. "You don't need to talk about anything yet. It's fine. I get it."

My muscles all felt like they tensed at once. I clenched my fists. "Ran--"

"Seriously," she said, quickly. "Just... Come and eat something, alright?"

I didn't say anything, so she turned and went back inside.