The dust finally settled.
Not all at once—just enough for the world to pretend it wasn't holding its breath anymore.
Miyako moved first.
Quiet. Focused. The way she always did when something dangerous was still deciding whether to stand up or bleed out.
I followed.
Not because I was ready.
Because I still wasn't sure I lived through the first floor.
The fight was over—but my body still remembered.
Every step came like a question my bones weren't sure they could answer.
The scythe rested on my shoulders. My breath stung in my chest like a reminder.
I shouldn't have been walking.
But here I was.
And someone new had landed in our ruin—alive or dead, threat or warning, I didn't know yet.
Only that the Plateau didn't open its sky for no reason.
As we neared the center of the crater, the shape came into focus.
A man—young, maybe a few years behind me—lay sprawled in the dust unconscious.
His clothes were simple. Rough-spun. Worn through in places like he'd been living in them for awhile.
Not armored, not adorned. Just fabric and function.
He looked like someone the world forgot. Or left behind on purpose.
We didn't say much as we lifted him.
His body was light—too light for someone his size. Like the fall had burned half the weight out of him.
Or maybe he just hadn't had much to begin with.
Miyako took the legs. I took the shoulders. My ribs protested, but I kept moving.
We crossed the broken ground in silence, heading for the nearest patch of shade.
The tree we found was thin, but tall—its bark cracked with veins of pale green light that pulsed softly, like the Plateau was still catching its breath.
We laid him down in the grass beneath it, careful not to jolt whatever pieces of him were still in one place. He didn't stir.
I dropped beside the tree, letting the scythe slide off my shoulders and thud into the dirt beside me.
Miyako followed, settling down with a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
For a moment, we just sat there. No battle. No commands.
Just dust in the air and sweat drying on skin that wasn't ready to bleed just yet.
Then I asked it. The question that had been waiting since the second my legs stopped moving.
"So… what happens now?"
She didn't look at me right away. Just stared out across the Plateau—the grass still growing where there hadn't been any, the ruins reshaping themselves like they were being remembered instead of rebuilt.
Then she spoke. Calm. Certain.
"Now that you've conquered the first floor…" Her eyes flicked to me, serious.
"The Plateau has officially awakened."
A pause.
And then—something heavier in her voice. Something final.
"From here on out… this is the real beginning."
I glanced at the guy lying in the grass—still out cold, chest rising just enough to prove he hadn't bled out on entry.
Then back to her.
"What about him?"
"Why'd he fall from the sky?" I asked. "Same way you did."
Miyako's expression didn't shift.
Not at first.
Then, slowly, she shook her head.
"I don't know."
No theory. No guess. Just that.
Three words that hit harder than most answers.
She stared at our new guest like the pieces didn't fit this time.
Like something had moved without warning.
—
I leaned back against the tree, head tilted toward the sky that had just thrown another mystery at us.
The silence stretched.
Then curiosity rose.
"What happens to the ones who make it through?" I asked.
"The ones who survive the original seven floors."
Miyako didn't answer right away.
Not because she didn't know—
because she was weighing how much to tell me.
Finally, she spoke.
"They stop being people."
I looked at her. She was staring off into the distance again, toward the horizon that meets the star filled void.
"They become something else," she said. "Stories. Legends. Power wrapped in memory."
She looked at me now. Eyes steady.
"Fables."
The word settled like a name the wind recognized.
"Fables?" I echoed. "Like gods?"
"Like warnings," she said.
I didn't respond.
She continued, quieter now. "Each one shaped by the plateau. Each earning a name."
"So that's the goal?" I asked.
Miyako shook her head.
"That's the reward."
A beat passed.
"But the cost?" I asked.
She looked back toward the ruins—rebuilt now, humming softly with light and invitation.
"Everything," she said.
I sat with her words a moment longer.
Fables. Gods.
And I was only one floor in.
I stared down at my hands—still scabbed, still stained, still shaking when I didn't pay attention.
"What about me?" I asked. "If I have to go through five hundred floors… what will happen to me?"
Miyako's eyes didn't narrow. They didn't widen either.
She just looked at me like the question wasn't ridiculous. Like it was too real.
"I don't know," she said softly. "No one's ever had to face that many."
"That's comforting."
She gave a small, humorless smile.
"But if you do make it—if you really survive all five hundred…"
Her gaze drifted back toward the far end of the Plateau, where the land had stretched open like a challenge waiting for its name.
"You won't just be a Fable."
I waited.
"You might become something else entirely," she said.
"Something the Plateau hasn't seen before. Something even the Watchers will have to pay attention to."
I let the silence linger a bit longer.
Then asked the next question clawing its way up.
"Will I ever run into one while I go through the floors?" I asked. "A Fable?"
Miyako didn't answer immediately.
Just breathed in slow through her nose, like the thought alone carried weight.
"Unlikely," she said finally. "At least, that was the case when there were only seven floors."
She glanced at me. The way someone looks before dropping a truth that doesn't have a clean edge.
"But now there are five hundred."
I felt the number settle again. Heavier this time.
"With seven floors, the Plateau held its shape—contained, deliberate."
Miyako's voice stayed level, but her eyes tracked something far off.
"But that many floors, that much growth… it changes everything."
She drew a breath.
"Eventually, the Plateau may stretch beyond itself. Expand until it starts pressing into other realms—
Stranger. Older. Forgotten worlds that were never meant to be touched."
She looked at me then.
"One of them is Vanheiven."
The name hit like a dropped blade.
"That's where the Fables reside. The place they disappear into after ascending."
" A realm only available to those who conquer the plateau."
She hesitated. Just long enough to feel it.
"Its not a world meant to be touched or violated."
"Even I don't know what will happen if the Plateau crosses that threshold," she said.
Her voice didn't shake. But her eyes drifted—just for a second—like she remembered something she'd tried to forget.
Suddenly.
A sound broke the stillness.
A low groan—ragged and uncertain—slipped from the figure resting against the tree.
Miyako and I both turned.
The guy shifted slightly, a hand dragging against the grass, fingers curling like they were trying to remember what they were made for.
His face twitched—jaw clenched, breath shallow. Then his eyes cracked open.
Not wide. Not clear. Just enough to see the sky and maybe wonder if it was real.
Short black hair clung to his forehead—long enough to slick back, but left to its own wild tilt, giving him a half-feral look.
His eyes, when they found focus, were a deep, vivid blue—sharp enough to cut through the dust still hanging in the air.
He was about my height, maybe a
fraction shorter, built lean.
Fragile at first glance. But something in the way his muscles tensed beneath the worn fabric said otherwise. Not soft. Just quiet.
Like someone who'd been broken before, and didn't plan on shattering the same way twice.
I finally pushed myself up, joints cracking in protest.
"You alright?" I asked.
My voice came quieter than I expected. Less challenge. More… curiosity.
His eyes slid toward me, unfocused. He didn't answer.
Didn't nod. Didn't panic.
Just blinked again—slow, confused—like the air was too thick to think through.
"Hey," I said, firmer this time. "You landed hard. Can you hear me?"
He swallowed. Tried to speak. Failed. Tried again.
"…Where am I?"
His voice was rough. Hoarse like he'd spent a lifetime screaming into silence.
I didn't answer right away. Just glanced at Miyako, who stayed crouched a few steps back—watching, but letting me lead.
I looked back at him.
"You're in the Plateau," I said. "That's the short version."
Another blink. Slower this time.
"The hell's the long version?" he rasped.
I leaned back, exhaled through my nose.
"That depends on how long you plan to survive."
Then Miyako stepped forward, voice even. Not soft, not sharp—just direct, like she didn't have time for guessing games.
"What's your name?"
The guy turned his head toward her, just enough to meet her eyes. He looked like he had to drag the answer up from somewhere buried.
"…Kade."
The word came quiet, but it held. No stutter. No second-guess.
Just Kade.
Miyako gave a single nod, then stepped back again—still watching, still measuring.
Kade let his head fall back against the tree he was resting on, eyes flicking between us, one hand still curled weakly in the grass.
I didn't say anything right away.
Because the way he'd said it… it wasn't just an introduction.
It sounded like the one thing he was sure of.
And sometimes, that's where survival starts.
Meanwhile.
Miyako's gaze drifted down—slow and deliberate.
Not at his face.
At his clothes, well what was left of it.
Simple, yes. But not just worn—they were cut with care.
Stitching too even for peasant work. Patches repaired with precision. And
there, near the hem of his sleeve, half-hidden beneath dirt and blood—faint embroidery.
Faded, but unmistakable.
Not ornamental. Symbolic.
A stylized ink quill. Threaded in silver-blue.
Miyako's brows pulled together just slightly.
"You were a scholar," she said—half question, half statement.
Kade blinked.
Then looked down at himself like he was seeing his own clothes for the first time.
" I think the correct term here would be I used to be."
After collecting himself.
Kade sat a little straighter, breath hitching like it just caught up with him.
His fingers tightened against the grass. Then—like a damn had cracked—he spoke.
"Okay—so you said this is the Plateau, right? What does that mean exactly? Is it a country? A realm? A simulation? Because if it's dimensional, I need to know if the laws of physics still apply—and if not,
which ones are broken. And how did I get here? Is this magic-based? God-based? I was walking home from the academy and then—nothing. Just sky and screaming and now…"
He glanced up, eyes flitting between us like we were going to produce a textbook at any moment.
"…And why is the ground humming? Is that normal? Do trees always pulse like they're breathing? And you—" He jabbed a finger vaguely toward Miyako.
"Is this some kind of trial or test or cosmic punishment for late fees? Because I returned every book on time, except that one—"
He gasped slightly, like remembering something traumatic.
"Wait. Does this place read minds?"
He didn't stop for breath. Just kept going. Questions piled on top of questions, some rational, some absurd, each one more frantic than the last.
It wasn't panic—not quite. Just a rapid-fire attempt to solve a world he hadn't studied for.
I didn't say anything.
Neither did Miyako.
We just watched as Kade unraveled himself—like someone trying to out-think gravity mid-fall.
He kept talking.
And I saw it.
Not the panic, but the pattern.
This wasn't just curiosity. It was his form of spiraling.
Overthinking instead of breaking.
Logic as a defense mechanism.
'Oh you poor bastard.'
I took a step back—one quiet pace—because I'd seen what came next. And I knew Miyako didn't like spirals. Not the mental kind.
She stood with the same quiet intensity she always had before doing something brutal but educational.
And before I could warn him—
Her leg snapped out in a clean, merciless arc.
Kade didn't even register it in time to flinch.
CRACK.
The roundhouse kick caught him across the side of the head— hard enough to send him flying into a nearby by boulder.
He hit the boulder with a sound that made my spine flinch—then slid down like a note gone flat.
Kade definitely saw stars—maybe a few new constellations while he was at it.
Then silence.
Miyako exhaled. Calm. Measured. Then made her way towards him and knelt beside him like she hadn't just spun-kicked a scholar into tomorrow.
"I went easy on you," she said, adjusting her posture.
"Next time, breathe."
Kade groaned from the dirt.
"Noted…"
I winced. "She does that to people she likes."
"I hate it here already," Kade whimpered, cradling what was left of his dignity.
"Welcome to the Plateau." I chimed in.
As I walked towards Miyako and Kade.
I looked back at the tree—its glow, its hum—and for the first time, I wondered if this place was just a doorway.
Not a destination.