(Or: "Hi, Yes, I'd Like to Return My Prophecy. It's Defective and Haunting.")
So.
Funny story.
Have you ever put on a mystical artifact that contains the living memory imprint of a dead god and then had it forcibly show you the fractured, apocalyptic kaleidoscope of all your potential future selves while screaming your own voice back at you in surround sound?
No?
Just me?
Cool.
Let me rewind.
Because my brain is already trying to repress this entire chapter like an emotionally unavailable noble at family dinner.
We were at the Echo Shrine again.
Post-cult invasion. Post-emotional damage. Post-"Kael, you might accidentally reset the world, haha!" revelations. And now the Mask of Echo—yes, that Mask, the glitching, sentient, dangerously moody one—was humming.
Not metaphorically. Actually humming.
"It's reacting to you," said Belladonna, watching with that concerned face she only uses when she's about to cast a memory stabilizer or throat punch someone.
"Well, it can stop," I said, inching away. "I've had enough Echo revelations for one lifetime. Possibly several. Probably all of them at once."
The Spoon, annoyingly calm, floated up beside me.
"You've avoided it long enough. It's time."
"Time for what? Another fever dream? More symbolic trauma in metaphor outfits? I already screamed at my past self two chapters ago!"
"Now you get to scream at your future self," he said gently.
"...That's worse."
"Correct."
So I touched it.
Of course I did.
Because if you give me the choice between "Walk Away" and "Touch the Dangerous Glowing Thing That Might Break My Mind," I will absolutely go with Option Self-Destruction.
#KaelLifeChoices
SYSTEM EVENT: MASK OF ECHO ACTIVATED.
Warning: Exposure may cause existential dread, emotional fragmentation, time-loop leakage, spontaneous glitch manifestations, or excessive sarcasm. Proceed anyway?
I blinked.
"Did the System just sass me?"
Then everything went black.
I didn't dream.
I remembered.
Except it wasn't my memory.
Not exactly.
Scene One: Future Kael #47
The sky was ash. The world cracked.
I stood on a throne of broken Systems, eyes glowing white, hands dripping with glitchfire.
"I broke the Pattern," that me whispered. "And it broke me."
Scene Two: Future Kael #19
I was alone. Completely.
Books stacked around me. System logs. Failed rescue attempts. Masks shattered.
"They all left," he said. "Because I couldn't choose who to save."
"I chose no one."
Scene Three: Future Kael #301 (????)
I was laughing. Covered in blood. Echo magic dancing like wild static. A crown of masks floating around my head.
"They made me a god," he grinned. "So I unmade the world."
"You'll do it too. One day."
Inner Me:
This is fine. This is fine. This is extremely NOT FINE.
Sarcium:
Buddy, we just skipped past therapy and went straight into psychological war crimes.
I tried to rip off the Mask.
It didn't budge.
More visions. More timelines.
Friends dead. Friends gone. Friends turned into corrupted echoes of themselves.
Each version of me had one thing in common:
I was powerful. Feared. Glitch-soaked and System-rejecting.
And alone.
So unbearably alone.
"Stop it!" I screamed, choking on static.
"I don't want this!"
The Mask pulsed.
"Then choose differently."
I fell forward.
The Mask shattered in my hands.
Literally. Cracks spidered across its obsidian surface. Glitchlight poured out like screaming code.
I gasped.
Reality buckled.
I was back in the shrine.
Collapsed.
Shaking.
The Mask—what remained of it—was flickering like a dying star.
And then—
Spoon caught me.
Physically.Emotionally.Narratively.
He held me like a grumpy magical parent trying to comfort a soup-stained feral toddler.
"You're more than your pattern, kid," he muttered.
"You're the glitch that lived."
I sobbed.
Not because I was weak.
But because I finally realized...
They were all me.
Every future.
Every failure.
Every lonely god and broken hero and terrifying version of myself—
They were all possible.
And I still had to choose.
Later, Belladonna knelt beside me, touching my arm.
"What did you see?"
"Nothing I ever want to be," I whispered.
She nodded.
Didn't push.
But she didn't let go either.
That night, I stared at the shattered pieces of the Mask, now sealed in a containment ward.
And for the first time since I'd arrived in this ridiculous, magic-infested, overly dramatic reincarnated life—
I didn't make a joke.
I just breathed.
And said:
"I'm still me."
Whatever that meant.
Whoever that turned out to be.
Next Time on Kaelverse:
Kael gives a speech. The Academy panics. The System finally crowns him.
(But not literally. He still has hat trauma.)
Coming up:
Chapter 70 – "I Choose Chaos"
(Because at this point, what else is there?)