"An idea that begins in error is often the seed of a new truth."
— Jorge Luis Borges
The first time I saw my words printed on paper that wasn't mine, I felt something crawl under my skin — pride, maybe, or dread wearing a silk mask.
It started as a whisper in the academic underground — a late-night email, a forum post buried beneath philosophy debates, signed only with three words: The Doctrine of Ruin.
I never released it.
Lilith did.
She said she wanted to "test the water," but I saw the glimmer in her eyes — not curiosity. Faith.
The manifesto was supposed to be a private experiment, a blueprint for understanding how control infects the mind. But ideas… ideas don't stay locked up. They leak. They mutate. They devour.
Within a week, the words began circulating in forbidden circles — anarchists, scholars, the disillusioned youth, failed theologians. I found a copy at a café downtown, printed on cheap paper and passed around like contraband scripture.
A stranger across the room read a passage aloud, his voice trembling:
"The truth is not light. It's fire.
And those who touch it must be willing to burn." — Aurelius Kael, The Doctrine of Ruin
My name.
My curse.
Someone had attached it.
That night, I walked home under flickering streetlights. The city felt alive — murmuring, whispering, breathing my thoughts through alleyways and neon reflections.
Every conversation was an echo of something I'd written.
Every eye that met mine seemed to ask if I truly meant it.
Lilith watched me with quiet fascination, like a biologist observing her creation evolve beyond control.
"Do you see what you've done, Aurelius?" she whispered.
"This isn't a theory anymore. It's a movement."
At first, I tried to deny it. "A movement requires faith," I said. "I only offered logic."
But logic is the most seductive form of faith — it gives madness the dignity of reason.
People started calling me the Prophet of Fracture.
They didn't even know my face, yet they quoted me in digital sermons, on graffiti walls, in hidden podcasts recorded by candlelight.
One night, I stumbled into an underground club where masked philosophers debated the meaning of my own words.
A woman recited:
"Morality is a leash the weak use to restrain the strong." — Aurelius Kael
Then she smiled and asked, "Do you think he believes that?"
I didn't answer. I just watched the flicker of neon reflect off her mask — realization dawning that my philosophy had detached from me, like a machine that learned to speak.
Back in my apartment, I confronted Lilith.
"You used me."
She leaned against the window, moonlight catching her hair like a blade.
"No," she said softly. "I revealed you."
Her voice trembled. "You've always wanted this — to be understood. Now the world understands you too much."
She wasn't wrong.
And that frightened me more than any lie.
I began seeing strange patterns in the city — posters with my phrases, people carving my initials into subway walls, sermons online with digital halos behind my silhouette.
Every word I'd written came back to me, amplified, distorted, worshipped.
Like God reading His own scripture through the mouths of madmen.
"Logic is the most seductive form of faith — it gives madness the dignity of reason." — Aurelius Kael
"Belief is the most contagious form of insanity." — Aurelius Kael
"This is how gods are born — by accident." — Aurelius Kael
One evening, as I walked through the rain, I saw my reflection in a shattered shop window. The cracks split my face into fragments — prophet, liar, creator, fraud.
And I heard myself whisper:
"This is how gods are born — by accident."
Behind me, Lilith's voice broke through the rain.
"Or by design," she said. "And maybe this time, the design chose you."
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The world outside murmured my words like prayer, and I realized something terrible —
The moment people begin to worship your thoughts,
your thoughts stop belonging to you.