The first man to arrive was tall.
Not towering—just tall enough that most people unconsciously deferred to him. His boots were polished, his uniform pressed, his posture straight with the confidence of someone accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed. His iron-gray eyes moved constantly, scanning angles, distances, exits.
The second man followed half a step behind.
Shorter. Narrower. Forgettable. His face lacked defining features, and his brown eyes never lingered on any one detail for long. The kind of man who survived dangerous work by blending into the background of it.
They stopped at the edge of the crater.
The land dipped inward unnaturally, forming a shallow bowl where a stone temple had once stood. There were no collapsed walls. No broken pillars. No debris.
Only absence.
Fine violet ash hovered just above the ground, refusing gravity, drifting in slow, hesitant spirals as if unsure whether it was still meant to exist.
The tall man frowned. "This isn't a structural failure."
The shorter man swallowed. "It's like… something was erased."
They stepped forward.
Sound dulled immediately. Their footsteps echoed once too many times. Distance felt wrong—too short, then too long—like the space between things couldn't decide how much it was supposed to contain.
Suddenly they saw someone
There stood a woman.
Barefoot.
Unharmed.
She appeared young, but not fragile. Slender frame, long legs, narrow waist, soft curves held in precise balance. Her skin was pale and smooth, unmarred by ash or blood. Long, silky black hair cascaded down her back, absorbing light rather than reflecting it.
She was beautiful.
Not uniquely so.
But ahead—as if rendered at a higher resolution than the rest of the world.
Her eyes were closed.
She wore a ceremonial robe.
Once white, the fabric was now stained with violet ash and scorched sigils. It clung loosely to her body, layered silk and thin linen sliding against her skin as if unsure it was still permitted to touch her. The cut exposed her shoulders and collarbone deliberately—not for comfort, but for offering.
Gold-threaded symbols ran down the front, cracked and half-burned, their meanings erased mid-inscription. Some sigils had melted together into nonsense shapes that hurt to focus on, lines that almost made sense and then didn't.
The hem had torn open along one side, forming a long split that revealed the smooth line of her thigh when she shifted her weight. The tear didn't look violent. It looked corrected—as if excess fabric had been trimmed away by something indifferent.
One sleeve slid freely down her arm, exposing pale skin. The other had fused stiffly at the elbow, frozen in a posture meant for prayer.
It was clothing designed to be removed by a god.
Instead, it remained—unfinished, obsolete, clinging to something it was never meant to dress.
The tall man raised a hand. "Identify yourself."
The sound reached her.
Her eyes opened.
Both irises were a deep, luminous purple, rich and unreal, like amethyst holding light. For a brief moment, they were simply eyes.
Then the left pupil split.
A vertical slit of unmoving static replaced it.
Reality bent inward around that slit. Lines misaligned. Depth compressed. The air itself hesitated.
Aporia knew.
The knowledge arrived whole, without words.
Eye of Calamity.
State: Perfect.
Function: Perception. Production.
She didn't question it. She felt it.
The world unfolded before her—not as objects, but as agreements. Rules stacked on rules. Permissions layered over permissions.
And fractures.
The tall man's iron-gray eyes blinked out of sync. His height recalculated incorrectly—shoulders drifting a fraction higher than his spine allowed. His shadow stretched upward instead of down, lagging behind his feet.
He doesn't agree with himself, Aporia thought calmly.
The error was small.
She enlarged it.
His body folded inward without sound, collapsing into fine violet ash that hovered for a heartbeat before dispersing into nothing.
The shorter man screamed.
His brown eyes widened too far. Blood vessels ruptured as fear overloaded his system. His heart attempted to beat twice in the same instant. Breath arrived late. Muscles pulled against conflicting instructions.
Aporia turned her gaze slightly.
Instability exceeds tolerance.
She didn't will his death.
She allowed the error.
He vanished.
Not burned. Not destroyed.
Removed.
Silence rushed back in, heavy and embarrassed, like the world realizing it had overreacted.
Aporia staggered.
The Eye drank deeply.
Too much, she thought distantly. Too loud.
Static rippled violently across the slit. The ash around her lifted higher. Stone beneath the surface remembered shapes it had never held.
I'm doing this, she realized.
I can do this.
The certainty was calm. Absolute.
Then—
The slit trembled.
Closed.
Her left eye returned to deep purple, identical to the right.Then both turned deep black.
Reality snapped back into place.
The crater stabilized. The ash settled.
Aporia gasped, clutching her chest as sensation rushed in all at once—weight, warmth, breath. Her knees buckled and she dropped lightly to one knee, long black hair spilling over her shoulder.
Production… sealed, she understood instantly.
Not gone.
Deferred.
She breathed slowly, becoming aware of herself.
Her body responded perfectly. Balanced. Strong. Aesthetic. The ceremonial robe brushed against her thighs as she moved, the torn fabric shifting with her breath.
Curious, she lifted the hem.
Her legs were long and smooth, unmarred by scar or bruise. Beneath the robe, plain white underwear rested against her skin—clean, simple, an oddly intimate confirmation that this body was complete, functional, hers.
"…Huh," she murmured. "That's… real."
She let the fabric fall and stood.
I can see errors.
I made errors.
I can't right now.
She tilted her head, considering.
But if I get stronger…
The conclusion felt obvious. Logical.
A name surfaced—not remembered, not chosen.
Resolved.
"Aporia," she said softly.
"…Vex."
The name settled into her like it had always been there.
She smiled—a bright, playful expression that didn't quite match the devastation around her.
"I don't know where I am," Aporia Vex said lightly.
"I don't know what this place was supposed to be."
She looked around the crater.
Nothing responded.
Nothing remained intact.
Nothing could be used.
Her smile widened, eyes gleaming with amused curiosity.
"…Did I break everything," she wondered aloud, "or was it already waiting to fall apart?"
She laughed.
The sound echoed too long.