Page 164 of She Who Devours the Stars

Jacen’s hands twitched once, then he hunched over, shoulders shaking, and I realized he was trying to vomit, but nothing was coming out.

I didn’t say a word. My hands were covered in pen marks, but I couldn’t read them, not with the room spinning the way it was.

At the end of the row, another technician stared at his AR panel, then at the wall, then back to the panel. His jaw worked, then he said, “Half… half… five!” and his face twisted up, like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry or give up and start eating the monitors.

He froze.

The air shimmered around him, and then he turned into a Twinkie.

Not a metaphor. Not a joke. A literal, yellow, snack-cake Twinkie, perched in the chair where a living human had been seconds before.

Narasa stopped screaming. She stared at the Twinkie, blinking slowly.

Jacen, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He reached out, picked up the Twinkie, and took a slow, deliberate bite.

He chewed, swallowed, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Let’s watch the world end,” he said.

No one argued.

The noise from the monitors built and built, until it was almost a relief to just ride the tide and let the static eat whatever was left of your identity. The love confessions and wedding speeches bled into campaign ads, viral memes, old sitcom punchlines, snippets of mythology and bedtime stories. At some point, I think I heard my mother’s voice, calling me for dinner, and I almost got up and walked home.

It would have been safer.

On the final, blinding update, the wall re-activated, every monitor in the room now broadcasting the same message:

[MYTHSHIP PRESENCE: SOLANCE THE CHOIR | KAIRON THE MIRROR have joined ASTERRA THE BLOOM, VIRELETH THE CLOSURE, and JHENNA THE CROWN.]

[CONTAINMENT: LOLWHAT?]

[NARRATIVE CASCADE: PENDING.]

I stood, or tried to, but my knees buckled. Jacen finished the Twinkie and licked his fingers. Narasa crawled under the deskand started humming, her voice blending perfectly with the choir on the speakers.

I wondered if I would turn into something too.

Probably not. I’d always been the kind of person who lasted until the credits rolled.

The monitors flickered, faded, then settled on a single, endlessly looping feed: Eventide, blue and white and beautiful, spiraling out into mythic infinity.

I smiled.

Why not?

After all, someone had to watch.

Chapter 22: You Could Be A Vector

Thread Modulation: Fern Trivane

Axis Alignment: Fey Ruins

The Ruins learned fast.

For every step I took, the world recompiled itself just a bit more sadistic. The petrified trunks reached higher, their silhouettes now warped into the shapes of old classmates, old lovers, all the alternate Ferns that had ever gone to ground and died alone. Even the air got weird about it. Some breaths were hot and metallic, others tasted like the slow leak of an oxygen scrubber in spring. And every few meters, the light shifted—sometimes it was Eventide sunset, other times the blue glow of Pelago-9, sometimes the acid-white of mythprint flare.

I kept walking. If I stopped, I knew the Ruins would just start in on the next round of home movies. I could handle physical torture, but the nostalgia stuff was how they got you. Nobody walks away from the past without at least a limp.