Hole Beneath The World

They sat across from one another without a table between them.

There was no furniture in the upper alcove, only stone that had once belonged to a prayer tower before the Choir's architecture was swallowed by the Hole's influence. Half the walls were real. The others repeated themselves, surfaces receding at odd angles, as if built by someone who had only a vague memory of what a room was. The Proxy had chosen the spot instinctively. He did not remember why. It was quiet there. Not only in sound, but in presence. A forgotten space for a forgotten moment.

Ashur had followed. Not uninvited, but unwelcomed.

The Proxy sat with legs drawn in, arms resting loose on his knees, back pressed against a wall that flickered in and out of continuity. His outline was dimmer than before. Not visibly, not yet, but perceptually. Ashur looked at him the way someone regards a place they once lived in and can no longer enter.

Neither had spoken in minutes.

Ashur broke the stillness.

"Do you know how many times I've seen this happen?"

The Proxy did not move.

Ashur exhaled, as if waiting for a response that wouldn't come was part of the ritual. "Five. That's how many. Five Proxies reached the second truth. Silence, in some shape. None of them lived long enough to wield it. They faded. Or worse."

He rubbed his hands together. They were pale with brine-calluses, the mark of a man who'd handled too many lies and preserved them anyway. "You're different. I've said that. I meant it. But that doesn't mean you're immune."

The Proxy's fingers twitched. Not in defiance. In restlessness. He was listening, or more accurately, enduring the noise of meaning trying to impose itself again.

Ashur leaned forward.

"I want to help you."

The Proxy raised his head. Slowly. His gaze landed on Ashur with the weight of a word about to be unspoken.

"I'm not trying to take it," Ashur said quickly. "Not from you. I just want to hold it. Store it. Protect it while you... adjust."

The Proxy blinked.

It was the kind of blink that felt like it could reset a room.

Ashur reached into his satchel and withdrew a small reliquary, darkwood clasped in brass, lined with mnemonic script. It hummed faintly. A vessel designed not to contain power, but to preserve the essence of confession.

"This can house the thread," he said. "Not the full truth. That's bound to you now. But the cut, the sharpness of it, the part that's eating you alive, I can hold that. Just for a while."

The Proxy said nothing.

Ashur's voice softened. "You don't have to lose yourself for this. You've already given more than anyone should have to. Let me carry part of the cost."

The silence between them shifted. Not broken, silence could no longer be broken, but rearranged. Something passed from the Proxy's eyes into the air, into Ashur's breath, and for a moment, the older man looked away.

"You don't believe me," he said.

The Proxy remained still, but something moved behind his shoulder. A ripple. A tremor of presence.

Ashur pressed on.

"I know what you're becoming frightens you. It should. But it's not a death sentence. Not if you treat the truth like a wound instead of a weapon. I can't stop what's happening to the Realms. But I can delay it. If you let me take the edge, I can give you time. Time to remember who you are."

The Proxy's head tilted.

Ashur smiled faintly, wearily. "I know. That's the question, isn't it? Who you are now."

A long pause.

Then, for the first time since the confession, the Proxy spoke.

Or tried to.

What emerged from his mouth was not voice, but deletion. A shape of sound so quiet it devoured the sentence before it formed. Ashur heard the intent. Not the words.

I don't want to forget.

Ashur's face tightened.

"That's the danger," he said. "Wanting to hold it all. Wanting to stay whole while carrying something that was meant to tear you apart. You think if you let go of any part of it, you'll become hollow. That's not how it works."

The Proxy's expression didn't change.

But something in the alcove did.

A wall behind Ashur cracked, not physically, but narratively. The history of its construction collapsed into unreality. The silence wasn't passive anymore. It was radiating. Erasing. Hungry not for information, but context.

Ashur didn't notice.

"I've spent years preparing for this," he continued. "You think I'm some Archivist with a memory fetish? No. I'm a forger. A keeper of truths too sharp to hold. You're not the first who's tried to bear one alone. You won't be the last. But if you keep going without anchoring, without help, you're going to disappear from this world before the Hole takes you."

The Proxy reached forward.

Ashur blinked.

The reliquary floated into the space between them.

Ashur held his breath.

Was this consent?

The Proxy's hand stopped above it.

Fingers poised.

Then closed.

And withdrew.

The reliquary dropped, untouched, to the floor.

A clear answer.

No.

Ashur sat back slowly.

His voice was quiet now.

"You think you can survive this alone?"

The Proxy finally turned fully toward him.

There was no hatred in his expression.

No rejection.

Only recognition.

You already betrayed me once.

Ashur's shoulders slumped.

He said nothing.

He did not deny it.

Because even if the betrayal had not yet occurred in this timeline, both of them already felt it echoing forward.

The Proxy stood.

Where he stepped, the stone dimmed.

Ashur looked down at the reliquary between them.

"I'm still on your side," he said.

The Proxy paused.

And this time, when he opened his mouth, the silence that followed carried intent.

Not for long.

Then he turned and walked away.

And behind him, the alcove dimmed until even the memory of the conversation began to dissolve.