Chapter 3 · free to read
Everyone I have ever met counts their breaths. Nobody ever told me what to do with a whole life's worth saved up.
It didn't speak. It handed me a picture, the way you hand somebody a photograph of a house they were born in and don't remember.
One word. One brand. No answers, no power, and no memory whatsoever of what I had just agreed to.
The god went back down and took its answer with it. And at the far end of the dock, somebody who already knew the word was writing my name down.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.