Life.
Death.
The forces that move quietly beneath reality’s surface.
These are the fragments.
The overlooked moments.
The impossible encounters that slip through time and memory.
The scribe records what remains : Life, death and other presences brushing past worlds leaving traces no one is meant to see.
Record Two - Elos
Life is not fragile because it breaks. It is fragile because it continues. Because it insists on growing even when it is unloved. Because it persists in places that do not deserve it. Most worlds do not lose life to catastrophe.
They lose it to neglect.
There was a time when life rose gently. Worlds formed, not hurried, not strained. Growth followed intention. Decline followed completion. Death came when it was needed and not a moment sooner. In those cycles, there was no excess. No hoarding of breath. No stretching of moments past their purpose. Life did not scream to remain. It was enough to exist and enough to end.
Then life began to be treated as infinite. It was spent without reflection. Preserved without meaning. Forced to persist where it should have been allowed to rest. Growth became consumption. Continuation became entitlement. And where life was misused, death followed, not in opposition but in response.
Death had always accompanied life. But now it arrived early.
“Elos?”
The voice reached him from somewhere warm.
He blinked.
Dead skies folded inward. Empty streets dissolved. The stillness collapsed into the low hum of machines, the faint clatter of porcelain, the soft curl of steam rising from a cup held between his hands.
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Light spilled across the table.
The girl was standing there, watching him with a slight frown.
“You’ve been staring at nothing for like… a full minute” she said.
He looked down at the latte, at the way the surface trembled faintly.
Her name, he thought.
He hesitated, searching a memory that had no reason to resist him.
LIA
He lifted his gaze to her again. There was nothing remarkable about her. No distortion in the air, no fracture in causality, no weight that suggested consequence.
And yet..
Life moved loudly within her. Clear and unhidden. He could sense where it had began. That much was easy. Beyond that, the shape blurred. Not absent.
Why does she talk to me?
“She’s gonna get cold ,” the girl said, nodding at the cup. “ You always forget to drink it.”
Her voice tugged him bac k. Annoyingly gentle.
“I wasn’t staring at nothing,” he said faintly.
She snorted. “That’s what people say right before admitting they were absolutely staring at nothing.”
A corner of his mouth twitched despite himself.
“Hey,” she said softer now. “ You okay?”
He almost laughed.
If he told her the truth. That he had held suns like seeds, that he had watched civilizations rot themselves from the inside out, that he could sense the exact moment her laughter would disappear from the universe forever.
“I'm fine,” he lied gently.
She smiled, satisfied with the lie and turned back towards the counter. Elos watched her move, watched her fragile insistence of her existence, the way she kept going without knowing why.
And for the first time in a very long while..
He didn’t look away.
He had watched cities die before. This one was not dying. It was loud. Inefficient. Uneven. Humans spilled drinks. Missed buses. Argued about nothing worth remembering.
No one here believed they were eternal.
He liked that.
Later.
The faucet in his apartment hadn’t stopped dripping. Elos stared at it from the doorway, face unreadable. He didn’t need water. He didn’t even need sleep. But he liked pretending. It helped him feel real.
Something was wrong tonight.
The drip came again.
The water hissed as it struck the sink. Faster now. Louder.
drip drip drip drip Drip….
Then
CRACK
The faucet burst apart. The light above flickered, corrected itself, then dimmed by half a breath.
“Hmm.”
Water burst outward in a sudden, violent surge as if pressure had been waiting far longer than it should have. The cabinet split. The sink tore free from the wall. Water slammed into the floor and kept coming.
Elos didn’t move.
The walls groaned. Pipes ruptured in sequence, one after another like a system failing by design rather than accident. The air filled with the hiss of escaping pressure, the sharp crack crack of wood warping under the stress.
Books slid from shelves. Pages tore loose, plastered briefly to the walls before being dragged under.
The window spider-webbed, cracking from the inside. The door frame groaned. Wood split. The lock tore free and the door slammed open against the wall.
Silent.
“Ah.”
He blinked. Looked around. Then calmly,
“I liked this place.”
He paused, watching the water climb the walls.
On the stairwell below, a soft thump echoed.
He turned his head.
A ball rolled to a stop.
A young boy stood halfway up the stairs, one foot frozen mid-step, fingers clenched around the railing, eyes wide as he peered through the shattered doorway. Water spilled past his shoes.
“Guess I’m moving.”
LIA.
Lia was halfway up the third flight of stairs, arms aching, groceries slipping. She muttered something about why elevators always broke on Thursdays.
And then
She walked straight into a chest. A grey overcoat. Plastic bags dripping onto the stairs.
Elos.
She stared.
“w..what are you doing here?!”
