[T-minus 40 Hours Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

It was bright.

That was the first lie.

Not golden sunlight – just a colourless warmth stretched across the sky like a smile pulled too wide. The kind of light that tried too hard to feel real. No shadows. No weight.

Max stepped through the veil and found himself on a quiet street. Trees in full bloom. Clean pavement. Vendors with baskets of fruit. Children laughing in the park across the road. The smell of fried rice. Jasmine. Summer.

A memory, almost.

A man waved to him from a window. A neighbour? A father? Max didn't wave back. He didn't stop.

He didn't blink.

The others were still behind him. Slow. Hesitant. Walking like people who half-recognized the dream.

But he didn't care what they saw.

He saw demons.

They wore faces he might've once known. Smiled like friends. Stood in doorways holding plates of food. A dog barked. A child's paper plane floated through the air and landed at his feet.

Max stared down at it.

Folded wings. A message in the centre.

Welcome home.

He raised his foot. Crushed it.

The soulfire rose in his chest, golden and flickering – responding not to peace, but to clarity. It pulsed once, then again, brighter. It wanted to heal. To purify.

But Max wasn't here for purification.

He was here because he had forgotten Liz.

That truth didn't come as a thought. It came as a weight – a crack in the ribs. A punch under the sternum. He had let go of the only reason he was still breathing. Let go of her face, her voice, her warmth. Let go of the fight.

What kind of father forgets his daughter?

The question gutted him. He had survived demon attacks, possession, fire. He had clawed through death to keep her breathing. But the Circle hadn't needed claws or teeth to beat him. Just silence.

I didn't protect her. I let her slip away. She trusted me. And I stopped fighting.

Max's breath caught in his throat. He staggered mid-step, the chain slack in his hand. For a single second, he wanted to kneel. Not from exhaustion – from shame.

He had promised April. Promised her he'd look after Liz. And then he had stood still while a lie of peace numbed her out of existence.

The shame didn't break him.

The rage did.

The golden light in his veins darkened – gold turning to cobalt. The fire twisted. Hardened. Changed. It wasn't healing anymore. It was devouring.

Blue Hellfire licked up his arms.

His grip on Ferron's chain tightened, knuckles splitting open, blood running cold down his wrist.

He walked forward.

A woman stepped from a bakery, holding out a cup of coffee. Her eyes were April's.

He didn't flinch.

He drove the chain through her chest. Not slowly. Not regretfully.

She burst apart like paper set ablaze – no blood. No scream. Just ash. Fabric. Smoke.

Hellfire seared the sidewalk behind him as he moved.

More dream-figures began to pour in. Faces he half-remembered. Smiled. Called his name. Called him Dad.

It didn't matter.

No more thinking. No more hesitation. No more mercy. I don't care if I burn this world to cinders. I don't care if I burn myself down with it. As long as I get her back.

He wouldn't weigh the costs anymore. Wouldn't calculate casualties. Wouldn't ask who might be saved.

Only Liz mattered.

He would find her.

Or burn everything in his way until there was no Circle left to hide behind.

He raised the chain again.

Flames erupted from his shoulders, his back, his eyes.

They weren't just weapons. They were torches – branding the illusion as false, setting light to everything around him.

And they were killing him.

The Hellfire licked past his pain-dampening thresholds. It was too much. It had to be. His body wasn't made for this. Black veins bloomed across his throat, wrapping his spine, searing down his arms. His fingertips cracked. His boots left smouldering footprints behind him. Every pulse of power frayed the edge of consciousness.

But the pain grounded him.

Every heartbeat hurt – and that hurt was a gift.

It tethered him to the now. It tore him away from the stillness of the Circle of Peace. It reminded him that he had failed – and still had time to fix it.

Burn it all. Just don't forget her again.

He cut down an image of Dan laughing with his sister. Incinerated a memory of Chloe and Alyssa playing cards. He killed every perfect lie, one by one.

He wasn't here to test illusions. He didn't need to figure out the mechanics of this Circle.

He understood. This wasn't joy. This was sedation. And sedation was death.

He walked through the dream like a wildfire in a temple.

Every step left the world blackening behind him.

Let the others catch up. Let the Circle try harder. Let it weep.

It wouldn't matter.

He would not be lied to again.

…………………

It was a backyard somewhere in Australia. The sky a pure, careless blue. The grill smoked. Someone had cracked a beer and handed it to him. The cold stung his palm. He laughed.

The sound shocked him.

He hadn't laughed like that in years.

Around him: faces he knew. Squadmates long dead. Some were half-burned in his memory, but here they were whole. Alive. Joking. One clapped him on the back.

"Vic, you made it home."

He looked down. Human hands. Pink skin. No claws. No black veining. Just scars from ordinary battles. Clean ones.

He should've felt happiness.

Instead, he felt… unfinished.

And then – he saw it.

In the distance, Max walked through a building. Blue fire trailing behind him like comet ash. Walls igniting. Faces screaming. The dream cracked at the edges.

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Victor's grip on the beer tightened.

That man remembered himself. So will I.

He dropped the bottle. Stepped backward. His vision blurred. The fire reached him – not Max's fire, but his own. Something inside him screamed for release.

He raised his hands to his face. Looked into the eyes of the man they told him he was.

Too calm.

Too clean.

Not him.

He howled.

And dug his fingers into his own cheeks.

Flesh tore. The human mask peeled free. Beneath it, bone shifted. Skin darkened. Claws returned.

The chimera roared to life.

The squadmates turned, startled. Confused. Their faces warped into something older. Hungrier. They weren't people anymore. Never had been.

Victor leapt.

Teeth found throats. Claws split armour.

Blood didn't flow.

Illusion dissolved.

He carved his truth into the dream – I am what I became. I am what survived.

And as the barbecue turned to rot and the beer turned to bile, Victor stood tall again—his back straight, body monstrous, breath heaving.

No more lies.

…………………

Alyssa

She was on a beach. Morning sunlight rolled over the sand like warm silk.

Jack sat beside her, folding cranes.

His hands moved slow. Precise. She watched him fold one. Then another.

He smiled at her. Offered one across the blanket.

She took it. Held it.

Tried to fold one of her own.

Her fingers trembled. The paper bent wrong. She couldn't remember how to start. Not a single crease.

Her throat clenched.

He waited patiently. Still smiling.

She looked at his face.

That's not him. He's gone. Because I couldn't save him.

The paper slipped from her fingers.

She reached for her belt.

Her blade was already there. It had waited with her. Even in the dream.

She rose to her knees. Jack looked confused. He held out another crane.

She didn't speak.

She drove the knife into his neck.

Once. Twice. Over and over. No blood spilled. No resistance. Just paper. Sand. Flesh that collapsed like fabric.

The beach melted around her.

The waves rotted. The sun dimmed. The air turned damp with mould.

But she kept stabbing.

Because it wasn't about him. Not anymore.

It was about the truth.

And the truth was ugly. Brutal. Final.

Her blade tore through everything soft, and when nothing was left, she stood.

Trembling.

Alive.

…………………

It was perfect.

A sunlit morning. A rooftop picnic. Her family was alive.

Max stood beside the grill, one arm wrapped tight around Liz, the other flipping something on a hotplate. Alyssa was arguing with Dan over juice boxes. Someone had brought music – old songs that felt like a childhood she never lived.

Chloe sat cross-legged on a plaid blanket, warmth in her chest, laughter in her ears.

It should have been everything she wanted.

But every time she opened her mouth to speak, the words came out wrong. Muffled. Warped. She tried again.

Nothing.

She looked around. They weren't listening. No one was looking at her.

She stood up.

No one noticed.

Her gaze swept over Max, over Alyssa's smile, over Liz's tilted head. A perfect family. A moment stolen from the edge of extinction.

But she wasn't in it.

This isn't joy. This is anesthesia.

She brought her hand to her throat. Dug her fingers into the skin.

Nothing.

Harder.

Her nails broke flesh. She forced herself to feel something – anything but the sensation was slippery, dulled by the dream's narcotic haze.

She screamed.

It wasn't real.

It came out wrong – too soft, too clean, like screaming into fabric. But it was hers.

And the moment the sound left her lips, the sky cracked.

The picnic fractured like glass. The rooftop fell away. The music stopped mid-note. Her sister's face froze mid-smile.

Chloe's scream shattered the scene.

Everything collapsed into wet soil, tangled roots, and glistening mycelial strings twitching where memories had been.

She stood there, breath shaking, throat raw, covered in her own blood.

But she was real again.

…………………

His big sister stood in front of him.

April.

Whole. Alive. Smiling like she used to.

She poured tea. Spoke in soft tones. Told him he'd done the right thing. That it was okay to rest. That no one blamed him.

She told him he'd done enough.

Dan wept.

The tears came easy. Hot. Familiar.

She knelt beside him. Touched his shoulder. He wanted to collapse into her. Wanted to believe the guilt had finally run dry.

But something was wrong.

She hadn't said Liz's name.

Not once.

Not when he mentioned the hospital. Not when he asked about the fire. Not even when he whispered, "Is she safe?"

April smiled.

Empty.

He froze.

That's not her. She would've asked about Liz first. She would've begged.

Dan stood up.

The dream-April rose with him. Still smiling. Still patient.

He opened his palm. The golden glow sparked weakly – no longer a beacon, just a flicker of what it had been.

Still, it was enough.

He wrapped his arms around her. Closed his eyes.

And detonated.

The soul-pulse cracked like a thunderclap through the air. Light spilled outward – not warm, not healing, but cauterizing. The power he'd learned in the Circle of Healing.

April turned to smoke in his arms.

The tea set shattered. The sky peeled back.

And the world around him melted – into a garden of fungus, where every leaf was a nerve and every stone whispered memories that weren't his.

Dan fell to one knee.

Alone.

But awake.

…………………

The tea was warm in Ferron's hands.

His mother's hands moved precisely – folding the cloth, refilling the cup, presenting it with gentle reverence. His father sat across from him, posture straight, eyes calm, his voice humming a quiet mantra under his breath.

The old prayer. The one Ferron had forgotten.

Here, he remembered every word.

He should've felt peace.

But it tasted wrong.

The silence was too clean. The light too soft.

His father reached out, set a calloused hand over his, and said without words: You did everything right. You came home.

But Ferron had never gone home.

This is forgiveness without cost. A ritual without spirit. A house built on ash.

He looked down at the cup. His hands didn't shake but the tea inside it did. The liquid rippled in still air.

Ferron crushed the cup in his fist.

Ceramic bit into his palm, and his blood – his real blood – ran hot and red across the tablecloth.

His mother gasped. His father's face split.

Not open.

Apart.

Like wax exposed to heat.

The prayer his father was whispering twisted into something else – a chant without syllables, a looped affirmation, a binding spell designed to erase.

Ferron stood.

He unslung his chain.

The kusarigama gleamed – no longer ceremonial, no longer metaphor. It was a weapon again.

Ferron struck once.

The chain screamed.

His father's form shattered into fungal fibres. The house around them inhaled like a lung full of rot.

He stepped into the decay, mantra returning – not whispered, but bellowed.

This was not peace. This was a parasite. And Ferron still had work to do.

…………………

The mission was complete.

The report was filed. Dr. Grimm had congratulated her – face soft, voice proud. He gave her a name. Not a designation. A name. Hers.

It felt clean. Clean like static. Like processed clarity.

She sat across from him in a steel office lit by white sunlight. Her armour gone. Her hands folded. Her face human.

Too human.

She knew something was wrong the moment Grimm offered her a medal.

He'd never once praised her. Never once smiled.

Not like this.

Grimm doesn't give names. Grimm gives orders.

The dream-Grimm kept speaking.

Alpha stood.

She pulled the sidearm from her hip – standard issue, Grimm Institute clearance. She hadn't remembered drawing it.

She fired once.

A single bullet through his forehead.

He didn't bleed. He collapsed like a husk – his skin unravelling into data, into light, into mycelial strands feeding into the walls.

The steel walls around her rippled.

Her HUD reactivated. ERROR: [PERCEPTION DECOUPLED] STATUS: [REALITY COMPROMISED]

She blinked.

Then turned, stepping through the illusion's collapsing frame.

Target: reacquired.

…………………

He sat at a table in a quiet home.

A warm meal. A warm fire. A clean plate. No blood. No missions. No hunger.

He lifted the fork.

A bite of meat.

He chewed.

No taste.

This isn't real. Real things hurt. Real hunger never leaves. And I'm not real unless I'm bleeding.

He picked up the knife.

Turned it over in his hand.

Sliced it across his forearm.

Nothing.

Again.

Still nothing.

He stood. Took the knife. Jammed it into his own thigh.

Pain exploded.

His mouth opened in a roar that shook the room.

The furniture convulsed. The food soured. The fire turned blue.

He ripped the blade out and drove it into the wall.

The wall screamed.

Flesh peeled back from the frame of the dream, exposing pulsing red roots beneath plaster.

Omega grabbed them barehanded.

He tore.

The house came down around him – rotting as it fell – and he stepped into the collapsing world.

His armour formed around him. Bone. Muscle. Rage.

Back where he belonged.

…………………

The Circle screamed.

Not aloud.

The fabric of the dream shrieked as it tore – galleries of false childhoods collapsing, lovers melting into mildew, golden temples blooming with black mould.

Max stood in the centre of it all.

Not speaking. Not thinking. Just burning.

His body was half-shadow, half-blue fire. The chain in his hand flared like a living whip, arcs of crackling flame slicing through false trees, illusion walls, memory-sculpted crowds.

The sky above him had tried to remain perfect – sunlight unwavering, clouds painterly and false.

Now it warped and churned, flaking apart like charred skin.

Hellfire erupted in geysers from Max's feet as he moved – jets of blue flame bursting from the earth, tearing through cobblestone and bone and carpet and cloud alike. The dream tried to rewrite around him, but it couldn't keep up.

Every structure the Circle offered, he reduced to ash and nerve pulp.

Behind him, the others emerged one by one – bloodied, breathing, silent.

Victor, beast-eyed, body slick with gore, stared like a man who remembered what death meant.

Alyssa wiped her blade clean on her pants without looking down.

Dan clutched his wrist, golden light flickering through his veins like coals just reignited.

Chloe's lips trembled, but her gaze never wavered from Max's back.

Ferron stepped beside her, silent, chain coiled tight, watching the destruction.

Alpha and Omega flanked them both – one pristine, one cracked – both aimed at nothing, ready for anything.

None of them spoke.

Because there was nothing to say.

The joy was gone. The illusion was dead. The Circle had no more tricks.

Max walked forward, flames trailing behind him in tailpipes of fire, his arms wreathed in jetting cobalt light, shoulders steaming from the heat bursting off his skin.

His boots crushed glasslike memories underfoot – wedding rings, lullabies, picture books, all burning on contact.

The fountain at the heart of the Circle still stood.

A crystalline sculpture. Impossible in structure. Radiating a warmth that reached into your chest and told you to rest.

Max raised his hand.

Blue Hellfire ignited in a wide arc around him – a crown of jets.

His veins burned black. His eyes glowed from within.

And he brought the chain down.

The explosion didn't echo.

It consumed.

The fountain dissolved in a wave of light and screamless destruction. The stone beneath Max's feet ruptured and crumbled. The sky above was pulled into itself – vacuumed out in a cyclone of fire that devoured the dream world from the roots up.

Silence followed.

Not peace.

Ash.

Max turned slowly, smoke rising from his shoulders, his arms blistered and twitching from the pain he had long stopped resisting.

The others waited behind him.

He looked at them – his family, his soldiers, his ghosts.

Finally, he spoke.

Voice hoarse. Grounded. Burned clean.

"Let's finish this."

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