I winced, sucking in a sharp breath the moment the brace touched my skin. It felt like a hot wire fusing to my forearm, searing itself into place. A sudden jolt of pain shot up my arm, so intense that I nearly doubled over. Then, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by a strange warmth radiating outward, syncing with my heartbeat.

  For a second, I just stared at it, trying to process the fact that the metal I’d been holding was now part of me. When I ran a fingertip over its surface, it felt like touching my own flesh. No seam, no gap, nothing to suggest it was anything but… me.

  “Elias,” I managed, my voice tight. “What’s going on?”

  He stood across from me, still holding the notepad, looking almost apologetic, like he was bracing for a reaction he knew was coming. “Okay, where to start?” he said, exhaling as he flipped the pen between his fingers. “I am what is culturally known as a Jin. Or, as Disney calls us… a ‘genie.’”

  I blinked. “A… genie,” I echoed, hovering somewhere between disbelief and hysterical laughter. “Like, the actual genie? Three wishes, magic lamp… that kind of genie?”

  He gave a slow nod. “More or less. Pop culture is… lacking in accuracy, but the principle is the same. We can grant wishes.” He gestured toward the brace on my arm. “Like that. But my history is old, older than most. During the late seventh century, a newly wealthy man mysteriously appeared in Dorestad, one of the biggest trade hubs in what is now the Netherlands. Soon after, he was lured out of the city and ambushed. They wanted that.” Elias pointed at the copper kettle, which now stood on the table before me. I hadn’t even noticed it was there until he gestured at it. “My phylactery.”

  “Phylactery,” I repeated, my gaze flicking between him and the kettle. “So… that man?”

  Elias nodded. “He was stabbed, fatally. He tried to use his final wish to save himself, but one of the attackers saw him reach for my phylactery and snatched it away. They both fell into the river, and my previous master died without using his last wish. That river became my tomb, my eternal resting place, or so I thought. The kettle drifted along, sometimes buried, sometimes dislodged by storms.”

  I swallowed, trying to piece together the centuries-long gap in his story. “And… you?”

  He set the notepad aside and met my eyes. “I followed along the riverbank. Sometimes inside my phylactery, sometimes out. Always bound to it. I couldn’t stray far.”

  My gaze darted to the kettle again. A thousand questions burned in my mind, about the nature of Elias’s existence, about the brace now fused to my arm, about what this all meant for me. But only one thought pushed itself to the surface.

  “You were trapped for all that time,” I said quietly.

  Elias let out a tired chuckle. “I’ve been trapped for longer than you can comprehend.”

  The weight in his voice made my stomach twist. Centuries, maybe millennia, of being bound, unable to leave, to be free. That wasn’t just imprisonment. That was torture.

  “This isn’t right,” I said, shaking my head. “You need to be free. This is not okay. I could use a wish, I wis—”

  Before I could even finish, Elias moved.

  One second, he was standing by the couch; the next, he was on me, half tackling me, pressing both hands over my mouth with a force I didn’t think he was capable of.

  “No, no, no!” he hissed, his face inches from mine, his eyes wide, frantic, somewhere between terror and fury. “Don’t say it.”

  My breath caught. He was serious. Not just serious, desperate.

  For a moment, neither of us moved. His grip on my face was tight, his breathing ragged. Slowly, I saw him force himself to calm down.

  “Never do that,” he said, voice low, almost pleading. “Ever. All wishes are both a blessing and a curse. All power demands a price. Balance in all accounts.”

  His stare bore into me, like he was willing me to understand.

  I swallowed hard and gave two slow blinks.

  He let out a breath, releasing me and stepping back, straightening his clothes like that whole thing had never happened.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, though his voice still carried an edge. “But don’t. And I repeat, don’t use your wishes without consulting me first.” He exhaled sharply. “Promise me.”

  I nodded, still feeling like I had almost made a massive mistake. “Okay,” I said, my voice quieter than I intended. “I promise”

  My gaze dropped to my arm, where the brace now sat perfectly in place, its faint engravings pulsing with a rhythm I swore matched my heartbeat.

  All wishes are both a blessing and a curse.

  Elias’s words echoed in my mind,, reverberating like a mantra I couldn’t shake off. Suddenly, my phone rang, slicing through the thick silence of my thoughts. I fished it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen, it was my wife. I took a deep breath, trying to steady the storm inside me, and answered,

  "Hey love."

  He answered his phone, an amazing device, even on a galactic scale.

  "Hey, love."

  I shifted my focus back to the pen and paper in front of me, frowning at the page. I couldn’t believe I was struggling to remember this of all things. The most important phrase in all existence, gone, lost somewhere in the vast maze of my memory. Then again, I’d only heard it once… roughly 115,000 years ago.

  Senile old fool. Power-hungry, like no other master I had ever served.

  "Okay, definitely, love," Aco’s voice pulled me back. "Tell the girls I love them. And enjoy the stay."

  Silence followed as he listened, and for a brief moment, the tension in the room softened. It reminded me of all the times I’d seen them together, him and Aerorae. There was something different about their love, something rare. It reminded me of the earth and the moon, caught in each other’s orbit, held together by an invisible force. No matter what, they remained bound, close, unshaken. Absolute.

  "Love you too, beautiful."

  Aco ended the call with a soft kissing sound before slipping his phone back into his pocket.

  I chuckled, shaking my head. "I was almost sure you would tell her," I said. "It’s not like you to keep things from her."

  "Can’t tell her what I don’t know or rather don’t understand. And I’m not even 100% sure I believe all this." He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. "Like, what would I even say? ‘Hey, love, you know my friend Elias? Yeah, turns out he’s a freaking genie. Oh, and guess what? He gave me this sci-fi gauntlet thing that fused with my arm!’"

  His voice rose slightly in a mix of exasperation and disbelief as he gestured wildly at the Fleet Command Interface now embedded into his forearm.

  I held up my hands. "Okay, okay. Calm down. Deep breaths."

  He exhaled, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.

  I turned back to the notepad, trying once again to recall the phrase that had haunted my mind for centuries. A few moments passed before I felt Aco’s presence beside me, peering down at the page.

  "What language is that?" he asked.

  I tapped the notepad with the end of the pen. "This? Well, it doesn’t have an English name. The closest translation would be ‘Fundamental’… or maybe ‘Common.’ It was the first language spoken on Earth."

  I scratched out a phrase and replaced it with another, something closer to what I was trying to remember. "Yes… this is better."

  Aco crossed his arms. "And what exactly are you trying to do?"

  I clenched my jaw. "It would take too long to explain." The frustration in my voice was sharper than I intended. My own mind betraying me, centuries of knowledge, but this one phrase, this one damn phrase, refused to come back to me.

  Suddenly, Aco placed his hand over the notepad.

  "Try."

  I looked up at him, startled. His expression was steady, serious. There was no mockery, no impatience, just expectation.

  And in that moment, for the first time in a long time, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t in this alone.

  “Okay,” I said, setting the pen down. “To understand this, there are some things you need to grasp first. The galaxy is, mostly, like what we discussed in the car. Almost. And roughly 115,000 years ago, Earth was connected to the wider galaxy.”

  Aco’s brows shot up. “Wait, connected? As in, we knew about it?”

  “Yes, More we could travers it. But that’s not the part you need to focus on right now.” I tapped the notepad for emphasis. “To understand how things work, you need to understand the wider universe itself. There is a fundamental power that permeates everything.”

  Aco leaned forward slightly. “Power? What, like… are we talking mana? Magic?”

  I sighed, considering my words carefully. “That’s one way to look at it. But not like the old stories of wizards and spells. This power is more than that. It has a will, a presence. It seeks balance, and it rewards life.”

  Aco tilted his head. “So… more like the Force then?”

  I blinked. “The… Force?”

  “Yeah, you know, Star Wars.” He waved a hand, like this should have been common knowledge.

  I just stared at him. “Aco, I was stuck next to that river for over a thousand years. Everything I know, I got secondhand from people passing through, from newspapers, from whatever rubbish I could find washed up on the banks.”

  Aco’s mouth fell open slightly before he ran a hand down his face. “What!? Dude, I envy you! You get to see everything for the first time! We are watching so many movies this week.”

  Then, just as suddenly, his excitement cut off. He went still, his expression shifting to something strangely panicked.

  “Wait.”

  He turned to me, eyes narrowing. “Wait, wait, wait. If you’re, if this is real, then, you don’t have to go to those interviews anymore.”

  He groaned, running both hands through his hair. “Dude. You just destroyed my entire plan for the week.”

  I bit back a smirk. At least the rest of your life, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud.

  “Call it what you will,” I continued, “this Power was once concentrated on Earth, one of the Nexus points across the galaxy. Because of this, early life evolved with a heightened ability to interact with it, to better understand its will.”

  Aco raised a hand. “Yeah, that’s the Force.”

  I sighed. “Fine. The Force, then.”

  “But what happened? Why did the Force abandon us?” He emphasized the last part like he was setting up some grand reveal.

  A frustrated smile tugged at my lips. “Earth wasn’t abandoned. We did this to ourselves.”

  His eyebrows lifted, curiosity overriding his theatrics.

  “Around 115,000 years ago, three species lived in harmony,” I explained, but before I could continue, he cut in.

  "Wait. Three species?"

  I nodded. "Yes. Two others lived alongside humans. Because Earth was a Nexus, it allowed for an abundance of sentient life to evolve and flourish. The sheer concentration of Power meant that intelligence wasn’t just possible, it was inevitable."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Aco immediately pulled out his phone, fingers tapping rapidly against the screen.

  “Huh. Would you look at that? 115,000 years ago, there were three different branches of humans. Modern paleoanthropologists call them Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. And we,” he pointed at himself, “, are Homo sapiens.”

  I frowned and leaned forward. “Let me see that.”

  He turned the phone toward me, images of crude reconstructions filling the screen. I felt my eye twitch.

  “They did not look like that! The colours are all wrong. And why does that one look so stupid?” I gestured at one of the depictions in exasperation. “This is like a blind person trying to describe what they looked like just by touching their faces! All wrong!”

  Aco held up a hand. “Okay, okay, but I get the idea. Three species, right? All living together?”

  I exhaled sharply. “Yes. And back then, they were equal in all things. Balanced”

  I saw the way his expression shifted as he processed the weight of that. This wasn’t just history, this was lost history.

  “I was born during this time,” I continued. “And it was discovered early on that I had an exceptional harmony with the Power and Will of the universe.”

  “The Force.”

  I ignored him and pressed on. “Using this connection, I eventually became an advisor to the king once I reached adulthood.”

  For the first time, Aco didn’t immediately interrupt.

  "But that’s where my good fortune ended," I admitted, my voice low. “Unbeknownst to all but a select few of his co-conspirators… the king was corrupted."

  Aco narrowed his eyes. "Corrupted how? Like, dirty politician corrupted, or...?"

  I met his gaze. "No. Deeper than that. His soul was corrupted."

  Aco’s playful curiosity dimmed slightly, giving way to something more serious. "Okay… and what exactly does that mean?"

  I exhaled slowly, choosing my words carefully. "When one gives in to the corruption of the Power, they begin to disrupt the balance of the universe. Because the Power fosters life… it also demands death."

  “So… the Dark Side of the Force.”

  I groaned, rubbing a hand over my face. “Okay, stop. If I promise to watch this Force thing, will you quit making comparisons?”

  His eyes lit up. “Deal.”

  “So the king was corrupted and nearing the end of his life. He sought to extend his existence, to make himself more. To transcend mortality itself.”

  I exhaled, the memories surfacing like echoes from a time long buried. “He sought to use the Power for this goal. Untold riches were spent on preparation, on research, on constructing the facility that would alter our planet forever. Everything, every effort, every sacrifice, was poured into this single purpose.”

  Aco remained silent, just listening.

  I glanced down at the notepad, the ancient symbols staring back at me, reminders of a past I could never escape. “I was chosen to be the first.”

  Aco’s brow furrowed. “The first for what?”

  I let out a breath, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “The first to undergo the ritual. The first to step into the unknown. And with the na?vety of youth, I was proud to serve my king.”

  The silence stretched between us.

  “Thousands participated in the ritual, all bent around the raised altar chanting” I continued, my voice quieter now as if I could still hear their whispers, their anticipation, their reverence for something they did not understand. “I still remember it vividly. Walking up the steps, feeling the weight of something immense, as the full might and attention of the vast universe had converged onto that single point in space and time. Every breath felt heavier, every step carrying more meaning than the last.”

  I could almost feel it again, the pull of something greater, something beyond mortal comprehension.

  “And then, I reached the top.”

  Aco leaned forward slightly, his curiosity palpable.

  I let out a dry chuckle. “I expected something profound, some sacred artefact, some grand mechanism. But instead, sitting atop the altar, was…”

  I gestured toward the copper kettle on the table.

  Aco followed my gaze, his eyes widening slightly.

  “My favorite kettle,” I confirmed, shaking my head at the absurdity of it. “I remember standing there, staring at it, thinking that they must have stolen it from my house. Because I had used it that very morning.”

  Aco snorted, but his amusement was tempered by curiosity.

  "I was made to lie down," I continued, the weight of the memory pressing down on me. "The kettle was placed above my head—because the ritual required something personal. And for me, it was this." the kettle on the table, was motionless, its polished copper reflecting the room’s dim light.

  Aco’s gaze flickered between me and the object, his expression shifting from curiosity to something more thoughtful.

  "I won’t bore you with the details, but the ritual… it bound me to the kettle, effectively making me a Jin."

  I paused, my fingers absentmindedly tracing symbols into the notepad. The ink swirled, but the words I wanted to say weren’t easy to put down.

  "I could feel it during the ritual," I murmured, the echo of that power still lingering in my mind. "Like they were ripping the fabric of the universe itself and forcing it into me, separating my essence from the natural flow, anchoring me to an object instead of allowing me to, one day, return to the Power."

  I exhaled sharply. "It was not a gift. It was theft, and worse, a crime against the very balance that had allowed our world to thrive. I tried to tell them. I felt what they had done, how they had weakened the Power’s influence on the planet. I warned them, but they wouldn't listen."

  A small smile tugged at my lips, though it held no warmth. "And the king… oh, he was furious when they realized there were limitations."

  Aco raised an eyebrow. "Limitations?"

  I chuckled darkly. "Yes. As if the Will of the universe itself saw what he wanted and kept it just out of reach."

  I leaned back slightly, folding my arms as I recounted the moment. "Instead of infinite power, instead of immortality or control over life and death, they were left with rules, restrictions that seemed arbitrary but were, in truth, the Will of the universe ensuring balance."

  Aco listened intently as I listed them off.

  "I could only grant three wishes per soul. A soul that had returned to the universe could not be called back. And a soul and its emotions could not be directly affected by a wish."

  Aco’s lips parted slightly as he softly repeated, "Only three… no wishing someone back from the dead… no wishing someone falls in love with you…" He trailed off before his eyes widened slightly. "Wait, there’s one missing. What about the ‘no wishing for more wishes’ rule? Though I guess that would be covered by the first one."

  A small smirk played at the corner of my mouth. “Indeed.”

  I leaned back slightly, the weight of old memories settling over me like dust long undisturbed. “The king was old, greedy beyond measure, but not overly smart. His first wish was exactly what you’d expect, he wished to be young again. I remember granting that wish,” I continued, my voice distant, recalling the way the universe itself seemed to reel as the Power coursed through me. “And instinctively, I knew, it did not prolong his life. It merely rewound his body to its prime. It reset him, but it did nothing to fix the degradation of his soul.”

  I glanced at Aco, watching as the realization dawned on him.

  “So it didn’t extend his life,” he murmured. “He just… looked younger.”

  I nodded. “And when he realized that, he panicked. He raged.”

  Aco exhaled through his nose. “Of course he did.”

  “So, he used another wish,” I went on, “this time for knowledge, the knowledge of how to fix his soul. And this time…” I hesitated, letting the moment stretch before finishing, “…this time, it was different.”

  Aco frowned. “Different how?”

  I clasped my hands together, my fingers idly tracing the edge of the notepad. “I could feel the Power affecting reality, not just reshaping something that already existed, but creating something entirely new. A massive tower, a library, rose from the ground, impossibly vast, filled with documents, scrolls, and books. Knowledge that had never existed before. The answer he sought was in that library.”

  I let out a quiet chuckle, though there was no humor in it. “But there was a catch. No single book contained the knowledge he needed. The totality of the library—every word, every volume—was required. And that was the cruel brilliance of it.”

  Aco tilted his head. “It was possible… but not in his lifetime.”

  “Exactly.” I nodded.

  “And that drove him mad, slowly, but surely. He kept me close after that—a mad race between the end of his life and his desperate attempt to understand the library. He obsessed over it, pouring every resource, every scholar, into deciphering the knowledge inside. But no matter how much he learned, it was never enough.”

  Aco exhaled sharply. “Holding infinite power in one hand and the answer just out of reach in the other. That’s…” He shook his head. “That’s a special kind of hell.”

  “And it broke him.”

  The room fell into silence for a moment before I continued, my voice quieter now.

  “Not long after, his desperation turned into something darker. He became erratic, unhinged. He stopped searching for the answer himself and instead demanded more Jin to be made. He believed that if he controlled enough of us, he could manipulate the Power directly, could force the universe to obey him.”

  Aco’s jaw tightened. I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. “First, he sacrificed those who loved him.”

  Aco tensed. “Like… their emotions mattered?”

  I gave a slow, grim nod. “Yes. He believed the strength of their connection, their attachment, was what anchored them most to the Power. His first victim was his own daughter.”

  Aco’s eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing.

  “I still remember it.” My voice dropped, old pain resurfacing like a slow-moving tide. “They used a crystal vial, used for perfume. It was hers, given to her by her father when she was a child. She treasured it, loved it, cherished it. And so, it became her prison.”*

  Aco swallowed. “That is unimaginable made her a Jin, a slave.”

  I nodded. “She was the second. But she would not be the last.”

  I let out a slow breath, my gaze drifting toward the kettle—the thing that had bound me for over a thousand years. It was strange, how something so small could hold so much weight.

  "A total of seventy-two were created." The words felt heavy, even now. "People from every walk of life. a slave, general, scholar, priest, none were spared. Even a simple farmer was forced onto the altar. Seventy-two souls, each bound to an object of significance, each ripped from the natural order of life."

  Aco was staring at me now, silent.

  I swallowed. "And then... the fabric of the universe failed after the last coherent piece was ripped from it."

  Aco’s brows furrowed. "Failed? Like... how?"

  "Earth had been a Nexus, a conduit for the Power. But when the balance was broken, when the king twisted that Power for his own greed, it severed us from the greater whole. Earth became isolated from the Will of the universe. The Power no longer flowed freely here."

  Aco’s expression darkened. "And I’m guessing that didn’t stop him from trying?"

  I let out a humourless chuckle. "No. It did not. But it did stop the Power. Stoped it guiding us, Stopped if from aiding and empowering life on Earth"

  I leaned forward, my elbows resting on my knees. "He died like a madman, raging against the universe—his final breath spent cursing the very Power he had tried to control."

  Silence settled between us.

  Aco exhaled sharply. "And then what? What happened to the seventy-two?"

  I looked at him, my expression grim. "Chaos."

  "Seventy-two artefacts of immeasurable power, suddenly without a master. All of them arranged around the library that contained the secret of immortality. You can imagine what followed" I paused, letting the weight of it sink in. "War. Death. Wish filed destruction. A desperate struggle to claim them, to understand them, to use them. The bloodshed was endless."

  Aco’s fingers curled into a fist.

  "The conflict was so absolute, so devastating, that it wiped out the other two species entirely." My voice was quiet now. "Not just their lives, but their history. Their culture. Their legacy. The destruction was so complete that no trace of any first civilization remained. No ruins. No artefacts. Not even the slightest whisper in the sands of time. As if they had never existed at all. Only seventy-two phylactery remained, the only evidence of a lost civilization "

  Aco ran a hand down his face, his expression a mixture of disbelief and something heavier.

  "That’s why there’s no proof," Aco muttered. "That’s why history is incomplete."

  I nodded. "Because we Jin and a few pockets of survivors were the only ones left."

  Silence stretched between us, thick with the weight of forgotten history. Aco looked like he was still struggling to process it all—the sheer scale of what had been lost, wiped from existence as if it had never been.

  I leaned back slightly, tapping my fingers against the notepad. "You know that conflict caused the last Ice Age?"

  His head snapped up. "What?"

  "The war. The chaos. The unrestrained use of the Jin. It threw the world into a spiral—climate collapse, the sun growing distant, ice swallowing the land. That was the final consequence of the king’s greed. It wasn’t just the death of civilizations… it was a full reset of the planet itself."

  Aco rubbed his temples, exhaling sharply. "Alright… but what does all that have to do with this?" He gestured toward the notepad in my hands, frustration creeping into his voice.

  I glanced down at the scribbled symbols, remnants of a fool’s final mistake. I turned the page slightly as if that would somehow change the words staring back at me.

  "Because this," I said, holding it up slightly, "was his last wish."

  Aco frowned. "The king’s last wish?"

  "Yes." I inhaled slowly, my grip tightening on the paper. "Even as his body failed, even as his mind splintered, he refused to accept that he was powerless. He believed that if he couldn’t live forever, he could own those who could."

  Aco’s expression darkened. "What do you mean?"

  I met his gaze. "The king, in his final act of desperation, used his third and last wish to bind all Jin phylacteries to a single command—a phrase that, when spoken in conjunction with a wish, would summon every phylactery to the wisher."

  Aco stiffened slightly, his fingers curling into a fist. "Every single one."

  I nodded.

  "All seventy-two."

  And then, I remembered.

  It was like a dam breaking in my mind. The correct words came to me—not as a slow realization, but as something sudden, absolute, undeniable. Like the retelling itself had triggered the buried memory. Or perhaps it was something else.

  The Will of the Universe.

  The past unfolded in my mind, sharp and vivid, as if I was standing there once more.

  The haughty room, built atop the tower of knowledge, looming over the the shining kingdom. The air was thick with incense, desperation, and the stench of decay.

  His bedchamber, grand beyond measure, surrounded by seventy-two pedestals. Each one topped with a crystal case—each case containing a phylactery. A collection of power beyond comprehension.

  All except mine.

  Mine, he held in his hand.

  A mad king at the end of his reign. A man who had squandered all but one of his wishes. Two hundred and fifteen wishes wasted in fruitless pursuits of power, of immortality, of control. And yet, in the end, he was still dying.

  I remembered the panic in his eyes, the feverish scratching of his quill against parchment as he scrambled to write down the words—the final contingency. He had believed himself clever, had thought he had won. But even then, he had failed to see his own flaw.

  He would never have been able to use it.

  Because to invoke the phrase, one needed a wish.

  And he was using his last one to bind the command to the phylacteries.

  Was this also the Will of the Universe.

  A force far greater than kings, greater than greed, greater than time itself. I wondered then, as I wondered now, if the Power had acted deliberately, if it had woven this fate so that the wrongs of the past could finally be made right.

  And now, here we were.

  For the first time in a hundred and fifteen millennia, someone had both the chance and the strength to undo the past. But more importantly—it wasn’t just power or opportunity that mattered. It was Aco himself. His choices, his convictions, his very nature—he might be the first who truly could.

  I could only hope, pray, that he was the right person to bear that burden.

  I swallowed hard, then handed him the piece of paper.

  "Read this," I said, my voice steady, though my heart was anything but. "And end it with the phrase: ‘This is my wish.’"

  Aco hesitated, taking the parchment from my hand. His eyes flickered with confusion. "Uh, buddy? You know I can’t read this, right?"

  I opened my mouth to respond, but then—

  The world shifted.

  The air grew heavy, thick with something unseen yet deeply felt. A force older than words, older than light, pressing against existence itself.

  Aco’s expression changed. His brows furrowed, his lips parting slightly as he looked closer at the page, his eyes scanning symbols that should have been impossible for him to understand.

  And then, I felt it.

  For the first time in one hundred and fifteen thousand years, I felt the Will of the Universe move.

  The Power exerted itself upon the earth, stirring like a sleeping god awakening from slumber.

  And Aco spoke.

  His voice was not his own.

  It was his, but it was also more. It carried the weight of reality, the gravity of command, the raw authority of something that had been dormant for far too long.

  "By the first and final decree,

  Let the lost be found and bound to me.

  From dust and chains, from void and will,

  By my command, let Power bend still.

  This is my wish."

  The world held its breath.

  And then—

  Reality shattered.

  thank you for reading! This story is a passion project, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to follow along.

  spelling or grammar mistakes you may have noticed—English is not my first language, and I don’t have proofreaders to help fine-tune everything. I’m doing my best, but there may still be errors here and there.

  your thoughts, feedback, and theories in the comments! And if you’re enjoying the story, please consider rating or leaving a comment—it really helps and keeps me motivated to continue writing.