"But you said Ira died?" Time bending Ira asked.

"Let me explain it all," Rayer reasoned.

"Unbelievable," I breathed. My gaze was fixed on Rayer, his normally serene face etched with a solemnity that only deepened my unease. "You're asking me to believe... what exactly? That I'm some... goddess? That your father, who is also supposedly my father, tried to kill me? And he made all of this?" I gestured around us, at the shimmering, ethereal landscape Rayer had led me to, a place he called the Threshold.

Rayer remained patient, his eyes, the same unsettling shade of violet as mine, holding a depth of sorrow. "I understand your disbelief, Ira. It sounds... fantastical. Mad, even. But every word I've spoken is truth. Virinchi is the Creator. And you, Ira, you are his daughter. Or rather, you were meant to be."

His hesitation hung in the air, heavy with unspoken implications. "What do you mean, 'meant to be'?" I pressed, a knot tightening in my stomach.

Rayer's gaze drifted away. "Father... he writes destinies, Ira. For everything, everyone in this world. He wrote yours too." He turned back to me, his voice lowering. "He tried to erase you, Ira. To unwrite you from existence itself. He thought... he could simply eliminate you and give your powers to me."

My breath hitched. Erase me? The very idea sent a chill down my spine, colder than any physical cold. "But you said... you said it was impossible."

"It was," Rayer confirmed, a grim satisfaction in his tone. "Killing the creator's daughter... it's a paradox Virinchi couldn't circumvent, blood relation or not. You are intrinsically woven into the fabric of his creation, Ira. He made you, unknowingly, a part of himself. He couldn't unmake himself without unmaking everything. He just... didn't understand the extent of it, initially."

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. Then, he continued, his voice taking on a new resonance, something akin to fear. "You are not just the owner of destiny, Ira. You can shape water with a thought. You can bend the very threads of time. And... and if you truly wished, you could destroy this entire world, return it to the nothingness from whence it came."

My mind reeled. Water... time... destruction. Powers I'd never known I possessed, abilities that felt both terrifying and... strangely familiar, like half-forgotten echoes in the deepest recesses of my being.

"How... how do you know all this?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Rayer's eyes clouded over, a flicker of pain crossing his features. "I was there, Ira. I saw it. I witnessed his... attempt." His hand went to his forehead, as if battling a phantom ache. "Let me show you. Let me show you what he did."

Suddenly, the darkness intensified, converging inwards, drawing me into a vortex of light and sound. It wasn't a physical pull, but a mental one, a wave of sensory input that slammed into me, disorienting and overwhelming. Images flashed behind my eyes, vivid and visceral, not like memories, but as if I was being plunged into the heart of another's experience.

I saw him then, Virinchi, a being of raw, untamed power, his form shimmering with godly energy. He stood before a vast, chaotic canvas, swirling with nascent universes and unformed stars. It was the very fabric of creation. And in the centre of this cosmic maelstrom, a single thread of light, vibrant and radiant, pulsed with life - my life.

Virinchi's face twisted into an expression of frustrated fury. His hands, capable of shaping galaxies, clenched into fists. He reached out to the thread of light, his touch not gentle or paternal, but grasping, tearing. He tried to destroy it, to fray its essence, to extinguish its existence. But the thread resisted, flickering, bending, but never breaking. He roared, a sound that echoed through the space, a sound of pure, unadulterated rage. "Insolence!" he bellowed, his voice cracking with fury. "I created you! I will unmake you!"

"I am not one but many! How many will you unmake?" The thread of life roared back.

He threw his power at the thread, waves upon waves of raw energy, trying to rewrite its very destiny, to nullify its existence. But each surge of power crashed against an invisible barrier, a resilience inherent in the thread itself. It was like trying to erase a word permanently etched into the foundation of a building - the structure might crack, but the word would remain.

Desperation replaced rage. Virinchi stepped back, panting, his face contorted in a mask of venomous hatred. "If I cannot erase you... then I will contain you."

The scene shifted. The vibrant chaos of creation faded, replaced by a landscape of impossible geometry, a world of shimmering, grey walls that stretched into infinity. It pulsed with an inner light, a strange, alluring luminescence that hid a darkness beneath. This was Histoire, I realized.

And then I saw Rayer, younger, his face untouched by the weariness I saw in him now. Virinchi stood before him, his voice cold and commanding. "You will be the caretaker, Rayer. You will guard this place. You will ensure nothing... escapes."

Rayer with a flicker of defiance in his violet eyes, but ultimately subservient, bowed his head. "As you command, Father."

The final, most chilling scene unfolded when Virinchi pulled the threads of power and dissected my being. It was the same river the village crowd had forced me to jump into. While everyone thought I had died, the water tugged at me, almost like splitting me into parts; the transparent water me, the time-altering me, the destructive me and my amnesiac self.

As each part was severed, a part of me seemed to dim, a vital force leached away. Virinchi gathered these stolen powers, his face alight with triumph. He then plunged them into the depths of Histoire, scattering them amongst the corridors. As each power settled, it solidified into a rectangle of glowing blue, indistinguishable amongst the other rectangles of Histoire...

As the vision faded back to the swirling nebulous space, I was left breathless, reeling from the cold, calculated cruelty of Virinchi's actions. The vibrant, powerful creator of the first vision was now tainted, corrupted in my eyes, replaced by the monstrous architect of Histoire.

"He... he did that?" I whispered, my voice trembling. The unbelievable story was now horrifically real.

Along with me, the time-altering Ira, the water Ira and destructive Ira saw it too.

"He did. He feared your potential, Ira. He saw in you the power to surpass him, perhaps even to unmake his creation. And in his arrogance and fear, he chose this path."

"We are her?" It was Fierce Ira, just as shocked as me.

Rayer nodded, his expression grave. "Yes."

I turned to Rayer, my gaze intense. "Why tell me now? Why not before?"

Rayer looked away. "I am no better than father. I wanted to be the next creator; the power was too luring. But I know now how impossible it is. Those memories never left you and no matter how many false memories I piped you up with, you sure knew what to trust."

I wanted to trust him, but that was a far dream. Was he trustworthy? My own step-brother? But I needed to sort things out first.

Rayer looked at me, a flicker of something unreadable in his blue eyes. "I know, you cannot trust me, but please, believe this one thing. You can do nothing Ira, not before you are again whole. And I wasn't lying when I said you have to rewrite your own story. Plus father, he is beyond Histoire, in the heart of creation itself. You cannot fight him this easily."

The words hit me like a thunderbolt, shattering the remnants of confusion that had clouded my mind since Rayer's revelations. My father, Virinchi, the architect of my being, the architect of this world was also my betrayer. And this fractured self, these four warring pieces of Ira - Time, Water, Fierce, and myself - they weren't my weakness, but the very weapon I needed against him.

Knowledge bloomed in my chest, a fierce, power. But knowing and doing were oceans apart.

"Rayer," I asked, my voice tight, "Where is he? Where can I find Virinchi?"

Before the words could fully leave my lips, before Rayer could even open his mouth to answer, the world convulsed. Histoire, the fortress of memories, groaned and shuddered around us. The dark grey floor beneath our feet began to ripple, turning a terrifying, molten red. Veins of fire, like cracks in reality itself, spider-webbed across the polished surface. The air vibrated, thick with a malevolent energy that pressed against my skin, stealing my breath.

The cracks widened, the red glow intensifying until the floor seemed to disintegrate beneath us. Then, the floor fractured. A gaping maw, an abyss of impenetrable darkness, yawned open beneath us, swallowing the ground whole. We plummeted. The carefully constructed world of Histoire dissolved into chaos as gravity, a force I hadn't truly comprehended until now, seized us in its relentless grip.

"It is father!" Rayer's scream ripped through the roaring wind, a desperate, terrified sound.

We were falling. Plummeting into the unknown. Rayer's scream echoed around us, a fading cry swallowed by the vast emptiness, until he too, was gone, lost in the darkness below. Panic clawed at my throat. Thoughts warred within me, a chaotic storm of fear and desperate resolve.

What was happening? How was this possible? Father... Virinchi... he was behind this. But why? And Rayer... gone?

What do I do? How do I fix this? Rewrite my destiny? I'm powerless!

And then I saw them, falling alongside me. Not 'them' really, not separate entities, but echoes of myself, adrift in the darkness. Time, a swirling vortex of fractured moments, her face a mask of confusion and cyclical doubt. Water, weeping tears of memory, the ocean of her pain threatening to drown us all. Fierce, a raging inferno of unmet hunger, her eyes burning with the promise of vengeance, untamed and reckless. And Herself, the core, the echo of who I was meant to be, lost and adrift, her purpose seemingly extinguished.

Desperation lent me a voice I didn't know I possessed. "We have to unite! Please!" I screamed into the void, my words swallowed by the relentless rush of air. "We have to be one!"

But their resistance was a palpable force, chilling and absolute. Time spiralled in on itself, caught in endless cycles of doubt, trapped in the echoes of what was and what could be. Why? What if? It's always been this way. Will it ever change? Her confusion was a tangible weight, anchoring it to despair.

Water wept, a deluge of grief, drowning in the memories of past hurts, the weight of betrayed trust, the endless ache of loss. Pain. It always ends in pain. Trust is a lie. Better to feel nothing than to feel this again. Her sorrow was an ocean, vast and impenetrable, isolating it in a sea of despair.

Fierce snarled, a caged predator consumed by an insatiable hunger for vengeance, blind rage fuelling its every instinct. Betrayal. Weakness. He will pay. Tear him apart. Rend him. Destroy. Her fury was a wildfire, consuming everything in its path, making it deaf to reason, blind to anything but retribution.

And me... I merely drifted, a ghost in the darkness, disconnected, lost, the purpose that had once defined me now a hollow echo. A seed of doubt seemed to breathe life.

What am I? What is the point? There is nothing left to fight for. No one to trust. I am nothing.

My emptiness was now a void, swallowing hope, leaving only apathy in its wake.