ANOMALY OF AETHELGARD

Death didn’t arrive like he expected. There was no flash. No tunnel of light. No judgment, no warmth, no hand reaching down to pull him somewhere better—or worse. There was only pressure. William felt it first in his chest, a crushing inward collapse as if the air itself had decided he no longer deserved it. His lungs convulsed, instinct screaming at him to breathe, to fight, to claw at something—anything—but his body had already begun to betray him. Cold spread next. Not the sharp cold of winter, but a slow, invasive numbness, creeping from his fingertips inward like rot. His vision blurred, colors draining until the world became a smear of gray and shadow. So this is it, he thought distantly. Oddly, he wasn’t afraid. He tried to summon panic. Tried to remember something—someone—that might anchor him to life. Family. Friends. Regrets. Love. Nothing came. That scared him more than death itself. His heart stuttered once. Twice. Then time broke The final beat stretched impossibly long, caught between contraction and release. William felt suspended inside himself, aware of every nerve, every fading signal, every misfiring synapse screaming into the void. And in that impossible stillness, something noticed him. Not a presence. Not a voice. A measurement. A pressure behind reality itself, as if something vast had turned its attention—not with curiosity, but calculation. [—ERROR—] [Temporal Event Desynchronization Detected] The words didn’t appear before his eyes. They imprinted themselves directly into his awareness, raw and invasive, like a brand pressed into thought. William tried to scream. The moment snapped. His heart stopped. And the world went dark.