I wasn't free.
Still a slave with a branded collar and excavation shifts.
But there was something they didn't know:
I no longer lived in the same world as them.
I lived between futures.
---
Since I opened that cave and saw that reflection —that version of me with moons in his eyes— something had changed.
The visions no longer came only when the moons aligned.
Now they appeared with a blink, a whisper, the crack of a branch beneath my feet.
The world was leaking possibilities through every fracture.
And I was learning how to read them.
---
During a dig, I found a book.
It shouldn't have been there: buried under rubble, covered in ash, with letters that rearranged themselves if you stared too long.
I opened it.
And the title found me:
> "Faith-Based World Management Manual."
It was technical.
Cold. Precise. Like an interdimensional engineer had written it for a cosmic intern.
Page after page explained how to create magical systems based on worship, how to assign heroes from other planes, how to measure the "narrative impact" of a death.
And at the end… a handwritten note, messy and desperate:
> "If you're reading this and you're an Extra… run. We didn't win this time. But someone will."
—Extra #4
---
I kept it.
And for the first time, I felt a bitter certainty.
Eclipsia was artificial.
A magical sandbox built to entertain something —or someone— far beyond our comprehension.
And we, the Extras, were disposable background props.
But me…
I didn't want to run.
I wanted to sabotage it from the inside.
---
That night, I did something stupid.
I tried to break my collar.
Not with strength. That wouldn't work.
But with an idea: use the shadows of futures to find a precise moment when the collar would be vulnerable.
I saw 17 outcomes.
In 14, I died.
In 2, I blacked out.
And in 1… the collar cracked without anyone noticing.
I waited.
Counted the guard's footsteps.
The wind rustling the leaves.
The rhythm of Glurm the ogre's snoring, which followed a weird tempo.
And when everything aligned… I struck the rock.
Crack.
A fracture.
Tiny, but real.
And there was no punishment.
---
My hands trembled.
Not from effort.
But because I had tasted something more dangerous than magic.
I had proven that I could force the world to glitch.
And if one gear could break…
The entire clock could come apart.