“Chapter VIII: The Glitch Between Worlds”

There are moments when reality thins —

when the world you stand in flickers,

and the one beneath it pulses through the cracks.

X learned to feel those fractures.

Not with his eyes,

but with the instinct honed from walking too long

between the light and the dark.

It happened first in silence —

a street frozen between heartbeats,

colors splitting,

shadows breaking into static.

He wasn’t hallucinating.

He wasn’t dreaming.

He was witnessing the world beneath the world.

For most men, the glitch arrives as confusion.

For him, it arrived as recognition.

Because a man who has survived fire, storm, mask, and oath

knows when something ancient is calling.

The glitch wasn’t chaos.

It was a doorway.

A warning.

A test.

Standing in the shifting haze,

he realized something few ever understand:

Reality is not fixed.

Identity is not fixed.

The path is not fixed.

A warrior becomes dangerous

the moment he accepts that the world is not one layer —

but many.

And the moment he stepped forward,

the colors tore open,

the veil split,

and he walked into the realm where myths breathe

and legends wake.

Not as a visitor.

As one of its own.

• X