Clotho’s presence didn't burn like the Seraphim, but it was heavier. It felt like the air in the gallery had turned into a physical weight pressing against my lungs, a density that made every movement feel like I was wading through waist-deep water. Beside me, Pavor—the newly minted God of Dread—was vibrating. His purple eyes were locked on the spinning wheel she held, a tool carved from wood that looked older than the concept of pnetary crusts.

  "You're a long way from the Loom, Clotho," I said, leaning my weight against a marble pedestal. My breath came in jagged bursts, and the gold-flecked blood on my lip was starting to itch. The metallic taste in my mouth wasn't iron anymore; it was something colder, more ancient.

  "The Loom is crying, Mediator," Clotho replied. She didn't turn her head, but I felt her blindfolded gaze scanning the Strings stored in the microscopic pores of my palms. "You are pulling threads from the future to pay for the present. Every time you weave, you compress your 'self' to make room for the Power."

  "So my memories aren't gone? They’re just... zipped?" I held up my hand, watching the microscopic vortexes of gold beneath my skin. I tried to focus on the memory of my third birthday—the smell of the cake, the face of my mother. I could see the image, but the feeling was missing. It was like looking at a photograph of a stranger’s life. The data was there, but the "Was" had been deleted.

  "They are stored in the Acausal Core," she whispered, the wood of her wheel creaking in the silence. "But be warned. The human mind is a container built for linear seconds, not eternal cycles. You are turning your consciousness into a pressure cooker. If that container breaks before you are strong enough to hold the weight of your own existence, the explosion of 'Zany' will erase this city. You are carrying a bomb made of your own life."

  I stared at the gold glow. It wasn't a gift; it was a high-interest loan.

  "Is that why I feel so empty?" I asked. "The more I fight, the less 'Zany' there is?"

  "Precisely," Clotho said. "You are becoming a fundamental force. And forces do not have favorite colors or childhood friends. They only have functions."

  Suddenly, the floor shook. A massive obsidian bde, wide as a car door, tore through the vaulted ceiling. It missed Clotho by an inch, burying itself three feet deep into the marble floor. The air filled instantly with the sharp, metallic tang of ozone and the heavy, musky scent of a predator’s breath.

  Through the dust and falling pster, a woman descended. She didn't fall; she nded with the weight of a falling star. She stood seven feet tall, skin like parched sand, draped in crimson silk and hammered gold. Her head was that of a lioness, eyes burning like sor radiation.

  Sekhmet. The Eye of Ra.

  "The Hunter failed because he followed the Script," Sekhmet growled, her white-hot cws scraping against the stone with a sound like grinding gss. "I do not read. I only consume."

  "Wait!" Clotho stepped forward, her spinning wheel glowing teal. "He is the Mediator! The transition requires his survival! If you kill him now, the bance—"

  "The bance is a lie told by cowards who fear the dark!" Sekhmet lunged.

  She was a horizontal streak of fire. I didn't have the processing power for a complex weave, so I triggered Temporal Sludge. To the tourists outside, time hadn't moved. To me, the air became thick and syrupy, slowing Sekhmet just enough for me to see her cws inches from my throat.

  I grabbed the raw, jagged red String of Dread still leaking from Pavor like a broken pipe and smmed it against her sor heat.

  The first collision was a stalemate. The Dread dampened her fire, but the recoil sent me sliding twenty feet. Sekhmet didn't wait. She pivoted on one cw, her tail whipping around like a steel cable. It caught me in the ribs, and I heard the sickening crack of bone meeting celestial force.

  "Pavor! Do something!" I yelled, coughing up a glob of gold phlegm.

  The God of Dread looked at the lioness and then at me. "She... she is the source of the Fear I eat, Zany. How do you fight the sun?"

  "By taking its shadow!" I roared.

  I reached into the Acausal Core, deleting the memory of my first game development success to pay for a burst of speed. The loss hit me like a physical hollow in my chest, but my legs moved before I could regret it.

  I appeared behind Sekhmet, weaving a tether of Dread around her ankles. She roared, a sound that shattered every museum frame in the room. The gss fell like diamond rain. She turned, her mane of fire exploding into a supernova of white heat. The temperature in the room spiked to a lethal 50°C.

  The collision of her fire and my Dread shattered the st of the windows. I was thrown back into a painting of a saint, my ribs screaming. Sekhmet skidded, her cws digging furrows into the stone. She ughed—a dry, terrifying sound.

  "You have some bite, little Error," she purred.

  Then, the shadows in the corner shifted. The temperature plummeted, frost forming on the edges of the jagged marble. A woman with dark, flowing hair that held the vacuum of space stepped out of the dark.

  "Enough, Sekhmet," the newcomer said. Her voice didn't move the air; it moved the soul. "He is mine to test."

  Nyx. Primordial Goddess of Night.

  The two powerhouses stared each other down. The air between them ignited and froze simultaneously. They weren't just here for me; they were settling an ancient, primordial grudge. The museum was no longer a gallery; it was a pyground for the architects of the universe.

  I stood up, wiping more gold blood from my chin. The "Zzipped" file of my life was getting smaller, and the gods were getting louder.

  I looked at Pavor. "Hey, Dread-guy. Any chance we can just sneak out the back while they're busy measuring their egos?"