Chapter 123: The Price of Creation

Lyra's POV

The first scream pierces the dawn like a knife. I materialize instantly at its source, finding a woman collapsed in our newly formed city square. She's clutching her head, tears streaming down her face as she flickers between two versions of herself.

"My children," she sobs. "I remember them both ways. Dead in the war, but also alive and grown. How can they be both? How can I remember burying them and attending their weddings?"

Before I can respond, more cries echo across the city. People dropping to their knees as conflicting memories assault them—lives that both did and didn't happen, all equally real in their minds.

Xander appears beside me, his face grim. "It's happening everywhere. The merge wasn't as clean as we thought."

I reach out with my enhanced senses, feeling the fabric of reality straining under the weight of overlapping timelines. Certain individuals have become nexus points, retaining memories from multiple realities that should have been seamlessly fused.

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