For The Shattered Things Novels & Stories

“I’ll try. But right now… you’re toxic.” The call cut off. I sat frozen, the word toxic reverberating in my skull until it drowned out everything else. My pulse roared in my ears. My breaths came shallow. Everything I’d built, everything I’d bled for—gone, shattered like glass on pavement. With shaking hands, I tried to call Ethan. He'd know something. He'd know what to do, which string to pull, whom to call. But before I could shift the car into gear, a burst of headlights swerved across my windshield. Tires screamed. A black van cut and pinned me in.

Not with control. With messiness . With memory. With the taste of tea and the ache of love and the starlight in the Child’s tears. The core cracks . Axiom howls, reaching for us as the first fissures race up their pristine robes. "No! You’ve ruined it—" The shattering takes them first. Their perfect body explodes into prismatic shards, dissolving midair. The core follows, its pulse stuttering, the Scorch-wave freezing mid-expansion.

Chapter 97 – The Book She Wrote The house was quiet again, but this time it was the kind of quiet that hummed with purpose. The kind of quiet that filled the room with possibilities rather than emptiness. I sat at my desk, pen in hand, notebook open, staring at the blank page for a long time before writing the first words. “Shattered Vows,” I whispered to myself. The title alone made my chest tighten, a reminder of everything I had lived through—the love, the lies, the heartbreak, the forgiveness, and the slow, painstaking rebuilding of myself.

Ruby, the voice behind those sounds, stood frozen in shock. "Ahhh!" She shrieked and scrambled toward the TV, desperately trying to shut it off, to silence the mortifying noise. When she realized it was no use, she threw her arms out, shielding the screen with her body. Fear was written all over her face, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "Honey... Let me explain..." I grabbed a chair and sat down with a gesture toward the television. "Do we really need an explanation?" "I..." Ruby's voice faltered, and then tears streamed down her face. "I'm sorry... I messed up, honey...

She cried for the dreams that had been shattered, for the illusions that had been torn away, leaving her with nothing but a hollow emptiness. When the tears finally subsided, Elara was left with a heavy sense of resignation. She had to face the truth—Cassia was right. She would never truly be part of the family, no matter how hard she tried. She would always be an outsider, someone who didn’t quite fit.

The hills fell apart into wireframe geometry, then into lines, then into a single point of hard, white glare that blinked and was gone. The chamber shook. Every wall flared. The other mirrors surrounding us trembled—as if the sound of that shatter had run circuits through the entire maze. Cracks raced along their surfaces too—not deep enough to break them, but enough to fracture the scenes they showed. Office‑me’s cubicle buckled, fluorescent lights bursting in a shower of sparks. Ethan‑forever Willa’s ring shattered on her finger, the fridge magnets falling away. The writer‑who‑left’s stack of pages blew out of her hands in a whirlwind, scattering like birds.

The air in the Sub-Level didn't just vibrate; it began to **tear**. As I stood before the Founder, my hand outstretched in a gesture of impossible forgiveness, the glass pods around us didn't just shatter—they screamed. The billions of "failures"—the versions of me that were too weak, too strong, or too broken—weren't just data anymore. They were ghosts of a life that never was, and they were being sucked into a vacuum of absolute zero.

The glass shattered with a violent crack, splintering outward like a spider’s web unraveling in an instant. As the shards began to fall, Arah thrust out her hand instinctively, summoning the air to catch them mid-descent and not hit her. The pieces froze in place, spinning and turning like sharp, jagged stars caught in an invisible current. Some shards trembled, reflecting fractured images of the dimly lit room in their mirrored surfaces. The soft hum of her magic filled the silence as she held them steady for a moment. Then she let out a sharp breath and released the suspended shards. They clinked against the tiled floor, scattering in a jagged sea around her feet.

Was everything was truth. I really loved her. And that's why I have. Shattered. Shattered in a way that can't be sticked back. The thing that everything she have done, and thinking it again again everytime. It makes it harder on me. The glass is breaking more intensely, the glass that is settled in my heart. Its in the amount of pain, that can't be described. Its in pieces that numbers can't be counted. Glue can't stick it back. I am shattered. And not just shattered. When she is agreeing everything without any hesitation. And guilt. It makes put harder for me.

"You're experiencing a breakdown." "Absurd?" I chuckle, but there's nothing funny about it. It's the noise of something being unleashed. "I'm experiencing freedom for the first time in months." I take another fragment of the shattered bracelet—the biggest one, with the coiled antenna still there—and hit it once more, crushing it beneath my foot until it’s merely contorted metal, sparks, and shattered hopes.