All Chapters of System Within: Rise Of Frank Williams: Chapter 41
- Chapter 50
97 chapters
Chapter 41 – The Pulse and the Crown
The palace had never been this quiet. Not even during the coronation storms. Silk banners hung heavy with ash; the gold floor mirrored only torchlight. Around the throne, advisers whispered over maps that no longer matched the land outside the gates. “Half the eastern district’s moving.”“Moving?”“Not the people. The buildings.”“You mean collapsing.”“No. I mean moving.”A tremor crossed the chamber. Chandeliers swayed like pendulums counting down. “It’s the boy,” someone said.“The light-bearer.”“He’s remade the city in his image.”“Then he declared himself god.”The king rose. His armor caught the torchlight,red on gold. “Send the scholars. I want truth, not superstition.”“Your Majesty, the scholars are gone.”“Gone where?”“The streets swallowed their tower.”He stared at the map. The ink rippled as though water moved beneath parchment. “What’s left of our army?”“Three thousand who still breathe.”“Then we march.”“Against what, sire?”“Whatever dares to breathe louder than
Chapter 42 : The Stillness Before the Fall
The bridge of light reached the palace like a frozen river. Nothing moved. Not the wind. Not the guards. Even the clouds waited.Their footsteps were the only sound,soft, deliberate, each one echoing too loudly in the hollow air. “They’re afraid to breathe.”“They should be.”“So should we.”The doors of the palace shimmered, molten gold shifting across their surfaces. Symbols crawled upward,half language, half heartbeat. Beyond them waited judgment.“If we open it, there’s no turning back.”“There never was.”“You still have a choice.”“Do I?”Light dripped from his fingers, running down his wrist like liquid fire. The pulse under his skin beat slow and heavy, matching the rhythm that hummed through the palace walls.“Everything’s listening.”“Then speak carefully.”“I can feel the crown’s heartbeat.”“So can I.”They stopped before the gate. The stillness deepened until even thought felt loud. “What happens when we meet him?”“He’ll try to control you.”“He already does.”“Then you
Chapter 43 – The Heart of the Tear
Silence had weight. The hall hung mid-explosion,shards of mirror suspended in air, a thousand reflections of light frozen like captured breath. Elara’s fingers were still wrapped around his; the warmth didn’t fade, it just stopped moving.“Are we dead?”“Not yet.”“Then where?”“Between.”Light shimmered, slow as honey. Each droplet of dust caught a full memory,the orphan boy, the glowing bottle, the city twisting alive. They drifted around them like planets in miniature. “It’s showing us everything.”“No. It’s remembering us.”“So this is the tear?”“This is what’s left when time exhales.”They moved carefully through the suspended debris. Every step sent ripples through the stillness, but nothing truly changed. Sound was a distant thing, trying to crawl back from the edge of creation. “Look at them.”“Who?”“The soldiers.”Frozen in mid-attack, faces warped between fury and awe. Behind them, the king’s blade hovered inches above his crown. Even fire hung motionless, each flame a
Chapter 44 – The Night Rewritten
The air was exactly as he remembered,wet concrete, rot, the faraway hum of city lights bleeding into the dark. The same wind through shattered windows, the same biscuit in his trembling hand. “This is it.”“The beginning.”“It feels smaller.”“Because you’ve outgrown it.”He turned slowly. The old building stood just as it had, half-collapsed and forgotten. Every echo of that night pressed against his skull like an old scar reopening.“We’re really here.”“Time shouldn’t allow this.”“Time lost the right to tell us what’s possible.”“Then we can change it.”“Can we?”“We have to.”He stepped forward. The floorboards complained,same sound, same rhythm. A rat darted past, exactly where it always had. But the shadows… the shadows watched this time. “Don’t touch anything yet.”“You think it’s a trap?” “No. I think it’s a test.”She moved beside him, eyes bright with ghostlight, bare feet silent against the dust. The world around them shimmered faintly, like a painting painted too many
Chapter 45: The Ash Between
Smoke fell like snow.The night was silent except for the whisper of things dying slowly. The old building was gone,nothing left but fragments of wall and the smell of burned air.Elara woke face-down in the dirt, every breath tasting like metal. Her ears rang with a low hum, not from sound but from memory still vibrating. “Frank?”“Frank!”Only the wind answered,lazy, heavy, wrong. She pushed herself up, the world tilting sideways. Pieces of glass floated mid-air for a heartbeat before collapsing into dust. “No… no, no, no.”“He was here.”“He was right here.”Her voice cracked. The pulse that had once linked them still thudded faintly in her chest, weaker, unsteady. Then,movement. A shadow through the smoke.She froze. The figure stumbled forward, body framed by dying light. Same build. Same broken stride. “Frank?”The shape looked up. The face was half-hidden in dust and ash, but the eyes,bright, liquid silver,met hers with eerie calm. “You came back.” “I thought you were gone.”
Chapter 46: The Fall That Remembers
There was no gravity,only velocity that tore thought from bone. The light wasn’t light anymore. It was sound, pain, memory, and metal all screaming the same note. “Elara!”“I’m here!”“I can’t see you!”“Then feel me!”Her voice came from everywhere. His skin peeled into brightness; blood turned to sparks. He reached out, fingers slicing through glass-thin air. “Keep talking!” “Don’t stop falling!”“I’m not,falling,I’m melting!”“Then melt toward me!”The space around them convulsed,city, field, childhood, palace,flashing one over another like a fevered slideshow. Each image lasted a heartbeat before burning to ash. “What is this?”“A corridor between what we were.”“It hurts!”“It’s supposed to!”A shockwave threw them apart. His ribs folded inward with the sound of thunder trapped in glass. He screamed without breath, and the scream came out as light. “Frank,stop fighting it!”“I don’t know how!”“Then let it finish!”“Finish what?”“Choosing who survives!”He hit something solid
Chapter 47: The Man Who Shouldn’t Be
The world was broken glass and silence. Ash fell like snow, and the air tasted of iron and burnt memory.Frank stood amid the ruins, half of him still glowing, veins pulsing with faint light that moved like something alive. The other half,charred, brittle,flaked when he breathed.And then the echo spoke.“You shouldn’t have tried to save her.”He turned.There,standing where the world had split,was himself. Unscarred. Calm. Dressed in the same torn coat, but without the soot, without the trembling. His eyes,clear, intelligent, terrifyingly stable.“Who the hell are you?”“You. The version that finished what you couldn’t.”“You’re not real.”“Neither are you. Not anymore.”Frank took a step forward. The ground hissed under his boots, small cracks radiating outward as if rejecting him.“Where’s Elara?” “Gone.”“You’re lying.”“No. You killed her.”The air folded between them. Frank clenched his fists, light bleeding through his knuckles.“You think I’ll believe that?”“It doesn’t matter wh
Chapter 48: The Echo Garden
Silence. Then the sound of water breathing. Elara opened her eyes.She was lying on what looked like glass,but softer, like the surface of a pond that refused to ripple. The air shimmered faintly, and the horizon curved inward, folding the world into itself. Above her, clouds of white mist twisted lazily, whispering. Her own voice drifted in and out of them,memories out of sequence. “Don’t let go…”“He’s changing…”“I’m not ready to die.”She sat up, breath catching. Her fingers left trails of light wherever they touched. The pond beneath her reflected not her face, but a dozen others,versions of herself at different ages, all watching in silence. “Where am I?”None of them answered.She stood, bare feet pressing ripples that didn’t move. The air was heavy with perfume,something between metal and lilies. All around, the ruins of familiar places floated like islands: a fragment of the palace, a streetlight from the city, the tower where she’d last seen Frank. “Frank…”Her voice barel
Chapter 49: The Shape That Spoke Her Name
The air hadn’t finished falling. Ash, petals, and bits of light hung mid-motion, trembling as if afraid to touch the ground. The figure stepped through them.Slow, deliberate. Every movement left a small distortion, like glass bending around heat. “Don’t come closer,” Elara said.Her own voice felt smaller than it should have, swallowed by the stillness. “You called me.”The voice came rough, layered,two tones braided together. One tender. One sharp. “I didn’t.”“You always do.”He took another step. The smoke parted around him, showing hints of familiar shape: torn coat, hands streaked with firelight, one eye burning pale. “Frank?”“Which one are you asking for?” Her heartbeat stuttered.“Answer me.”“I’m the one who survived.”“Both of you said that before.”“Then ask something only he would know.”She hesitated. The garden reacted,grass whitening, mirrors rippling. The child was gone; only the reflection of herself remained, scattered in the shards around them.“What did I say,” s
Chapter 50 – “The War Inside the Silence
The silence came first. Not peace, absence. No heartbeat, no wind, no breath. Then two pulses began. One quick and sharp. One heavy, slow, and deep.Elara opened her eyes to a sky that had no color. It rippled, alive with veins of light and smoke. Beneath her, the ground shifted between grass, ash, and glass, her own memories rearranging themselves.“Where am I?”Her voice echoed back in three tones, hers, and two more. “Inside,” one of them said.“Between,” said the other.They appeared opposite each other across a field that wasn’t a field at all, more like a heartbeat made solid.The first Frank burned with white fire, his edges blurring like sunlight through water. The second bled shadow, face half-hidden, eyes glinting with the color of dying coals. “You shouldn’t be here,” the light said.“She brought us,” the dark answered.“Stop it,” Elara said. “I didn’t bring”But the sky above her cracked, replaying flashes of their fight, fire meeting darkness, explosions frozen mid-air,