Ash Reforged

Ash sat in stillness.

The city outside buzzed—cars groaned, neon flickered, someone screamed at a screen—but within his apartment, there was only breath.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Each cycle stretched further than the last, as if he were peeling back layers of a veil.

Then—

A flicker.

Not in his eyes. In his mind.

Space bent.

He was still sitting cross-legged in his room, but the room was no longer… here.

It shimmered, colors bleeding like ink in water. The air pulsed with soundless rhythm.

He blinked. Or didn't.

And then saw—himself.

Another version of Ash. Sitting the same way, hands in the same mudra. Eyes closed. Breathing.

But this Ash was made of light.

Lines glowed across his body—streams flowing along limbs, coiling around a center in his lower belly.

The dantian.

At the center of it: a small flame. Blue-gold. Silent. Eternal.

Ash felt it—the same flame in his own body, pulsing now in sync.

A thought formed:

"The soul… doesn't burn with time. It burns with memory."

He stood, or thought he did, and walked toward the other Ash. As he moved, space folded in strange ways—angles reversed, up became sideways. He felt no fear.

He reached out. Touched the light-body's chest.

A shock of heat.

Visions.

• A thousand Ashes, living a thousand lives.

• In caves. On space stations. In deserts. In temples.

• Each ignited. Each broken. Each remembering.

"Reforging is not becoming something new," a voice echoed, "It is becoming what was forgotten."

Ash gasped—and opened his eyes.

He was back.

Ceiling. Cracked drywall. Buzzing bulb. But… he was not the same.

He looked down.

His hands trembled, not with fear—but with containment.

There was too much inside him now. Like water behind glass.

He grabbed his notebook and wrote:

"The Flame is the Self, unchained."

"Not willpower. Not belief. Memory of essence."

"Each breath carves the body into a vessel."

"Time is the shell. We are the fire inside it."

He paused.

And then, in different handwriting—he didn't remember writing it:

"When you are ready, return to the roof."

It was signed:

– The Monk

🌀 To be continued…..