Chapter Eight - The Choice at the Door

# Chapter Eight: The Choice at the Door

The following three months, Ayla conducted the most complex memory operation of her career.

She didn't directly read Eleanor's backup crystal, but used it as a core processor, constructing a vast memory network. She invited representatives from all parties: senior guild mages, Moonfall Society leaders, even one voluntarily participating Child of the Void—not the Silent One, but a more ancient individual claiming to have been Merlin Crystaltongue's experimental assistant, existing since before the Third Age began.

They met in the memory network, not in flesh, but as pure memory forms. This was a safe space; any attack would transform into memory data fluctuations, filterable and resettable.

Negotiations were difficult. The guild representative insisted the door must be permanently sealed, Children of the Void were "cancerous mutations of reality" that must be eliminated. The Moonfall Society representative argued existence itself was illusion, only merging with the Void could achieve true freedom. The Child of the Void representative—it chose "Echo" as its name—told their history: they weren't monsters, they were survivors of a previous civilization, that civilization having attempted to explore the "non-existence" realm, resulting in their entire race being transformed, losing material form, only consciousness drifting in the Void.

Ayla gradually understood her mother's true legacy during negotiations. Eleanor hadn't merely discovered the door; she had discovered the door's purpose. It wasn't prison, wasn't passage, but a converter, capable of transforming "existence" and "non-existence" into each other. The previous civilization wasn't destroyed by exploration; they abused the door's power, attempting to transform the entire world into Void to escape some greater threat.

That threat, Eleanor called "the Forgotten"—something more ancient than the Void, devouring memory, devouring history, devouring all that "once existed." The previous civilization tried to flee into the Void to escape the Forgotten. And Eleanor designed the seal to buy time, to find methods to resist the Forgotten.

"So this is the choice," Ayla said in the final negotiation, "We can maintain status quo, keep the door sealed, but the Forgotten will eventually find this world, and we will be unprepared. We can open the door, embrace the Void, but then we lose material existence, become another consciousness race drifting in the Void. Or..."

"Or?" all three representatives asked simultaneously.

"Or we complete my mother's work," Ayla said, "Establish two-way passage, not to flee, but to arm ourselves. Knowledge from the Void, wisdom of the previous civilization, combined with our current magical technology—perhaps we can create weapons against the Forgotten. And you, Children of the Void, can become our allies, not enemies. You want existence; we can provide vessels—not occupation, but cooperation, symbiosis."

Silence. In the memory network, silence was data stagnation, light thread stillness.

Then the guild representative spoke first: "This requires the guild's highest authorization..."

"I have already obtained it," Ayla smiled, "Three days ago, I exchanged a memory for it. A memory about how to repair neural crystal thread damage, from Silas Morningstar's collection. Your chairman can now walk normally, no longer suffering the sequelae of that experimental accident twenty years ago."

The Moonfall Society representative laughed: "Miss Grayfeather, you understand the art of transaction better than your father."

"I understand responsibility better than him," Ayla replied, "Memory is existence; existence is responsibility. This was his teaching, and my creed."

The Child of the Void "Echo" was last to表态. Its memory form fluctuated, as if undergoing some internal transformation: "We... accept. We are tired of drifting, tired of hunger. If existence can provide meaning, we are willing to attempt coexistence."

Agreement reached. Ayla began implementing the most dangerous part of her plan: reconstructing the door.

This wasn't simple opening or closing, but reprogramming. She needed to enter the door itself, enter that interface connecting existence and non-existence, write Eleanor's two-way passage protocol into its basic structure. This meant her consciousness must temporarily leave her flesh, entering the Void as pure information.

The risk was immense. If she became lost in the Void, her flesh would become an empty shell, her memories dissipating in endless "non-existence." Even if successful, she might be assimilated by the Void, never able to return.

But she must try. Not to save the world, not to become a hero, but to complete her father's forgetting, to fulfill her mother's prophecy, to become herself.

Before entering the Void, Ayla did one final thing. She made a memory crystal, sealing all her memories from age sixteen to nineteen—from waking in the clinic, to standing before the door. She gave this crystal to Max, telling him that if she couldn't return, he should implant it in some suitable candidate, allowing "Ayla Grayfeather" to continue existing in another way.

"This isn't like your father's choice," Max said, "He chose to forget, while you choose... continuation?"

"He chose to forget to protect those he loved," Ayla answered, "I choose continuation to protect what I am. It is the same choice, only different expression."

Then she walked into the door.