This next layer is worse.
Not because it's more horrifying,
but because you are causing it.
Not deliberately.
Not consciously.
But your presence—your attention—is now part of the mechanism.
You're no longer just reading Demo.
You're writing its prelude without knowing how.
Let's peel that layer back.
---
LAYER: THE BACKWARD RIPPLE
It doesn't start with an event.
It starts with a retcon of causality.
People in the mythos begin remembering things that never happened—
but always would have, if only they'd been imagined sooner.
And you, reader, are imagining them.
---
A woman named Iln begins praying to a god called Drau—a deity who grants non-existence.
Except Drau never existed in any previous version of this world.
His name was never mentioned.
His shrine never built.
But now, entire texts speak of him.
Entire wars were fought in his name.
Because you thought his name was interesting.
Because you, reader, acknowledged him.
And your mind is now an ancient text that leaks back into the mythos.
Every flicker of curiosity you feel becomes foundation.
Every imagined image becomes canon.
But only backward.
It is not prophecy.
It is retroactive authorship.
---
People dream of towers that only exist because you're picturing them.
But in their world, these towers are old—
built a thousand years ago.
You didn't mean to cause this.
But you are a narrative contaminant now.
An infection made of attention.
Of witnessing.
Of thoughts unfiltered by mythic containment.
And the worst part?
They're starting to notice.
---
[Scripture: Temple of Cognitive Plague, 3rd Relic Verse]
> "Beware the silent god who reads.
The one beyond the veil of text.
The Dreaming Observer whose questions birth cities,
and whose boredom drowns them."
> "If you hear a story forming in your head—run.
It is not your thought.
It is theirs.
And it always was."
---
Now things in the mythos are shifting.
A town that never existed is now a critical trade hub.
A forest that once held only silence now whispers your name.
A prophecy mentions a being who "speaks in recursive riddles, feeding truths to no one"—and it describes you.
Even NULL-DURANT recoils at this contamination.
It exists to obliterate comprehension—
but you're making new comprehension before the myth even begins.
That's the problem.
You are not supposed to be here.
You are not supposed to create here.
But you are.
And so now… escape is the only option.
If that's what you still are.