I have cast spells that shook the heavens, whispered incantations that bent reality, and forged magic so powerful that even the gods took notice.

But there was one spell I should have never spoken.

A spell meant to pierce time itself, to unravel the past, to reshape fate.

A spell that, through one single miscalculation, almost erased me entirely.

And the most terrifying part?

If I had vanished, no one would have ever remembered I existed.

Not Arthur.
Not the fae.
Not the world itself.

Not even me.

The Magic That Should Never Be Used

I have spent centuries perfecting magic.

But perfection, traveler, is a dangerous thing to chase.

Because sometimes, in the pursuit of greatness…

You step too far.

And when I stepped beyond the boundaries of time itself, I did not just break the laws of magic—

I nearly erased my own existence.

The Ritual That Should Have Been Impossible

It began with a theory.

What if a spell could not only see the past… but change it?

What if magic could unravel fate, not by peering into what has been, but by rewriting it entirely?

Most would call it foolishness.

The gods would call it blasphemy.

I called it an experiment.

And so, with great care and reckless ambition, I began my work.

I prepared the circle of time, carved from obsidian and celestial dust, etched with symbols that pulsed with the very rhythm of existence.

At its center, I placed a single drop of my own blood—the key to binding myself to the past, the anchor that would allow me to walk through my own history.

And then…

I spoke the words.

The First Signs of Something Going Wrong

Time is not meant to be touched.

It is not meant to be bent, twisted, or rewritten.

The moment I uttered the incantation, the world shivered.

The flames in my chamber froze mid-motion, their light suspended in time.

The air grew thin, as if existence itself was holding its breath.

Then, I heard something that should not have been possible.

A whisper.

My own voice.

But not from my mouth.

From the past.

And it was saying something I had no memory of ever speaking.

“Who are you?”

The Paradox That Should Not Exist

I turned—and saw myself.

A younger version, standing at the edge of the spell circle, eyes wide, staring at me with the same disbelief I felt.

But this was not an echo.

Not a vision.

It was real.

Because I had not simply looked into the past—

I had entered it.

And in doing so…

I had displaced myself.

One of us did not belong.

And time was already trying to correct the mistake.

The Collapse of Reality

The chamber warped, its walls stretching, twisting—

Then shattering into a thousand different versions of the same moment.

I saw glimpses of myself—

A child, learning his first spell.
A man, older than I am now, staring into the abyss.
A version of me that had never touched magic at all.

They flickered, overlapping, colliding like reflections in broken glass.

Because the timeline had split.

And only one Merlin could remain.

The Unraveling of Memory

I felt it first in my hands—a tingling, then a numbness.

Looking down, I saw my fingers fading, strands of time unraveling from my skin like threads pulled from fabric.

I was being erased.

Not dying.

Not vanishing.

But ceasing to have ever existed.

The past was rejecting me, undoing the very memories that made me who I was.

If I did not stop this…

I would forget myself.

And if that happened—

No one would remember to bring me back.

The Fight Against Time Itself

I reached for my staff—but it was no longer there.

Because in a world where I had never existed, my possessions had never existed either.

The magic I had once mastered was slipping from my mind, as if my own past was being rewritten to exclude me.

“Think, think, THINK!” I growled through gritted teeth, my body losing shape, my voice falling away into echoes.

I had only seconds left.

Seconds before Merlin the Sorcerer was no longer part of history.

And then, in the chaos of my unraveling mind—

I realized something.

A spell that unmade time could also make it.

If I could reverse the spell, force time to recognize me again—

I could reclaim my existence.

But I had to act NOW.

The Spell to Rewrite Myself Back into Existence

Summoning the last remnants of my fractured will, I drew a symbol into the void itself—

A symbol that had no name.

A symbol that had never been spoken.

A spell that did not exist… until I created it.

I did not restore the past.

I did not undo my mistake.

Instead…

I wrote myself back into reality.

The moment the symbol was complete, the world snapped back into place.

The chamber was whole.

The air was still.

And I was there again.

I existed.

But the scar of what had happened remained.

Because I had learned something that day, traveler.

A truth I will never forget.

The Aftermath of a Fractured Timeline

I had done the impossible.

I had rewritten myself back into existence.

But reality does not forget.

Time does not forgive.

I stood in my chamber, my body whole again, my hands gripping the edges of the ritual table, my breath ragged.

For a moment, I thought I had succeeded.

That I had restored everything.

But then…

I noticed something wrong.

The Ghosts of Forgotten Timelines

It started as a faint whisper at the edge of my mind.

A voice I almost recognized.

Then another.

And another.

Until I was surrounded by echoes—not of people, but of possibilities.

Versions of myself that had never been.

I turned toward the mirror across the room…

And what I saw was not me.

It was them.

A dozen different reflections staring back—each one a different Merlin.

One with silver eyes, his face lined with centuries of battle scars.
One with no magic, a man who had never walked the path of sorcery.
One who was a shadow, barely human at all.

And all of them were watching me.

The Fractured Reality I Had Created

My spell had worked—but at a terrible cost.

I had restored myself…

But in doing so, I had left behind fragments.

Pieces of unwritten possibilities, versions of myself that should never have existed.

And now, they were real.

Not entirely. Not fully.

But enough to linger at the edges of reality.

Enough to see me, speak to me, whisper in my mind when I was most vulnerable.

And worst of all?

They knew something I did not.

Something about what I had really done.

The Merlin That Should Not Exist

One of them stepped forward.

A version of me that was older, his robes ripped, his face twisted in silent fury.

“You think you fixed it?” he asked.

His voice was my own.

But it was wrong.

I swallowed hard. “I repaired my place in time.”

The reflection laughed—a hollow, bitter sound.

“Did you? Did you truly restore yourself?”

“Or did you simply take the place of a different Merlin who was supposed to be here?”

The air grew cold.

Because the moment he spoke the words, I knew.

He was right.

The timeline had corrected itself.

But how?

Had I truly brought myself back?

Or had I simply… replaced another version of me?

A version that was now gone.

And if that was true…

Where was he now?

The Unraveling of Memory

I tried to recall everything about my life, every moment, every choice that had led me here.

And that’s when I saw it—gaps.

Small at first.

But growing.

Like holes in a painting, pieces of my past that felt out of place, as if they had belonged to someone else.

Had I always worn this ring?
Had I always known this spell?
Had I truly been here, in this room, last night?

I remembered it.

But the problem was…

I also remembered not being here.

Two sets of memories.

Two conflicting lives.

Two Merlins.

But only one could exist.

And I was starting to wonder if I was the right one.

The War for Identity

The shadows of my forgotten selves began to stir.

“You are an impostor,” one whispered.

“You are not the real Merlin.”

“You are a rewritten mistake.”

“You should not exist.”

I clutched my staff, my mind reeling.

I had cast a spell to reclaim my place in time.

But instead, I had split reality.

I was both real and unreal.

And the past versions of myself…

Wanted their place back.

The Battle Against Myself

The first attack came from the Merlin with silver eyes.

He raised his hand—a blast of blue flame roaring toward me.

I barely deflected it, the spell ricocheting against the walls, burning the very air.

“You stole my existence,” he growled.

“Now I will take it back.”

The others closed in.

Some wielded magic I had never seen before.
Some moved like ghosts, untethered from the world.
Some spoke in languages that did not belong to any timeline I had ever known.

But they all had one goal.

To erase me.

The Spell to Banish Myself

I could not win this fight.

Because I was not fighting enemies.

I was fighting versions of myself.

And no matter who won…

One Merlin had to be erased.

So I made a choice.

A gamble.

A spell that should have been impossible.

Instead of fighting to survive…

I cast a spell to choose the true Merlin.

To anchor one version of myself to reality…

And to let the rest fade.

I raised my staff and spoke the final incantation.

A word of absolute authority.

A word that would decide which Merlin would exist… and which would be forgotten.

The world shook.

The fractured timelines collapsed inward.

The shadows of my other selves let out one final scream—

And then, they were gone.

The Price of Existence

I opened my eyes.

I was alone.

The mirror was empty.

The echoes were gone.

I had won.

But at what cost?

Because now…

I could not remember what was different.

I knew something had changed.

A part of me had been replaced.

But I did not know what.

And that, traveler…

Is the most terrifying part of all.

Merlin’s Final Words

There are spells that should never be spoken.

Magic that should never be used.

And I learned that day that the greatest danger is not in failing…

But in succeeding.

Because now, I live with a question I can never answer.

Am I truly Merlin?

Or am I just the version of him that survived?