Ilyas smiled, closed his eyes, and whispered the words. The glass shattered outward in a silent explosion of light, and when he opened his eyes, the attic was just an attic again, smelling of dust and old paper. The book on the table was blank, its task finally complete.

Ilyas found it in a flooded basement in St. Petersburg, where the water smelled of rust and old paper. He had been told that this was no ordinary book of quotes. It was a catalyst. In a world where original thought had become a rare commodity, "Frazy" was rumored to contain the last collection of raw, unfiltered human expressions before the Great Silence.

"The wind remembers what the stone forgets," Ilyas read aloud, his voice a rasp in the quiet room.

Instantly, the walls of his attic began to shimmer, turning into transparent, brittle glass. Through them, he could see the gray, towering blocks of the city, but also the terrifying, beautiful vastness of the sky above. He was trapped, yet exposed, living inside the metaphor of a stranger who had died centuries ago.

Driven by a desperate curiosity, he turned the page and read another. "We are all architects of our own glass cages."

As the words left his lips, the air in the room shifted. A sudden, sharp breeze swept through the closed window, carrying the scent of wild thyme and distant rain. Ilyas gasped, dropping the book.

The leather book was heavy, its spine cracked like dried mud, and on its cover, the word was embossed in fading gold leaf.