The room hadn't stopped shaking since the last night, it all felt inside the Nero's head. He tried to sleep but couldn't. Every breath he took felt like the Archive hum creeping through the vent to his mind.
He sat on the floor, hands shaking around a glass of water. His console still glowed faintly on the desk—dim blue light glowing.
The word Unlived keeps coming back in his mind, impossible to forget. So did the boy's face and the voice.
He placed the glass down and stood, gathering his wit. The mirror beside the bed reflected a man who already looked haunted.
"You're fine," he spoke to himself.
"It's gone."
The mirror disagreed. As he blinked, for a split second someone stood behind him—smaller, still, eyes hollow. When he turned, the room was vacant.
He almost laughed. "Great, Hallucinations now."
The console beeped once.
He frowned, walked over, and touched the surface. The screen lit, lines of code racing upward. Then a message appeared:
HELIA KRUSATE // ACCESS REQUEST PENDING
Feeling relieved he accepted the request. Helia's face flickered into view, static dancing across the feed.
"Nero, what the hell are you doing?" Her voice carried through the distortion. "You shut your comms off for six hours."
"I needed time to think."
"Think less," she snapped. "Sector 09 readings just spiked again—same signature as last night."
"That's not possible." Nero said.
"You're broadcasting without a console. The whole building is picking up your pulse. Do you have any idea what that means?"
He didn't answer. The hum in the walls grew louder.
Helia leaned closer to the camera. "Listen to me. Whatever Veyra is, you're resonating with it. If you keep triggering it—"
The feed cracked, voice cutting in and out.
"—can you hear me—leave the—Nero—"
Then the screen went black.
"Helia?" he shouted. Nothing. Only the mechanical heartbeat of the room.
The light above him flickered red.
The floor trembled.
Every device in the dorm switched on at once: vents, console, lights, even the comm on his wrist. They all hummed in perfect sync, one impossible frequency.
YOU KEEP CALLING THE WORD.
The text crawled across his console, letters switching into the next.
STOP USING IT.
He swallowed hard. "What are you?" he whispered.
THE ONE YOU ERASED.
The air got densed until breathing hurt. He stumbled back, clutching his chest. The pressure inside his skull built until the whisper came again—soft, everywhere at once.
Veyra.
He hadn't said it. The world did it for him.
The light fractured. Dust froze mid-air. Sound vanished.
And the boy stepped out of the mirror.
He looked the same as before. "You shouldn't keep saying it," the boy said. His voice echoed without sound. "Every time you do, the walls remember."
Nero's throat constricted. "What are you?"
"I'm what you deleted to exist." The boy tilted his head. "But deletion isn't death. It's waiting."
Cold spread outward from the mirror. Frost crawled across the metal floor in spiderwebs. The hum deepened until it vibrated inside Nero's skin and bones.
He backed away. "Stay away from me."
The boy smiled. "I can't. We share gravity."
The mirror cracked.
"VEYRA!" Nero shouted without thinking.
Time stopped. The frost hung still, shards suspended mid-air. The boy froze mid-smile. Nero staggered, fighting as the world bent around him.
He forced his eyes open. The fragments of glass glittered like stars. Then, just as suddenly, motion returned. The pieces hit the floor with a sharp cascade.
The boy was gone.
The hum sound softened to normal. The temperature came back to normal. Only the shattered mirror proved it had happened.
He leaned against the desk, gasping. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Every time I use it, something breaks.
The console pinged again—new message appeared.
SHE'S COMING.
The door hissed open.
Helia stood there, hair damp from sweat, a data pad in one hand, eyes wide open with panic. "Thank god," she breathed. "You're alive."
"I'm starting to doubt it," he said weakly.
She crossed the room, scanning the damage. "Energy spike went off the charts. Half the Archive rebooted." Her eyes fell on the frost lining the floor. "And this?"
"I didn't—" Nero stopped. "He did."
"Who?"
He nodded toward the broken mirror. "Me. The other me."
Helia exhaled sharply, with disbelief. "You saw him physically?"
"Yes."
She bit her lip, activated her scanner, and swept the room. The data pad beeped. "Same frequency as Sector 09," she murmured. "It's bleeding through dimensions."
He stared at her. "English, please."
"It means he's not just data anymore," she said. "He's becoming real. And every time you use Veyra, you make the bridge wider."
Nero swallowed hard. "Then what do I do?"
"Stop using it," she said. "Or there won't be enough reality left to separate you and that anomaly."
He almost laughed, but the sound came out broken. "That's not exactly an option when it reacts on its own."
Helia turned toward the console. "Then we need to contain it before it reacts again."
The lights flickered. Both of them froze.
Across the room, the remaining shards of mirror trembled—metallic chime, faint at first, then louder. The cracks in the largest piece rearranged themselves, forming jagged words.
NOT DONE.
Helia's datapad beeped with a high-pitched alarm. She grabbed Nero's wrist. "We're leaving."
They ran into the corridor. Behind them the door sealed, muffling the sound of the hum building again.
Helia didn't stop until they reached the elevator shaft. She slammed her hand against the override panel. "Security will be here in two minutes. You need to stay away from any reflective surface—anything that can hold a signal echo."
Nero stared at her. "You knew this could happen."
She met his gaze, hiding behind her calm exterior. "I suspected."
"You suspected?"
"I told you there's something in the Archive that remembers us," she said.
"And now it remembers you clearly."
The elevator doors opened. They stepped inside, the lights shined as it descended. For a long moment neither of them spoke.
Finally Nero whispered, "What happens when the walls remember too much?"
Helia's reflection in the steel door looked back at him a half-second late.
Then she said, "They start rewriting."
The elevator shuddered, and the hum of the Archive rose again—steady, alive, waiting.