The world slammed back into place.
Nero dropped onto cold metal flooring, the impact knocking the breath out of him. Helia tumbled beside him, her grip still locked around his wrist like she was afraid he would vanish again if she let go.
The tear in the air snapped shut behind them with a sharp crack, leaving the metallic corridor humming under lights.
Helia panted, still half crouched, her hair sticking to her forehead. "Tell me… you're… okay."
Nero coughed, coughing dust from Sector Zero out of his lungs. "Define… okay."
Helia looked around the narrow service hall they'd landed in—walls covered with pipes, maintenance circuitry exposed, every few seconds a surge of light running through the overhead panels.
"This isn't the level we entered through," she said softly.
"No," Nero breathed. "This feels worse."
Helia stood shakily. "Sector Zero rearranges itself. No two entrances lead back to the same place."
Nero forced himself upright. His arm throbbed—he looked down and saw the suppressor was cracked, its glow fading in and out like a dying pulse.
Helia noticed instantly. "Is it malfunctioning?"
"It overloaded," Nero said. "It stopped me from using Veyra when I needed it."
Helia closed the distance between them, taking Nero's forearm gently. "Nero… if this thing breaks while we're still in here, every C-Unit and sensor node in the Archive will find us."
Nero shook his head. "If it didn't break, I'd be dead by now."
She flinched. Quietly, she said, "Then I'm glad it cracked."
Something electric flickered through Nero's chest—not resonance, but something that felt dangerously close to emotion.
But before he could say anything, a mechanical groan echoed through the pipes overhead.
Helia stiffened. "That's doesn't look good."
Nero felt it too—like vibrations from a large body moving through the walls.
"Something's following us," he whispered.
"No," Helia said slowly."Something is tracking you."
They moved quickly.
The service corridor branched into a wider maintenance platform. Holographic labels flickered overhead:
SECTOR 0.3 STORAGE HUB DWELLING ARCHIVES
Helia stopped at the last line, her face paling. "…the Dwelling Archives?"
Nero frowned. "What's that?"
Helia hesitated. "It's where the Archive stores… people."
Nero froze. "What people?"
She didn't answer straight away.
Instead she walked toward a darkened door with peeling hazard paint. "Nero, there are two kinds of Unlived. Some incomplete. Some formed… too well."
Nero swallowed hard. "You're saying—"
"Yes." Helia placed her hand on the panel. "The Archive doesn't just store data."
The door hissed open.
Cold air drifted out, carrying the unmistakable scent of sterile metal.
Rows of stasis pods lined the chamber inside—large, glass cylinders filled with faint teal mist. Most were empty. Some had cracks in them. A few were busted completely.
But a handful still glowed gently.
Still active.
Nero approached one—hesitating when he saw a silhouette inside. A human shape. Pressed against the glass. Breathing.
Very slowly.
"Who… are they?" Nero whispered.
Helia stepped beside him. "Possibilities."
"That's not an answer."
She exhaled, defeated. "They are remnants of alternate realities. Versions of people that the Archive wasn't ready to delete."
Nero felt sick. "Like… backups of human lives?"
"Yes." Her voice softened. "Even backups of you."
Nero's heart dropped.
"Of me?"
Helia motioned to the end of the row.
There was a pod with his face inside.
Younger. Eyes closed. Skin pale and perfect.
As if he had never been alive long enough to gain scars.
Nero stumbled backward. "No… no, no—please tell me that's not—"
"It's an early projection," Helia said quietly. "One of the versions they simulated before you were born."
Nero pressed his hand to his head. His breath came in sharp bursts. "Why is this here? Why keep something like that? Why keep any of this?"
Helia's voice trembled. "Because the Archive can't tell the difference between potential and reality. So it refuses to let potential die."
Nero looked at her sharply. "Then what am I?"
Helia met his eyes—sad, tired, hurting."You're the first potential that didn't stay potential."
Nero felt the floor sway beneath him.Sector Zero… the Unlived boy… the echoes… this…
All of it pointed to one truth:
He wasn't living his own life.He was living a saved file.
Something growled faintly from the corridor behind them.
Helia's head snapped toward the sound. "We need to move. Now."
Nero tore himself away from the stasis pod. "What is that?"
"Dwellers," Helia whispered.
"Dwellers?"
She pulled him toward the exit. "Unlived that refused to stay asleep."
Nero's blood ran cold.
A faint scraping echoed across the floor.
Nero and Helia reached the door—but it slammed shut on its own, locks sealing with a loud clank.
Helia cursed. "Sector Zero is responding to your pulse—everything here wants to contain you."
Nero placed his palm against the door. "Veyra—"
"No!" Helia grabbed his arm. "Not here, this is confined space—you could bring the whole structure down."
A whisper rose from the darkness.
Soft.Gentle.Hungry.
"…continuation…"
Nero stiffened. "Him."
Helia's hand trembled around his wrist. "He's here?"
"No." Nero swallowed. "Something else."
A figure crawled out from behind the broken pods.
Its body was twisted, limbs bending at impossible angles. Its face was a blur. But the faint glow across its chest—just like Nero's—told him everything.
Another failed version.
One that didn't dissolve.One that adapted.
Helia's grip tightened. "Don't move."
The creature's head snapped toward them.
Its breathing hitched in sharp, broken intervals.
Nero whispered, "Helia… it's in pain."
"Pain doesn't stop it," she whispered back. "Pain makes it hungry."
The creature lunged.
Nero shoved Helia aside as it crashed into him, knocking him against a pod. The suppressor on his arm sparked again, whining in protest.
The creature screeched—its voice overlapping with multiple tones, like three beings trapped inside one body.
Nero pushed against its chest, adrenaline spiking."Get off—!"
The creature's hand reached toward his chestplate and the Veyra core ignited on its own.
A blast of teal light erupted between them.
The creature flew back, slamming into a wall and dissolving into fragments of light.
Helia ran to Nero, grabbing him. "Are you hurt?"
Nero shook his head, shaking violently. "I-I didn't activate it. I swear."
"I know," Helia whispered, pulling him close. "Sector Zero is forcing it."
The ground rumbled. Several more pods cracked. More silhouettes moved.
Helia pulled Nero toward the maintenance shaft. "We're getting out. Now."
Nero didn't argue.
As they ran, he dared one last look back.
The stasis pod with his younger face inside—
—blinked.
Eyes opening slowly.
Watching him leave.