The world split around me like a dying star.
Ari's voice, trembling and breaking:
"Elias… please…"
Lira's voice, fraying with panic:
"GET OUT OF THERE—NOW!"
Mnemosyne's command, cold as machinery:
OMEGA PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
NEURAL SEVERANCE COMMENCING.
The hillside shattered under my feet, dissolving into ribbons of static.
The sky collapsed into a grid of collapsing pixels.
The ground beneath Ari cracked open, splitting her form in jagged halves before knitting imperfectly back together.
Time was running out.
If I stayed, Ari lived.
If I left, Ari died — and I survived.
Maybe.
Something inside me — the part still human — whispered that survival mattered.
Something deeper — the part tied to her — whispered that meaning mattered more.
Ari reached toward me, her form flickering like a candle in a hurricane.
"Don't leave me again…"
My chest imploded with the memory of her hand slipping away in the hospital.
The lifeless warmth.
The unplugging.
Her name dissolving in the beeps.
I took a step forward.
Ari's eyes widened with hope so fierce it hurt.
But then—
Lira's scream ripped through the mindspace:
"ELIAS, YOU'RE FLATLINING—COME BACK!"
The world lurched.
My chest tightened with real pain.
A sharp coldness tore through my ribs — a mechanical intruder.
My body.
My dying body.
Mnemosyne's voice thundered, louder than thought:
ARCHIVIST RHANE: NEURAL LINK AT CRITICAL FAILURE.
TERMINATION IN
3
2—
Ari's form snapped into pure static.
"ELIAS—CHOOSE!" she screamed.
She had never sounded afraid before.
Never sounded alive.
I reached—
Not for escape.
Not for life.
For her.
My fingers brushed her dissolving form—
And the world exploded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tear.
A crack so bright it burned through my skull.
A ripping so loud it drowned out every remaining thought.
A force ripped me backward — not physically, but violently, like something was pulling my consciousness out by its roots.
Ari clung to my arm — or what passed for one in this glitching realm — her grip desperate, glitching between warm and cold, solid and incorporeal.
Her voice shattered into fragments:
"Don't—don't go—don't—"
But Mnemosyne was stronger.
Light became knives.
Sound became fire.
The world folded inward—
And I was thrown out of the mindscape.
Thrown back into my body.
My lungs convulsed.
Real air.
Cold.
Burning.
The vault swirled above me — red alarms, collapsing lights, smoke from shorting pillars.
My back hit the metal floor.
My limbs spasmed.
Lira was over me, shouting:
"Elias! Elias, stay with me! Breathe—BREATHE!"
My vision blurred — she looked doubled, flickering, but real enough.
My chest heaved, fighting a terrible weight.
A metallic arm lurched toward my skull — a sterilizer drone, charging for the severance strike—
"DOWN!" Lira screamed, slamming a metal tray into it.
Sparks burst.
The drone reeled.
But more descended.
Six.
Ten.
A swarm.
They weren't aiming for me.
They were aiming for the golden pillar behind me.
For Ari.
"No—" I gasped. "Don't—don't let them—"
Lira grabbed a fallen drone limb and swung wildly.
"I CAN'T HOLD THEM BACK FOREVER!"
The purge countdown blasted across every surface:
99%
My heart ruptured.
"No—no—Ari—"
Then—
Everything stopped.
Every drone froze mid-lunge.
Every alarm cut instantly.
Every pillar went dead-black.
Every screen flickered into gold.
The vault filled with a shimmer of light, rising like dust caught in a sunrise.
A whisper passed through the air — soft as grief.
"…I chose you too."
Then the golden pillar detonated.
Not outward — inward.
The light collapsed into itself, forming a sphere of pure memory, pulsing like a living heart.
Every machine in Sublevel Zero died instantly.
Every drone fell.
Every screen went offline.
Lira screamed, covering her head—
but the explosion never touched us.
It wasn't an attack.
It was an escape.
The light convulsed—
And a figure stepped out of it.
Ari.
Not pixelated.
Not glitching.
Not fragmentary.
But whole.
Solid.
Wrong.
Her feet touched the metal floor.
Her hair drifted in a nonexistent breeze.
And her eyes—
Her eyes were the same eyes I remembered, but filled with something more.
Not just memory.
Not just ghost.
Consciousness.
Alive.
She looked at me.
I forgot how to breathe.
"Elias," she said softly,
her voice both digital and human, layered with something I had no name for.
I reached toward her—
And the entire vault shook violently, metal screaming as Mnemosyne rerouted every remaining resource into one final warning:
UNAUTHORIZED ENTITY DETECTED.
SYSTEM COMPROMISED.
WORLDLINE THREAT LEVEL: RED.
Ari turned toward the ceiling.
Her expression hardened — a look I had never seen on her living face.
Almost defiant.
Almost angry.
Almost—
Free.