We reached the city's perimeter just as the sun began to melt behind the rust-colored hills.
The world beyond was quiet.
Not peaceful—never peaceful—but empty, like the silence after a funeral.
Lira grabbed a metal fence post to steady herself.
"This is it," she breathed. "The grid ends here. Once we cross that line…"
She swallowed.
"Portions of your Echo-link will stop functioning."
Portions of ME, she meant.
I took one step closer, and the air itself vibrated.
The ground hummed beneath my feet, faint but rhythmic, like a heartbeat trying to sync with mine.
I wiped at my cheek.
My fingers came away streaked gold.
Still bleeding.
Still breaking.
Still becoming something I didn't understand.
Lira exhaled shakily.
"You're deteriorating faster than I thought. The Net sped it up."
"But why?" I whispered.
She didn't answer.
Not immediately.
She stared at the horizon—
the barren fields,
the jagged silhouette of the city behind us,
the sky glitching with square patches of false color.
Then she said softly:
"Because you were engineered to adapt to any system collapse."
I went cold.
"What does that mean?"
Her jaw clenched.
"It means… you're not just bleeding memories, Elias. Your mind is trying to stabilize everything around you.
People.
Echoes.
Physical space."
She met my eyes.
"You're becoming an anchor."
A chill rippled through me.
"…For what?"
"For reality."
Before I could respond, the sky pulsed.
A deep, booming announcement rolled across the fields:
"WARNING: UNCONTAINED MEMORY ANOMALY DETECTED.
TARGET: ELIAS RHANE.
LEVEL: HAZARD CLASS — COGNITIVE."
My heart dropped.
Hazard class.
Cognitive.
Lira's face drained of color.
"They didn't classify you as rogue," she whispered. "That means—"
"That I'm dangerous."
"More than dangerous," she said.
"Contagious."
Wind whipped through the broken fence, carrying dust and faint bits of static—
echoes dissolving in the open air.
Something shifted behind us.
A shadow.
Long.
Shivering.
Unnatural.
It stepped out from the dying light of the city.
The same elongated silhouette that had followed me for days now—
the one wearing my mother's voice.
The one that whispered memories that weren't mine.
The one that felt like a piece of me that had grown teeth.
Lira raised her disruptor.
But the shadow didn't approach.
It simply watched.
Waiting.
Then—
From the opposite direction, where the grid ended—
the air fluttered.
A small shape flickered into existence.
Marin.
My sister—
or what she was becoming.
Barefoot, trembling, her form glitching at the edges as if every breath fought against dissolution.
"Eli…" she whispered.
She tried to take a step—
but the moment her foot crossed the boundary, her body shuddered violently.
A tear ran down her cheek—
silver, sparking like data.
Her voice broke.
"I… I told you… I can't survive outside…"
I reached toward her.
"Marin—"
But Lira grabbed my wrist.
"Elias! If you cross back into the grid, Mnemosyne will trap you. They'll collapse the entire district on you if they have to."
The shadow leaned forward, as if sensing an opportunity.
Marin's small voice cracked.
"I said I'd follow…"
She coughed—her body flickering like a person caught between two channels.
8
"…but I'm not strong enough yet."
A deep rumbling rolled across the ground.
Lira's handheld device lit up, vibrating violently.
She glanced at the screen—
—and her blood froze.
"Elias," she whispered.
"They're rewriting the city map."
"What?"
"The grid is shifting," she said, voice trembling. "Mnemosyne is moving the entire border inward. They're compressing the city to trap you."
I stared at her.
"…They can do that?"
"They shouldn't," she said. "It'll destabilize the whole damn region."
Another rumble shook the ground.
Behind Marin, buildings in the distance collapsed—
not physically—
but like vanishing files, erasing themselves piece by piece.
Marin screamed, covering her ears.
"Stop—STOP—STOP!"
I stepped forward—
But the moment my foot touched the line,
pain exploded through me.
My breath ripped from my lungs.
My knees buckled.
Lira lunged to catch me.
"Elias—DON'T CROSS!" she yelled.
But I wasn't stopping.
Couldn't.
Marin was collapsing, her form dissolving into pixelated dust.
"Eli—don't—" she begged.
"Don't disappear again—"
My heart tore.
I reached for her—
And the moment my hand crossed the boundary—
the entire world screamed.
Marin screamed.
Lira screamed.
The shadow screamed.
The air screamed.
A blast of golden memory light shot from my chest—
exploding outward like a solar flare.
Dust spiraled.
Grass bent away.
The fence disintegrated.
The Border Line snapped like shattered glass.
Marin was thrown backward.
The shadow staggered.
Lira clung to me, her hair blown back by the shockwave.
And for one impossible second—
the world went silent.
Utterly silent.
My vision dimmed.
Lira's voice reached me, shaking:
"Elias—your body—look at your body—"
I looked down.
The veins in my arms glowed gold.
Lines of light pulsed beneath my skin.
My fingertips left golden traces in the air.
I was bleeding memories into the world.
Literally.
My voice came out a whisper.
"Lira… what's happening to me?"
She didn't answer.
Couldn't.
She stared at me with a mix of terror and awe.
The shadow stepped closer.
Its voice was soft. Almost reverent.
"You are remembering too much."
And Marin, weak on the ground, whispered my name like a prayer.
"Eli… please… don't let them take you again…"
Then—
The sky rippled violently—
Mnemosyne's fleet descended.
The ground cracked.
Lira pulled me back from the light.
Marin reached for me, dissolving again.
Everything was collapsing.
And I realized—
for the first time—
that every force in this world was converging on one truth:
If I remember everything…
I might become something the world cannot contain.