The world trembled beneath our feet.
The shattered border hummed with unstable light.
The city behind us shrank as Mnemosyne compressed the grid further—
entire neighborhoods blinking out like snuffed lanterns.
Marin crawled toward me, glitching violently.
"Eli… please… don't let me go again—"
Her voice broke.
Her body destabilized—
limbs stuttering,
face flickering between ages,
a human caught between life and data.
I stepped toward her—
but Lira yanked me back.
"Elias—NO! Mnemosyne has you locked. If you step into the grid again, they'll collapse the entire boundary on you."
Marin's eyes widened with desperate sorrow.
"Eli—don't listen—please don't leave me—"
The pain in her voice shattered something inside me.
But before I could answer—
The shadow moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
It lunged toward Marin, its torso stretching, limbs elongating like blackened tendons pulled through tar.
Lira fired her disruptor instinctively—
The blast went straight through the shadow.
No effect.
The entity's voice cracked like static ripping through a speaker.
"YOU DO NOT BELONG."
Its hand slashed toward Marin's neck.
She screamed—
a shrill, glitching cry that made the air warp.
"STOP!" I shouted, reaching forward—
Too late.
The shadow's fingers brushed her collarbone.
Marin convulsed.
Her entire form exploded into broken images—
Birthday candles
Blood
White hospital sheets
Hands holding hers
A dark room
A glowing door
A little boy (me) crying
Her own face, younger, smiling—
All shattered into corrupt dust.
"NO!" I lunged—
But the gridline lashed upward like a barrier, throwing me backward.
Pain snapped through my spine.
Lira skidded to her knees beside Marin's collapsing form.
"Marin—stay with me—"
Marin's trembling hand reached upward.
But her body melted—
not into blood—
not into light—
Into corrupted Echo fragments.
She was disintegrating.
Her pixels drifted upward like silver snow.
Her face flickered in and out—
missing frames,
missing pieces.
"Eli…" she whispered.
"Don't forget me… again…"
Her hand dissolved in Lira's grasp.
The rest of her followed, glitching—
breaking
breaking
breaking—
Until nothing remained but a faint shimmer.
A distortion in the air.
The shadow straightened.
"One memory removed."
Its voice carried something like satisfaction.
"Many more to go."
My vision went white with rage.
Then—
the bleed erupted.
My breath tore out of my lungs as gold light shot from my chest—
not controlled, not gentle—
violent.
The ground cratered beneath me.
Stone disintegrated.
Grass incinerated.
A shockwave blasted outward, throwing Lira across the dirt.
The shadow staggered—
its form warping unnaturally.
Lira screamed:
"ELIAS—STOP! You'll tear yourself apart—"
But I couldn't stop.
I didn't want to.
The light burned hotter—
brighter—
pouring out of my skin like molten memory.
Marin was gone.
She was gone again.
And something inside me broke wide open.
The Net overhead began to flicker.
The gridline shattered.
The air rippled violently around us.
The shadow hissed—
a sound of pure static—
and lunged.
But something else moved first.
A pulse of soft white light—
gentle
sad
frighteningly familiar—
floated between me and the shadow.
It expanded—
a sphere of faint luminescence—
like a candle flame trying to light a collapsing world.
Lira stared in awe.
"Oh my god… Eli… that's—"
I knew immediately.
Ari.
Her last echo.
Not whole.
Not stable.
Just a spark—
but alive enough to stand between me and annihilation.
The shadow recoiled, arms twisting.
A static-laced whisper escaped it:
"Her memory… still clings to him."
Ari's light pulsed faintly—
And a gentle whisper brushed my thoughts.
"Eli… please… don't become this…"
Her voice—
so soft
so familiar
so grief-filled—
cut straight through my rage.
The bleed faltered.
The gold light around me dimmed.
The shadow snarled.
"He is the key. He cannot be saved."
But Ari's spark drifted closer to me—
touching my chest—
and suddenly—
I could breathe again.
I fell to my knees, panting.
Lira stumbled toward me, coughing.
"Elias—are you okay? Elias—look at me—"
But I couldn't look at her.
I couldn't look at anything except the faint glow of Ari hovering inches from my face.
Soft.
Warm.
Flickering like a dying star.
She whispered again.
"I'm sorry… I wanted to stay…"
My throat closed.
Ari's spark dimmed further.
"Don't fade," I begged. "I can't lose you too—"
Ari's light flickered weakly.
"You didn't lose me."
A pause—
a fading breath in digital form.
"You carried me."
Behind her, the shadow snarled—
its form unraveling as if Ari's presence was poisonous to it.
"She is interfering. Remove her."
Lira fired again—
this time striking the shadow with a blast strong enough to send it stumbling.
She screamed over the roar:
"Elias! Mnemosyne just triggered a kill protocol! They'll burn the whole sector in seconds—MOVE!"
I reached for Ari's spark—
my fingers passing through flickering light.
She hovered there, trembling.
Fading.
The shadow advanced again.
Ari drifted between us one last time.
"Live, Eli."
Her glow faded—
dimmed—
extinguished—
leaving only the faint scent of jasmine in the collapsing air.
And I broke.
I broke completely.
A scream tore itself from my throat—
not human.
Not sane.
A sound made of grief and light and pain.
The ground erupted.
The city screamed back.
Lira grabbed my sleeve—
"ELIAS RUN!"
And we ran.
We ran leaving behind shimmering dust, collapsing streets, and the last traces of two people I loved.
Somewhere behind us, the shadow followed.
And above us, Mnemosyne prepared to erase everything.