> Location: Deep within the glitched sector of the academy's underground archive
Time: Post-reconstruction ripple, moments after Alicia and Jay entered again
Rei sat in a hallway that no longer had a name. It did not belong to Vija Academy anymore. Not really. It was a corridor patched together from corrupted fragments stone walls overgrown with ivy that pulsed like veins, doors leading to nowhere, windows that flickered between dusk and code.
His palm rested on the smooth surface of a terminal that didn't hum anymore. Dead system. Half-formed commands. And yet, he could still feel it breathing beneath the wires— what was left of the real academy, whispering in lost languages he half remembered.
> "You were not supposed to be awake."
