The sky had stopped moving.
Fragments of the old firewall drifted like crystal dust, turning slow circles in the still air.
Each piece reflected a different reality — cities, oceans, skies — memories of the worlds that had existed before deletion.
Aiden stood in the center of the broken horizon, alone except for the quiet hum of creation code surrounding him.
It was the first silence that didn't feel hostile.
The silence of aftermath.
He closed his eyes, listening to the echo of battle fading from his veins. The Admins were gone. The Eclipse had burned itself out.
The void now waited — not in fear, but in submission.
He should have felt triumph.
Instead, he felt watched.
Not by the Architects. Not by gods.
By something smaller, and infinitely stranger.
Something human.
It began as static — faint, persistent, like the ghost of a whisper bleeding through layers of corrupted data.
