The world ended quietly.
No explosions, no alarms—only the slow unraveling of light. When the last thread of the system snapped, there was nothing left but silence and static, stretching into an infinite, breathless void.
And from that nothing, he awakened.
Aiden's consciousness drifted through broken fragments of what used to be existence—shards of color, frozen echoes of motion, and the metallic aftertaste of dying code. His body—or what passed for one—floated weightless. Each movement rippled through a thousand empty echoes, as if reality itself were remembering him in pieces.
> [System No Longer Detected.]
[You Are Free.]
The message shimmered before his eyes, fading as quickly as it appeared.
He blinked—or thought he did. There were no eyes now, only awareness.
For a long time, he simply existed.
No heartbeat. No breath.
Only thought—sharp, endless, self-contained.
He should have been afraid.
