Codefall
There's no sensation like watching the world fall apart—not physically, but in logic.
As the Core cracked, everything changed.
Colors separated from their forms. Gravity forgot its job. Sounds echoed before they were made. For a few seconds, we weren't standing in a collapsing data tower—we were swimming in corrupted thought.
> "Kael—!" I shouted.
She was gone.
No blood.
No scream.
Just absence. A void where she had been.
Aria scrambled to her feet beside me, coughing through sparks and glitching air.
> "She was pulled through the breach!" she yelled. "That beam hit the Core's anchor chain!"
I already knew.
It was in the air. Like static guilt crawling through my bones.
> "Then we're going in after her."
---
Axis Point was fracturing. Whole districts floating off their foundations as Executor logic swept through like a wave of digital wildfire.
People screamed as buildings folded. Lights bled upward. Birds flew in square patterns.
This wasn't just a breach.
This was Codefall.
---
We reached the Central Gateway—a relic from before the Spiral. It still had the tech to bridge timelines and alternate stacks. Only one problem: it needed a human anchor.
> "I'll do it," Aria said immediately.
> "No," I snapped. "You're the better shot. If something comes through that isn't us—"
> "Then I'll shoot it."
I gritted my teeth. This was a suicide mission wrapped in hope.
We had one shot.
> "Pull me back in three minutes," I said, stepping onto the platform. "If I'm not out by then—"
> "I'll come in after you," Aria said fiercely.
I paused.
Then nodded.
And stepped into the gate.
---
It wasn't teleportation.
It was deconstruction.
I became data. Then doubt. Then decision.
Then I was whole again.
I landed in a broken realm—an echo of Axis Point, but warped. All angles wrong. Time dripping sideways. Kael was there—barefoot, eyes glowing faintly, facing a floating Executor ten feet above the ruined street.
> "He says I'm the key," she whispered without turning.
> "Then let's change the lock," I said.
The Executor pulsed.
> "Error protocol complete. Identity confirmed: Genesis Node."
> "Execute overwrite of Earth's core command."
My blood ran cold.
> "They're going to rewrite the planet."
> "Not if I burn them first," Kael growled.
And she lit up.
---
The Spiral may have been erased.
But Kael had inherited its throne.
And she wasn't interested in keeping it.