[1:02] A.M. — Unknown Gridspace Location
Kairo woke in a room that didn't have walls.
Or rather, the walls kept deciding not to exist.
For brief moments, there were rusted steel panels. Then obsidian glass. Then endless void. Then faces—his own, mirrored and warped, thousands of them blinking at random intervals before disappearing.
"This isn't real," he muttered.
But the floor remained consistent: white, textured like static. Not smooth. Alive. It thrummed beneath him with an arrhythmic pulse.
He wasn't in the Pale District anymore. He wasn't even in the city.
"Kairo Kodan."
He turned fast. A man stood there—no, something approximating a man. His limbs were too long, his suit pixelated at the edges like an image failing to render. Where his face should've been, there was a dial—spinning, halting, then spinning again.
"You're a variable," it said.
Kairo instinctively stepped back. "I've been told."
The entity tilted its head. "But you haven't accepted. Not really. That's why you're here."
"Where is here?"
The dial-faced man gestured. "A quarantine sector. A fragment space. A lens held up to your inner collapse. The Binder sent you."
Kairo's fists clenched. "She didn't send me. She—"
"Let you fall," the entity finished. "Same thing."
The floor beneath him changed. Patterns erupted—text scrolled rapidly in every direction. Code. Syntax. Errors. Rewrites. They weren't just visual—they pressed into Kairo's skull like memories being forged.
:: ERROR 014B9 — Fragment identity conflict
:: Recompiling soul-architecture
:: Glyph core unstable — user not authenticated
"You're losing coherence," the dial-face said calmly. "Each moment you deny the system, it tries to erase you. You're a conflict file."
Kairo's breath came shallow now. The air thickened.
"So what now?"
"Now, you choose how to collapse."
The dial spun faster. The room became something else again—
Suddenly: a cityscape, but empty. High-rises made of paper, cars parked mid-air, a sky drawn in charcoal. Kairo stood in a crosswalk that blinked between "WALK" and "FORGET."
He wasn't alone.
Figures stood around him. Dozens. Some wore suits, others cloaks. One had no face at all. They watched him like statues with breath.
"Who are they?" he whispered.
"Possibilities," said the dial. "Each one is a version of you that chose differently. Each one is still inside you."
The Binder's words echoed: You were born broken...
Kairo stepped forward. One of the figures moved too—mimicking him. It had his face, but older. Tired. Scarred. Wearing the insignia of the Architects on its collar.
"You joined them?" Kairo asked.
The other Kairo didn't speak. It simply raised a hand and gestured—mocking. Then vanished in static.
Another moved. A version of him with red circuitry glowing along his arms. This one had eyes like glass.
"You fought them. You burned cities."
The dial-faced entity stepped beside him now. "They all made a choice when they glitched. You will too."
Kairo looked down. His reflection was flickering again. He didn't look like himself. Not anymore. The lines around his shape were softening.
"What if I don't want to be rewritten? What if I want out?"
The cityscape cracked. A deep sound—like a groan from the earth's skeleton—rumbled beneath them.
"Then you'll shatter."
The figures around him started to glow. Each one pulsed with a different color—blue, crimson, violet, gold. They began walking toward him. One by one. Not hostile. Not welcoming.
"This is your trial," the dial said. "This is how a variable becomes an Anchor. Or becomes deleted."
Kairo braced himself. The first figure reached him—
It whispered: "Live differently."
Then it stepped inside him.
He convulsed. His mind twisted. A new thread embedded in his consciousness—memories of a life where he'd taken a different path. Where he had a sister. Where he died young. Where he loved someone.
Another figure came.
"Break the chain."
More data. More lives. One where he led a revolution. One where he never glitched at all. One where he was the Binder.
Each figure entered him. Merging.
He screamed.
:: Integrating variant memories
:: Glyph compatibility at 56%... 67%... 72%...
:: Anchor status: PENDING
Then silence.
Kairo collapsed to his knees.
The cityscape flickered once more—and dissolved.
[1:46] A.M. — Sector-5, Train Terminal (Real World)
He gasped awake.
Concrete. Oil. Train horns in the distance. He was back.
But the air around him was cracked, barely holding together. Everything felt thinner, like reality had taken damage.
He looked at his hands.
Glyphs. Faint symbols now inked beneath the skin. Moving. Breathing.
He was no longer collapsing.
But he wasn't stable either.
A phone rang beside him. Not his. A sleek black device with no buttons. Just one name on the screen:
Manuscriptor
He answered it.
No voice. Just text, appearing directly in his vision:
Welcome to Level One.
Next Trial begins soon.
Kairo looked up at the sky. It pulsed—once, like a slow blink.
He wasn't out of the system.
He was deeper in it than ever before.