The chamber was gone.
Or maybe Kael was gone from the chamber.
He blinked, once, twice—his pulse hammering against his ribs like a war drum. The blinding light from the Echo Frame had swallowed him whole, and now... nothing. No walls. No core. No Ceyla.
Just stars. Endless stars, bleeding into one another like brushstrokes from a mad artist's hand.
His feet floated above an invisible floor, weightless, yet grounded by something unseen. It wasn't space. Not entirely. It was memory. A neural construct. A psychosphere? Whatever it was, it was built from his mind. And someone else's.
A soft voice whispered.
"Kael."
It wasn't Maya. Not Ceyla either.
It was… him.
Kael turned sharply—and there, standing before him, was a man cloaked in obsidian armor threaded with glowing veins of crimson light. His eyes were mirror-like, reflecting every possible version of Kael at once. In one, he was smiling. In another, bleeding. In another, burning planets. In another, saving one.
Kael stared at the figure. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm the one who made you," the man said calmly. "The original you."
Kael's chest tightened. "No. I'm not a copy."
"No. You're worse," the figure said. "You're an iteration that broke its loop. You escaped the leash. That's why the architects are angry. That's why the Echo Frame showed you the truth."
Kael stepped back, fists clenched. "I'm not just some ghost data. I feel. I love. I bleed."
The man smiled sadly. "So did I. That's why they buried me. Deep inside the Veil. Where consciousness becomes fog."
Behind the man, the stars shifted. Something huge moved in the distance—a colossal, slithering shape made of pure code and memory. It left a trail of unraveling logic behind it, like a worm devouring its own tail.
"You're in the Veil now," the figure continued. "The place where failed prototypes go. Where we scream until we forget we were ever real."
Kael's mind reeled. He remembered the data pulses Maya sent. The core. The loop. Every fragment of himself tearing loose from the script the architects designed. This… this wasn't an accident. This was purposed chaos.
"I don't have time for riddles," Kael muttered. "Ceyla's out there. Maya's trying to reach me. And I still have to find—"
The man interrupted with a flick of his hand.
A new vision exploded into Kael's view.
Ceyla, crumpled against the core. Blood dripping from her ears. She was screaming silently, but there was no sound. Around her, the shadows of the architects closed in, spectral outlines of beings too vast to be defined by shape.
"She's dying," the man said. "And she'll die believing you abandoned her. Because that's the loop."
"No!" Kael shouted. "I'm done with loops! Done with false fates!"
His voice echoed through the Veil, cracking the stars like glass. Behind him, the shape in the dark stirred again, faster now. A deep, churning growl rippled through space.
The man took a step closer. "Then prove it."
He extended a hand—and from his palm, a weapon formed. Not a gun. Not a sword. Something older. A black-bladed dagger, etched with ancient runes.
Kael stared at it. "What is that?"
"Your extraction key. Stab it into the illusion. Tear the loop apart from the inside. But know this, Kael…" The man's voice turned cold. "Once you use it, you'll lose access to every memory they tried to suppress. And you'll see everything—everything—they buried."
Kael reached for the blade, and as his fingers wrapped around the hilt, a flood of pain shot through his head. Flashes:
Maya screaming as static poured into her skull.
A child—his child?—crying under a binary sky.
A planet on fire, with Kael's voice calling the order.
Laughter. A woman's laugh—soft, trembling. Not Maya. Not Ceyla.
"Who was she?" he whispered.
The man said nothing.
Kael looked at the blade again. "What happens if I don't use it?"
"You stay in the loop. Forever. And next time, maybe you're the villain. Maybe you kill Maya. Maybe Ceyla kills you. Or maybe you both rot while the architects feast on your memories."
Kael didn't hesitate. He stabbed the blade into the air—and the Veil shattered.
—
The sound of screams jolted Ceyla upright.
She gasped, her body trembling, sweat pouring down her neck. She was back in the chamber. The core was still humming, its lights spinning in reverse. Time was rewinding—but badly, glitching like a scratched recording.
"Kael?" she cried out, crawling toward the dais. "Kael, where are you?!"
The chamber cracked.
From above, fragments of the ceiling began to fall—chunks of memory stone raining like hail. The architects' energy signature buzzed like an angry hornet swarm. They were coming.
And she was alone.
No. Not entirely.
A voice echoed from the broken corridor behind her.
"Well, well. Look who survived the reboot."
Ceyla froze. That voice…
She turned slowly.
Thorn.
He stood there with a grin, bruised, bloodied—but very much alive.
"I thought you were—" she started.
"Dead?" Thorn chuckled. "Please. I've died a thousand times. Comes with the job." He glanced at the pulsing core. "But it looks like you're out of time."
Ceyla's eyes narrowed. "You were working for them."
"Was. Past tense." Thorn cracked his knuckles. "They erased my loop, Ceyla. But not me. That was their mistake."
The floor beneath them began to tremble as if it had a heartbeat of its own. The architects' energy signature grew louder—closer. Sparks of raw energy zapped from the walls, arcing into the air. Ceyla clenched her fists. "Then let's make sure they regret it."
Before Thorn could respond, the chamber doors exploded outward. Two architects—hulking, shadowy figures, their limbs twisting like dark smoke—burst in. They moved with blinding speed, their arms reaching for Ceyla.
Without thinking, Ceyla leapt into the air, twisting mid-flight, her leg snapping out in a high kick. She connected with the first architect's face—only for her foot to pass through its ethereal form like smoke. It roared, its voice a thousand whispers woven together in perfect discord.
"Your time is over," the architect hissed, a wave of dark energy surging toward her.
But Ceyla was already moving. She rolled forward, narrowly avoiding the attack, and lunged at the second architect with a series of swift punches. Each strike landed with a sound like cracking stone, but it had no effect.
Thorn laughed. "Good luck with that. They're not real, Ceyla. Just shadows."
Ceyla ignored him. She had to feel her way through this. She'd fought real threats before. She wasn't about to let some illusions—no matter how deadly—take her down. She pivoted, dodging another strike, and finally grabbed one of the architects by the arm.
With a sharp twist, she ripped its limb off—and it vanished in a cloud of black dust.
"Your turn," she said, turning to Thorn.
Thorn smiled darkly. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He charged, his hands crackling with electrical energy as he slammed them into the remaining architect. It collapsed with a horrifying scream, disintegrating as it made contact with his fists.
For a moment, silence reigned.
Then, a voice—Kael's—echoed through the chamber, reverberating in their bones.
"Enough."
Ceyla's heart stopped.
Kael stood in the doorway, the molten blade in his hand, its glow illuminating the crumbling ruins around them. His eyes met hers, and the depth of his gaze was like a storm, fierce and unrelenting.
He stepped forward, the rift opening behind him, its energy threatening to consume them all.
"Ceyla," Kael said, his voice shaking with raw intensity, "we have to finish this."
And behind them, the void trembled.
The architects were coming.
To be continued...