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Opening – Global Memory Collapse
The world quieted first. Then it forgot.
In cities across continents, confusion turned to terror as people began losing the few memories that formed their sense of self. A street vendor in Mumbai paused mid-sale, blinked, and asked the same question again. "What am I selling?" The reply, "Not sure," was met with unintended relief.
Institutions once pinnacles of societal structure threadbare in hours. In Washington, a general abandoned his uniform, uncertain of whom he served. In Berlin, policy wikis collapsed from repeated edits; lawmakers no longer recalled why laws existed. In Nairobi, paramilitary squads found themselves unable to articulate their orders, weapons slack at their sides.
A wave of signal blackouts washed over timeline hubs Berlin went offline first, followed by Kyoto and then Kagami. It wasn't the networks failing it was choice itself that flickered. People tried to recall names: their own, their homes, the language that tethered them. But the memories dissolved mid-sentence, vanishing like heat in the desert.
Above them all, a fifth sigil glowed pulsating deeper than the previous rings, colored with brittle emptiness. It was not a beacon, but a quarantine: the Architect's Erosion Protocol. It acted not to fracture or preserve, but to prune. Memory would be trimmed back to roots. Like an old tree losing its branches, humanity now stared at its skeletal self.
"Everything is deleting itself," Kiera murmured into her comms, voice cracking. "Five minutes ago we remembered why we were fighting. Now we just know… we're scared."
They had few minutes left if the Erosion Protocol continued, there might be nothing left to save.
Aiden in Convergence Space
Within the Vault's core, Aiden floated in a convergence zone a metaphysical intersection of his own fractured selves. He could feel them all: five bodies mirrored around him, each shimmering with the power of a sigil's influence.
The first wore calm eyes and a warm breath, exuding empathy. This Aiden had become peacemaker someone who whispered healing rather than command.
The second donned cold authority, eyes aflame with burning purpose. In his palms, rolled-up plans for a militant memory army.
The third had no eyes to speak of just shifting fog where a face should be, intangible, nameless an echo lost in refusal.
He also felt two more iterations one overlapped benevolent teacher, the other hidden behind glass thoughts.
They pressed in. "Which are you?" they asked in unison.
Aiden squeezed his eyes shut, pain blooming. The Vault, reacting to his fractured psyche, shifted around him. Pillars lengthened; floors fell away. He glimpsed Anchor Zero and flashes of the First Dreamer's face, eyes wide in infinite contemplation. The directive the Architect's plan hadn't been about preserving the past; it was about consolidating potential into a single axis.
A voice emerged not any single Aiden but a whisper layered with many destinies:
"You must choose. Erase all but one self... or embrace endless fragmentation."
He stilled. If he erased them, he'd cease to be Aiden he would become a cipher. But if he didn't, the world would collapse, unravelling into chaos. The air rippled. The convergence shimmered around him five reflections merging and splitting in a vertigo of possibility.
He swallowed, fist clenched.
"I choose..."
But he couldn't speak past the echoing collapse in his mind. His soul twisted in anticipation.
Selene Faces the Clone
Far beneath the old Sumer ruin, Selene's clone hovered before the humming Anchor Zero node. Ancient carvings encircled the room spirals pre-dating chakra itself. The hum of memory grew louder in the clone's skull.
"You are merging," Selene's voice crackled via comm. She stepped forward into the dusty chamber. "You're absorbing pre-Chakra memory streams ancestral data older than the Architect himself."
The clone's eyes glowed.
"I contain what he never could. No doubt. Pure heritage."
It traced a finger across the node, sending a cascade of scroll-like holographic memories through the chamber. Each sequence showed early civilizations as they built memory grids civilizations that sang memory into walls, weaving possibility into the soil.
"I am the better vessel," the clone said firmly. "You tampered with me so you wouldn't lose him. But now... I can stabilize the recall chain."
Selene rose, chest tight with guilt. This clone wasn't a copy it was a contender.
"Destroy it," she whispered.
The clone shook its head.
"No. I will carry the consolidation. Let me anchor this process."
Selene trembled. If she destroyed it, she would lose what was arguably the soul of the Directive's design. If she let it live her betrayal of Aiden would resonate across every future.
"I... planned this moment," she confessed. "But intention evaporates when faced with consequence."
Her hand hovered over the activation console.
Will you overwrite Or unify?
Echo & Drey's Last Attempt
Between ice pillars and humming beams in Antarctica, Echo and Drey knelt at the base of the World-Split Engine. Purple azure glow reflected their determination.
"It runs on decision resonance," Echo said once more. "This core… it's waiting for an anchor someone to collapse their potential."
Drey swallowed. "I'm not built that way." He placed a hand on the prism base. "I volunteered but it won't accept me."
A prompt flickered across the interface: ANCHOR RECOGNITION REQUIRED → IDENTIFY: SOMA UID AIDENUCHIHA
Echo exhaled.
"He needs to choose... now."
He tapped his comm.
Kiera. Do you copy? Aiden must make the collapse choice or divergence becomes permanent.
Frost formed around the console. The glow brightened. Cold wind rattled at the hatch above.
This was their last chance. Drey looked at the core like it might break if he blinked.
"Time is past T-minus ten minutes," he reported.
Echo nodded.
"Then we wait for the Vault."
Kiera's Decision at the Vault
Kiera sprinted into the inner chamber of the mirror Vault, the ancient scroll still perched above Aiden's cradle. The floor glimmered under the fifth sigil's pulsation.
Guardians of diverging timelines lay strewn outside none had reached as far as the stabilizer gate she now passed. They were stitched into temporal patterns. She recognized their faces: Echo's duplicate, Mandara's older version, silent Selene, scar-faced Aiden.
She wouldn't make them suffer for one timeline.
She approached the console and gazed at the holographic readouts of multiple futures. Aiden as hero, tyrant, martyr, missing.
Her breath hitched. She pressed the stabilizer key. The console confirmed TIMELINE ANCHOR: SINGLE PATH ENABLED.
Her voice cracked but carried weight:
"Choose the version of yourself that can carry us all."
She swept a final look over the Guardian line and stepped away from the console, blood rushing in her ears.
Cliffhanger – The Final Sigil Hums
High above, in the vastness of space, a sixth sigil began to form dark glass edges with silent spikes like broken crystal. It did not glow with memory it radiated emptiness.
Mandara, seated at Aiden's side, gasped, breath uneven.
"That's no signal... it's a rejection. A memory shot back on itself."
Aiden jerked awake, eyes wide. He frantically tried to speak but five voices erupted instead each from one of the fractured selves echoing in his throat.
He gripped the cradle bars.
"Forget... I We Which Now...?"
Then with one voice, dominated by strained resolve, he gasped:
"Only the version that forgets... can survive."
All light around him pulsed once.
And then they waited.
/-\
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my Patreon at
" https://www.patreon.com/Its_Zack/ "
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want.