The walk back to the surface was silent.
I didn't speak.
Glint didn't speak.
Every hallway looked unfamiliar, warped by what I'd just remembered. I passed students I didn't know—maybe versions that hadn't interacted with me yet. Maybe ones that never would.
Even the Academy's colors seemed off. Too bright. Too sharp.
Like reality had been over-rendered.
My HUD buzzed with new data, but most of it was locked behind a layer labeled:
ECHO-CORE PROTOCOL // NEED TO BLEED.
I didn't know what that meant. Not yet.
But I would.
The commons buzzed with the same old routines: ranked students trading sim scores, gossip about Trial results, cheap jokes whispered at lower tiers. None of it mattered now. Not to me.
Lenya spotted me sitting on the far bench, near a cracked panel that pulsed every few seconds. It buzzed faintly in time with my own heartbeat.
She approached without speaking.
"You're not okay," she finally said.
"No."
She studied me carefully. "Are you going to tell me why you keep skipping time?"
"Would you believe me if I did?"
She sat down next to me. "Try me."
I opened my mouth. Closed it again.
How do you explain to someone that you've been cut into four pieces by a broken system? That your memories were sliced and hidden across unstable fragments beneath the school? That you just saw alternate versions of yourself floating in tanks?
"I remembered something," I said.
"Bad?"
"Worse than bad. True."
She didn't flinch.
"Then hold onto it. Truth's the only thing they can't reprogram."
That night, I dreamed of the mirror again.
But this time, the one standing beside me in the reflection stepped through.
Their face was cloaked. Not hidden by shadow, but by light. A shimmer of unreality. Their hand reached for mine.
When I touched them—
Pain. Familiar. Deep.
But also recognition. Like a name I used to have.
I woke up gasping, cold sweat beading on my skin.
My HUD was screaming.
VEIL INTEGRITY BREACH
UNAUTHORIZED ANCHOR CONTACT
ZONE 13 IS OPENING
"Zone 13," I whispered. "The sealed one."
Glint's voice cut through the static.
"Vael... something just woke up on the other side. And it knows your name."
"What's on the other side of the Veil, Glint?"
He hesitated longer than usual.
"The thing we locked away. The thing you were built to forget."
The next morning, the entire Academy was buzzing.
Emergency protocols. Drone patrols. Access restricted.
Students were being herded into controlled groups. I slipped away before my name was even checked.
Glint guided me.
"Your anchor trail ends at Zone 13. The last one. The point where all timelines fractured."
"Why me? Why now?"
"Because your system wasn't built to survive. It was built to remember what no one else could. And now... that memory wants out."
I reached the gates to Zone 13. Reinforced steel. Arc-locked.
But my hand passed through it.
Glitched.
"It's responding to you," Glint whispered.
Inside the chamber, the walls pulsed with light. A low-frequency hum vibrated through my ribs.
There was a mural here too.
It showed a shadowless figure holding back a sky of fire.
And beneath it:
VAEL DRAYCE – SEAL DESIGNATE // VERSION 4.7 – OBSERVATION ENDED
The light grew brighter.
And then—
It opened.
The opening wasn't a door.
It was a collapse.
The mural fractured. The wall behind it cracked like something had pressed against it from the other side. The lines weren't random—they formed a pattern I somehow recognized but couldn't name. Like seeing a symbol from a forgotten dream.
Light poured through the seams. But not warm light. Not safe. It buzzed with presence.
My HUD overloaded again.
REALITY INTERFACE: PARTIAL FAIL
ANCHOR CORE LINKED — SIGNAL SATURATED
"Glint," I said, my voice dry, "what am I walking into?"
"You're walking into the part of yourself that never made it back. The Veil didn't keep something out. It kept something in."
Then the wall gave way.
A corridor extended beyond, lined with old screens—flickering faces of cadets, most unrecognizable. They blinked in sync. One of them was me. Not a reflection. A copy. Frozen.
"Those are memory containers," Glint said. "Version data. The test shells. You survived because you fractured. These... didn't."
I passed them without speaking.
At the end of the corridor stood a single terminal. Its screen read:
VAEL DRAYCE: FULL ACCESS GRANTED.
"Welcome back," it said.
I reached out and pressed my palm to the terminal.
The screen shifted. Layers of code unfolded like a blooming interface—blue lines branching into red, then gold. I didn't know what I was seeing, but part of me did. Some forgotten version beneath the layers of fracture understood.
SYSTEM CHECK: CORE STABILITY 61%
ECHO LOOP INDEX: INACTIVE
SEAL STATUS: PENDING RELEASE
"Glint," I said quietly, "am I about to unlock it?"
"No," Glint said. "You already did. This is just the receipt."
The lights along the corridor dimmed.
Behind me, the memory containers flickered—each screen cycling rapidly through different faces. Cadets. Adults. Me. Versions of me who smiled. Cried. Burned.
Then all the screens cut to static.
"Zone 13 isn't just the end," Glint whispered. "It's where the system ran out of options."
My hand hovered over the final prompt:
INITIATE INTEGRATION: Y/N?
I didn't press it.
Not yet.
I stared into the dark beyond the screen.
Something there was waiting to finish becoming me.
I stepped away from the terminal, heart hammering. Glint didn't say anything. For once, he let the silence sit. Let the weight of what I was about to do settle in.
A sound echoed down the corridor. Not footsteps. Not machinery. A pulse.
Like something breathing.
The walls flickered, briefly showing the original simulation grid beneath. Then reality snapped back into place, too fast.
I turned toward the end of the corridor where a second doorway now glowed faintly.
My HUD flashed a new prompt:
SECONDARY CORE DETECTED
IDENTITY THREAD CONVERGENCE — 90%
"Glint," I said slowly, "is this another memory container?"
"No," he replied. "This is what they made when you broke. The part they couldn't kill."
I took a step forward. The hallway lights dimmed with each movement. The pulse grew louder.
As I reached the doorway, I could hear it whispering again. My voice—but not quite. Slower. Sharper. Meant to cut.
"Don't just remember," it said. "Become."
And the door began to open.