"Some versions of you don't go insane. They just wait."— Entry #0032, Rejected System Lore, Tier 5-A.
Aren didn't dream that night.
He exited consciousness.
And when he returned, it felt like someone else had been using his mind in the meantime.
The fire at the base of his skull didn't go away. It pulsed now.In time with a rhythm that had no beat. Just a presence.Like a thought that didn't belong to him… but was still wearing him.
The Archive was different when he woke.
Still the same low light and reality-thin halls, but now the edges looked… taped back together.Like someone had taken a scalpel to the world and only half-finished the stitching.
[NOTICE: PATHING SYSTEM IS UNSTABLE][TEMPORARY FIX APPLIED: YOU WILL RETURN TO WHERE YOU LAST MADE SENSE.]
"Where's Lira?" Aren asked the silence.
The system didn't respond.
He walked.
But the floor didn't echo anymore.Like the space around him didn't want to confirm he existed.
It took seventeen steps to reach a wall that shouldn't have been there.
And when he turned around—
It was a different Archive.
Colder. Abandoned. Outdated.
Aren stepped forward. Everything about this hall was wrong.
The books here weren't bound in text.They were sealed in bone.
Each one labeled with things like:
[AREN-ERA.II-PATH/DROWNED][USER##[email protected]][NARRATIVE-CANDIDATE_REDACTED/VOIDED/VOIDED/VOIDED]
He wasn't in his world anymore.
He was in a discarded timeline.And the worst part?
He recognized it.
This was the version of him that chose silence.
Aren touched one of the spine-tags. It pulsed warm.
A vision burst open—
A boy staring at a mirror, choosing not to speak the trigger word that would open the system.Choosing to let the world burn because maybe, just maybe, some stories weren't his to touch.
And he watched that version of himself fade into normalcy.
No system. No resonance. No war.Just quiet.
But then—
The stars came anyway.
And they burned that version alive.
Not because he failed.But because he didn't begin.
He died meaningless.The story starved without him.
And yet that version… was still here.
Not as a corpse.
But as a presence.
"Stop looking," a voice said.
Aren turned, heartbeat stuttering—
And saw himself again.
Older. Broken in a different way.
This Aren didn't unravel.He didn't scream.He was just… still.
Eyes empty like a statue's, but breathing like he had never stopped.
He didn't attack. Didn't question.
Just said it again.
"Stop looking."
Aren asked, "Why are you—why am I here?"
The older Aren stared through him.
"Because you keep choosing to be."
Suddenly the Archive shifted.Walls folded. Voices chorused from unseen speakers.
Then a glitch ran down the spine of reality.
And every version of Aren in this abandoned Archive opened their eyes at once.
[CONVERGENCE PENDING: 00:00:03][USER IN VIOLATION OF ISOLATION PROTOCOL][YOU ARE BECOMING TOO MANY THINGS AT ONCE.]
He backed away.
Too late.
The system failed.
And all at once—
Aren became the Aren who stayed.
:: INTERMISSION FILE INJECTED ::
Name: UnverifiedClassification: Echo-threaded User-InstanceKnown Faults:
Can cross collapsed timelines
Retains partial memory in corrupted formats
Rejected self-recognition
Known phrases:
"Who are you supposed to be?"
"You're not the Reader. You're the Rewrite."
"Some stories can't be opened. They have to leak."
System Advisory:This version is beginning to overwrite its own interpretation layers.Prepare for synclock disruptions.