There's no such thing as silence anymore.
Even when the air goes still… the Game breathes.
You can hear it.
A low hum under the ground.
Like servers choking on old data.
Or something alive, dreaming under our feet.
"Where are we?" Trinity asked.
We stood in a collapsed catacomb beneath the graveyard—exposed only after her Gatekeeper Lockbrand had cracked open a passage that wasn't supposed to exist.
A tunnel of bone and code.
Literal fragments of the Reaper system wired into the walls like nerves.
Glyphs pulsed dimly along the stone.
And scattered across the floor… were names.
Etched in faded light.
Some were familiar.
Some were scratched out entirely.
"Keon."
"Jaylen."
"??? (Data Lost)"
Orion ran a hand across the glowing floor.
"This is where memory goes to rot."
"Like a trash bin?" Trinity asked.
"Like a burial site," I said.
Orion nodded. "The Game doesn't just kill Players. It deletes them. Wipes their soul data clean—forever. Unless…"
They trailed off.
"Unless what?" I asked.
Before Orion could answer, a cold wind rushed through the tunnel.
A portal tore open ahead of us—unstable, flickering with glitch-fire and static.
And then…
Someone crawled out of it.
Not a Reaper.
Not a Watcher.
A Player.
Their body was broken—half-glitching, half-breathing. Their eyes were pure static. Skin cracked with light. A Mark that flickered between symbols: Reaper. Watcher. Null. Reaper. Null.
They looked up at me—
And spoke with three voices.
"Trey Laurent. Catalyst. You were supposed to die in Phase One."
I stepped forward slowly.
"Who are you?"
They twitched.
Laughed.
Cried.
Then said:
"I'm what happens when the Game forgets to finish the job."
"I am Data Ghost Zai."
[File Corruption Detected]
Player Zai: Previously Eliminated – Phase Zero
Status: Resurrected via Architect Interference
Alignment: NULLBORN
Soul Class: Ghost Thread
Warning: Logic breach. Zai should not exist.
"Nullborn?" Trinity asked.
Zai nodded, shuddering. "We are what happens when the Game spits you out halfway. Not dead. Not alive. Just… remembered wrong."
They crawled closer.
"You're breaking the system, Trey. You and your sister. The Gatekeeper and the Echo. You're tearing through code that was never meant to be touched."
"Why are you helping us?" I asked.
Zai grinned wide.
"I'm not."
And then—
They snapped their fingers.
The tunnel collapsed behind us.
Black static spilled across the walls.
Trinity raised her flame-mark.
Orion summoned bone wards.
I grabbed a soul thread, preparing to cut—
But Zai only whispered:
"The Architect wants his keys back."
"You're not just playing the Game anymore."
"You're rebooting it."
A massive surge of light exploded from Zai's body—
And we were thrown out of the system.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing on a platform made of shattered mirror pieces, floating in a purple void.
Alone.
Then came the voice.
Not Zai's.
Not a Reaper's.
Not human.
Just…
"Trey Laurent. You've touched the spine of the Game."
"Now I will touch you."
[ARCHITECT DIRECT LINK ESTABLISHED]
Catalyst Status: Unstable.
Soul Integration in Progress…