The stairwell of the office building smelled like wet carpet and lemon cleaner. It was a mundane smell for the end of the world.
"Floor 40," Rook groaned, leaning heavily on the railing. "My knees. I can't feel my knees. Are we sure the elevator doesn't work?"
"The power is out, Rook," Lyric said, descending the steps steadily despite the throbbing burn on their hand. "And even if it wasn't, we aren't getting in a metal box anytime soon. I'm done with boxes."
"Fair," Rook muttered.
They trudged down in silence for another ten flights. Valerius was quiet, his hand brushing the wall for support. He looked like a ghost in the dim emergency lighting—pale, thin, wearing a coat that was too big for him.
"Val," Lyric said softly. "You holding up?"
"I'm thinking," Valerius said. "About the Architect."
"Which one? The one I punched, or the six I deleted?"
"The Original," Valerius said. "His name is Janus. He didn't just build the Isolation Protocol to keep people in. He built it to hide something. The Guild archives called it 'The Anchor Point.'"
"Anchor Point?" Lyric asked. "Like my pendant?"
"Bigger," Valerius said. "The pendant was a personal anchor. The Anchor Point is… structural. It's the first memory. The memory that the rest of this reality is built on top of."
Lyric stopped on the landing. "You're saying this city isn't real?"
"I'm saying reality is subjective in Mnemos," Valerius said, continuing down the stairs. "If you gather enough people and make them remember the same thing, it becomes solid. The Guild manipulated that. But if the Fog is getting in… it means the foundation is cracking. Finding Janus isn't just about fixing the wall. It's about finding out what this city was actually built to protect."
Lyric frowned. That sounded like a problem way bigger than just "survive the night."
"One crisis at a time," Lyric said. "First, we sleep. Then, we find Janus. Then, we worry about reality collapsing."
They exited the building through a service door into an alley. The rain had stopped, but the air was thick and humid.
The city was dark. With the Spire gone, the central power grid had failed. The only light came from burning cars and the occasional emergency generator sputtering in shop windows.
They moved through the shadows, avoiding the main avenues where mobs were looting memory clinics.
"There," Rook pointed to a small, two-story brick building with boarded-up windows. "That used to be a pawn shop. If it's boarded up, it might still have a roof."
Lyric checked the door. Padlocked.
Lyric placed a hand on the lock.
"Wait," Valerius whispered. "Don't waste the energy. You look like you're about to pass out."
"I'm fine," Lyric lied.
"Rook," Valerius nodded at the door.
Rook sighed, pulled a lockpick set from his backpack (which seemed to contain everything except a comfortable pillow), and knelt down. "30 seconds. Don't rush an artist."
Click.
"Artist," Rook grinned, pushing the door open.
They slipped inside. It was dusty, smelling of old paper and brass, but it was dry. Rook shoved a heavy display case in front of the door to barricade it.
"Safe," Rook exhaled, sliding down to the floor. "I'm sleeping right here. On this rug. Nobody touch me."
Lyric walked to the back of the shop, checking for other exits. Satisfied, they sat on a wooden crate.
"Let me look at the hand," Valerius said, walking over.
Lyric held it out. The burn from the shock baton was blistering, angry red lines crossing the palm.
"I don't have any more synth-skin," Valerius said, examining it gently. "We need to wrap it. Keep it clean."
He tore a strip of clean cloth from the lining of the stolen coat and wrapped Lyric's hand.
"You're good at this," Lyric noted. "Doctor?"
"Soldier," Valerius corrected. "Combat medic training. Before the Guild put me in a suit and told me to crunch numbers."
He finished the knot.
"Lyric," Valerius said, lowering his voice so Rook wouldn't wake up. "About what happened in the Spire. When you erased the network."
"Yeah?"
"You didn't just break the connection," Valerius said, his gray eyes searching Lyric's face. "The Architects… they were biological. But when you touched the desk, you severed their consciousness. You erased a signal inside a living brain without touching the body."
Lyric looked at the bandaged hand. "I didn't think about it. I just wanted them to stop."
"Your power is evolving," Valerius said quietly. "At first, it was just touch. Then it was small objects. Now you're erasing concepts. Networks. Friction."
"Is that bad?"
"It's dangerous," Valerius said. "If you keep pushing it, you might start erasing things you can't see. Like gravity. Or time. You need to be careful, Lyric. You aren't just a weapon anymore. You're a glitch in the universe."
Lyric leaned back against the wall, closing their eyes. "I just want to remember my own name without someone telling me what it is."
"Sleep," Valerius said, moving to sit near the window to keep watch. "I'll take the first shift. Again."
"You're gonna crash, Val."
"I can't crash," Valerius tapped his temple. "My brain doesn't know how to turn off. Go to sleep."
Lyric slept.
But it wasn't a peaceful darkness.
In the dream, Lyric was standing on water.
It was a vast, gray ocean, perfectly flat. The sky was the same color as the water—a seamless void of fog.
There was no city. No Spire. No Rook or Valerius.
Just the water. And in the distance, a door.
It stood upright on the surface of the ocean, unsupported. A simple, white wooden door.
Lyric walked toward it. The water didn't ripple under their boots.
As Lyric got closer, the Fog began to whisper. It wasn't the screaming static of the city. It was a singular, low voice.
Come back.
You took it.
Put it back.
Lyric reached the door. The handle was made of tarnished silver—the same metal as the pendant Lyric had thrown away.
Lyric reached out to touch it.
The moment their fingers brushed the silver, the door flew open.
Behind the door wasn't a room. It was a blinding white light. And in the center of the light, a single object floated.
A book? A box?
No. It was a heart. A human heart, made of glass, pulsing with blue light.
The Anchor Point, the Fog whispered. The First Memory.
Lyric tried to step through, but the water beneath their feet suddenly turned into black tar. It grabbed Lyric's ankles, pulling them down.
Lyric struggled. The light from the door began to fade.
Not yet, the voice hissed. You are still too empty.
The tar pulled Lyric under.
"Wake up!"
Lyric gasped, jerking awake. The ceramic sword was halfway out of its sheath before eyes even focused.
"Woah! Easy!" Rook yelped, jumping back. "It's just me! Rook! The guy you saved!"
Lyric blinked, heart hammering. The dusty pawn shop came into focus. Morning light was filtering through the cracks in the boarded windows.
"Sorry," Lyric muttered, sheathing the blade. "Bad dream."
"You were shaking the floor," Rook said. "Literally. The display case was rattling."
Valerius was standing by the window, peering through a crack.
"We have a problem," Valerius said.
Lyric stood up, shaking off the lingering dread of the dream. "Patrols?"
"Worse," Valerius said. "Weather."
Lyric walked to the window and looked out.
The street outside wasn't paved anymore. It was submerged.
Dark, murky water was flowing past the shop, carrying debris—trash bags, plastic chairs, a mannequin. It was about shin-deep and rising.
"The flood," Lyric said.
"The Old Quarter is downhill from here," Valerius explained. "Without the Spire's pumps running, the reservoirs are overflowing. The water is backing up into the Low-Light District."
"So we're swimming sooner than we thought," Rook groaned, hoisting his backpack.
"We need to move before the water gets too deep," Lyric said. "Valerius, do you know the way to the Old Quarter from here?"
"Roughly," Valerius said. "We follow the water. It flows down."
They stepped out of the pawn shop into the flooded street. The water was freezing and smelled of sewage.
It was quiet. The riots seemed to have died down, or moved to higher ground. The only sound was the slosh of their boots and the distant gurgle of drains failing.
They waded for blocks. The water rose to their knees.
"So," Rook said, trying to distract himself from the gross water. "This Janus guy. The Original Architect. What makes you think he's going to help us? If he's been hiding for fifty years, maybe he just wants to be left alone."
"He helped build the cage," Valerius said, walking in front. "If he has a conscience, he'll want to help us fix the lock."
"And if he doesn't have a conscience?"
"Then Lyric punches him," Valerius said dryly.
They turned a corner and stopped dead.
Ahead of them, the city ended.
The buildings didn't stop, but the reality of them did.
About three blocks down, the street simply dissolved into a wall of gray mist. The Fog. It had breached the perimeter and was rolling into the city streets like a slow-motion avalanche.
Where the Fog touched a building, the bricks crumbled into dust. A streetlamp flickered and vanished into the gray.
"It's closer than I thought," Valerius whispered. "The entropy is accelerating."
"That's the edge of the world right there," Rook said, stepping back. "We can't go that way."
"The Old Quarter is right on the edge," Valerius said, pointing into the mist. "See that spire sticking out of the fog? The rusted one?"
Lyric squinted. Barely visible in the gloom was a crooked metal tower.
"That's the Clocktower of the Old Quarter," Valerius said. "Janus's lab is near there."
"It's inside the Fog?" Lyric asked.
"Borderline," Valerius said. "The Old Quarter uses analog tech. Stone and iron. It resists the entropy better than the holographic stuff in the new city. But we have to hurry. If the Fog swallows the tower, Janus is gone."
"Great," Lyric said, looking at the ominous gray wall. "Into the mist."
Lyric took a step forward, and the water around their ankles rippled.
The door, Lyric thought, remembering the dream. The silver handle.
"Hey," Lyric said, pausing. "Valerius. You said the Anchor Point was the 'First Memory'. What does that mean?"
Valerius looked back, surprised by the question.
"It's a theory," Valerius said. "That before Mnemos existed, there was something else. A real world. And someone used the memory of that world to build this one over it. Like painting over a masterpiece."
"So if we find the Anchor Point," Lyric said slowly, "we don't just save the city. We might bring back what was here before."
"Maybe," Valerius said. "Or maybe we just erase everything."
Lyric looked at the Fog. The voice from the dream echoed in the static. You took it.
"Let's find Janus," Lyric said. "I have some questions for him."
They waded forward, heading straight for the wall of devouring gray mist.