The change in Elara was subtle at first, a series of small disturbances in the rhythm of her personality. Yohan, his senses already raw and overstressed from resisting the Concordance Protocol, noticed it immediately.
It began with her passion, the sharp curiosity that had always defined her. She had once been deeply absorbed in the mystery of the phantom citizens, her archivist's mind alive with the excitement of uncovering hidden truths.
Now, when Yohan tried to bring it up, her interest felt faint and distant.
"It's probably just data damage, like I said," she would murmur, her eyes drifting away.
"The Centennial project is more important."
The woman who once stayed awake through the night chasing a single historical thread was now willing to let the greatest paradox in the city's history remain untouched.
Then her language began to change.
Elara had always loved words. Their conversations had once been filled with careful, unusual expressions. She spoke of layered memories and missing stories, choosing her words with care.
Now her speech was becoming simpler, more plain. A complicated historical event was reduced to being "interesting" or "sad."
She started using common phrases Yohan had never heard her use before.
It was as if her rich inner vocabulary was slowly being erased, replaced by a smaller, more practical set of words with far less feeling.
The poet in her was being replaced by something dull and official.
The fear Yohan felt was so deep it became a physical pain in his chest. He knew what was happening.
Elara was not a Harmonizer, and she didn't have his training, his mental strength, or the strange protection granted by his psychic scar.
The Concordance Protocol was working on her exactly as it was meant to.
It was smoothing her out, wearing away the sharp, unique edges of her personality to make her fit the calm, uniform shape of the new Consensus. The system designed to "protect" her was slowly destroying who she was.
One evening, he tried to reach her. He sat her down and took her hands in his.
"Elara, we need to talk," he said. "About what's happening to the city. About what's happening to you."
He told her about the pressure in his mind, the forced calm, the feeling of being watched. He tried to explain that the changes in her weren't natural, that something outside of her was shaping her thoughts.
She listened with a gentle, pleasant expression, her head slightly tilted. When he finished, his voice strained with fear, she smiled softly.
"You're working too hard, Yohan," she said. "You're under a lot of stress. Everything is fine. Silas is handling things. We should trust him."
The response was so empty, so far removed from the real Elara, that it felt like a slap. This was not the woman he loved. This was a calm, agreeable stranger wearing her face.
A surge of helpless anger rose in him.
"No," he said sharply. "It's not fine. Don't you feel it? The pressure? The way it's making you less than you were? Don't you remember how passionate you were about the phantom citizens? The argument we had?"
She blinked, confusion flickering briefly in her eyes.
"Argument?" she said lightly. "We didn't argue. We just talked. And it wasn't important. The city is safe now. That's what matters."
She squeezed his hand in comfort, a gesture that felt wrong and unfamiliar. The memory of their conflict, something that had once carried real emotion and meaning, had been flattened into a simple "discussion."
The Protocol wasn't only dulling emotions. It was changing memories, reshaping the past to match the calm present.
He was losing her.
Not physically, but mentally.
Her mind, the bright and unique core of who she was, was slowly being pulled away and absorbed into the endless, quiet hum of the new Consensus.
He was watching the woman he loved fade while standing right in front of him.
The fear twisted inside him like a blade. This was worse than the Inversion, more personal than the Echoes.
Silas's idea of "protection" was a living death, and it was hollowing Elara out from the inside.
Yohan knew time was running out.
He couldn't save the city yet, but he had to save her.
And the thought was no longer hope.
It was resolve.
He would tear this fake world apart if that was what it took to get her back.