Aren Vale learned three things in the first forty-eight hours after the world rewrote itself.
First: sleep was optional now.
Second: everyone who gained power feared losing it more than they had ever feared death.
Third: being ignored hurt more than being hunted.
He learned the third lesson while standing in line.
The relief center had been set up in what used to be a sports complex—one of the few buildings in District Nine still structurally sound. The field had warped slightly, its white lines bending like melted plastic, but the roof held. That alone made it valuable.
People queued in uneven rows, clutching ration packs and identity tags glowing faintly with system-issued light. Above the entrance, a hovering display rotated slowly, projecting announcements only some people reacted to.
SCRIPTURE STABILIZATION IN PROGRESS
UNREGISTERED INDIVIDUALS: REPORT FOR SCREENING
Aren stood in the second category's line.
It was much shorter.
And much quieter.
No one talked. No one compared abilities. They stood with their eyes forward, shoulders tense, like criminals waiting to be processed.
Aren shifted his weight, wincing as bruises complained. His body still remembered the fall, even if the world pretended it hadn't happened.
Ahead of him, a boy about his age turned around. His eyes flickered with faint blue text only he could see. A Linguist class, maybe—Aren had overheard someone mention it.
"Hey," the boy said, voice low. "You got a Scripture yet?"
Aren shook his head. "No."
The boy hesitated. "None at all?"
"No interface. No… anything."
That did it. The boy took half a step back, like Aren had admitted to carrying a disease.
"Oh," he said. "Right. Sorry."
He turned forward again and didn't look back.
Aren exhaled slowly. He told himself it didn't matter. He wasn't here to be liked. He was here to help, to understand, to make sure fewer people died tomorrow than yesterday.
Still, the silence pressed in.
When it was his turn, an Executor waved him forward without meeting his eyes. She gestured to a chair surrounded by thin, humming pylons.
"Sit," she said.
Aren sat.
The pylons flared briefly, scanning him in ways that made his teeth ache. The Executor frowned, tapping at her wrist.
"That's… odd," she muttered.
"What is?" Aren asked.
She glanced up sharply. "Don't interrupt."
Aren closed his mouth.
Minutes passed. The hum deepened, then sputtered, like an engine failing to catch.
Finally, the Executor stepped back.
"There's no record of you," she said. "No Scripture activation. No rejection event. No fatal error."
"So what does that mean?" Aren asked.
"It means," she said carefully, "that the Testament acknowledged you existed… and then declined to define you."
Aren let that settle. Declined to define you.
"Is that bad?" he asked.
Her mouth twitched. "Everything undefined is bad."
She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Listen. Until further notice, you're classified as a Null Variable. That means you don't operate under standard narrative protections."
"Protections?"
She straightened. "You can go."
"That's it?"
"For now." She hesitated. "Try not to be near important events."
Aren almost laughed.
—
Night fell hard over District Nine.
The city lights came back on in patches, some glowing with new colors, others flickering between realities. From the roof of the complex, Aren could see the fracture lines—places where the world hadn't quite agreed on what it was supposed to be.
He sat with his legs dangling over the edge, a blanket around his shoulders. Below, powered individuals trained under Executor supervision, testing limits, laughing too loudly.
Aren felt tired in a way sleep wouldn't fix.
He thought of the child. Of the way the world had spoken to him in that moment of freefall.
Define your intent.
He had answered honestly.
Apparently, honesty wasn't compatible with the system.
"Mind if I sit?"
The voice startled him. Aren looked up to see a woman a few years older than him, hair tied back, eyes sharp and tired. She wore no glowing armor, no visible interface—but she moved with the confidence of someone who'd already survived too much.
"You're Aren Vale," she said, sitting anyway.
"That's what they tell me," he replied.
She smiled faintly. "I'm Lysa Kade. Former archivist. Current… problem."
"Unregistered?" Aren asked.
"Rejected," she corrected. "The Testament tried to assign me something. I said no."
He blinked. "You can do that?"
"Once," she said. "It hurt."
They sat in silence for a moment, the wind carrying distant shouts and the crackle of unstable power.
"You're different," Lysa said finally. "It didn't even try with you."
Aren nodded. "Seems that way."
"Does that scare you?"
He considered the question. "No," he said slowly. "It makes me angry."
She studied him, then nodded. "Good. Fear makes you hide. Anger makes you move."
"Move where?"
Lysa looked out over the city. "Somewhere the rules don't work right."
As if summoned by her words, the air shifted.
A pressure rolled across the rooftop, subtle but unmistakable. The lights below flickered. A scream cut off abruptly.
Aren was on his feet before he realized he'd moved.
"What was that?" he asked.
Lysa's jaw tightened. "A Correction."
Below, a section of the training area warped inward, space folding like wet paper. One of the powered trainees was caught at the center, his glowing armor cracking as reality itself pushed back.
Executors shouted orders. Barriers flared. Too late.
The trainee vanished.
No blood. No sound. Just absence.
Aren felt it then—a tug in his chest, faint but insistent. Not power.
Attention.
"This is because of him," an Executor shouted. "His growth rate exceeded narrative stability!"
"Evacuate!" another yelled.
People scattered. Panic spread like fire.
Aren didn't think.
He ran.
Down the stairs, across the warped field, toward the collapsing space. Lysa shouted after him, but her voice faded beneath the roar of something unseen tearing the world back into shape.
The distortion pulsed, expanding.
Aren skidded to a stop at its edge. The air shimmered, wrong and heavy. He felt the same presence from the fall—watching, waiting.
Define your intent.
"I won't let this happen again," he whispered.
He stepped forward.
Pain exploded through him as the distortion resisted. It wasn't meant to be touched. The world pushed back, hard and cold.
Aren pushed harder.
Not with strength—but with refusal.
The pressure spiked, then wavered.
For a heartbeat, the distortion hesitated.
Executors stared. Lysa froze halfway down the steps.
Aren felt something crack—not in the world, but in the silence around him. The pressure vanished, snapping back like a released spring.
The distortion collapsed inward and disappeared.
Aren collapsed with it, gasping, skin burning like he'd pressed himself against raw wire.
Silence fell.
Everyone stared at him now.
Executors. Trainees. People with glowing destinies etched into their bones.
Aren lay on the ground, shaking, painfully aware of one thing:
The Testament had noticed him.
And it did not like what it saw.
High above, unseen interfaces flickered with errors.
CORRECTION FAILED
CAUSE: UNDEFINED INTERFERENCE
Lysa reached him first, hauling him upright.
"You idiot," she said, breathless. "You absolute idiot."
"Did it stop?" Aren asked.
She nodded slowly. "Yes."
He looked around at the faces turned toward him—fearful, awed, uncertain.
For the first time since the sky tore open, Aren felt something shift.
Not acceptance.
Recognition.
And far above the city, in the deep structures that governed meaning itself, a new notation appeared—one without a name, without a class, without a place.
A variable that refused to resolve.
The world had spoken once.
Now, it was listening.