Morning came to Elderfall like an apology.
Soft rain misted across the stone streets, blurring the damage we had barely escaped.
The archive tower's south wall—where Lyra and I had taken shelter—still leaned slightly off-center, cracks spidering up the foundation like fault lines trying to spread.
If anyone else noticed, they didn't say.
Maybe the SYSTEM patched their memories.
Maybe they patched themselves.
I sat on the edge of the rooftop, knees pulled to my chest, Lexicon resting in my lap.
Lyra slept below.
Or tried to.
[Thread Stability: 62.1%]
The number pulsed faintly in the Lexicon's margin, a quiet countdown I couldn't stop watching.
It would tick down whether I fought it or not.
The world wasn't erasing itself all at once.
It was unraveling a thread at a time.
Starting with me.
A faint clatter broke the morning silence.
Lyra emerged into the drizzle, arms wrapped around herself, cloak half-dragging behind her.
She didn't say anything at first.
Just dropped down onto the stone beside me and stared out at the fogged skyline.
After a while, she asked:
"Do you feel it too?"
I didn't have to ask what she meant.
The wrongness.
The way the streets seemed too symmetrical now. The way conversations from NPCs repeated too perfectly. The way color sometimes drained slightly from the corners of the world when you weren't looking directly at it.
Like reality was stitched together with the wrong thread.
"I feel it," I said.
Lyra hugged her knees tighter.
"I had dreams," she whispered.
I turned slightly.
"About the rollback?"
She shook her head.
"About Elderfall. Before."
She didn't have to explain.
Before the rollback.
Before the suppression.
Before the fractures.
Places she shouldn't remember, memories she shouldn't have.
The Lexicon flickered open without my touch.
A new entry.
[Echo Instability Detected – User: Fenwick.L]
Residual thread echoes increasing.Causality anchor weakening.Recommended Action: Sever or Stabilize.
I read the words twice.
Then closed the Lexicon without a sound.
Lyra didn't need to know yet.
Not until I figured out if stabilization was even possible.
The drizzle picked up, pattering against the stone.
Down below, a group of players marched through the square, brightly armored, laughing, chatting about quests and loot.
Untouched.
Unaffected.
Still moving through the curated version of Ascension the SYSTEM wanted them to see.
"We can't stay here," I said.
Lyra turned her head slowly, rain streaking her hair across her forehead.
"Where then?"
I hesitated.
Not because I didn't know.
But because I did.
"North," I said finally.
"Beyond Duskridge. Past the woods. Into the regions that never fully reloaded after launch."
"The Badlands?" she asked, voice dry.
"They're not bad," I said. "They're just...old."
Old enough that the rollback didn't fully erase them.
Old enough that we might find the original threads still alive.
Or the remnants of players who tried and failed to protect them.
Lyra closed her eyes for a moment, breathing shallowly.
When she opened them again, I saw the answer there already.
She wasn't following me out of obligation.
She was following because some part of her—whether it was Lyra or something deeper—remembered too.
The Lexicon fluttered again, impatient.
Another fragment loaded into its margins.
A fragment of a map.
[Tag Fragment: Waypoint.Lost//Archive: Pre-Rollback Data]
A broken path.
Leading north.
Leading deeper into the parts of Ascension the SYSTEM wanted forgotten.
I rose to my feet, Lexicon settling back against my side.
Lyra stood too, brushing rain from her sleeves.
No grand speeches.
No cinematic system prompts.
Just the two of us.
Threadbare.
Fractured.
Still moving.
As we crossed Elderfall's outer gate, the mist seemed to watch us leave.
Not stopping us.
Not warning us.
Just...waiting.
The world hadn't killed us yet.
But it wasn't finished rewriting the story either.
And if we didn't find the fragments before the SYSTEM did—
there might not be a story left to save.