Darkness isn't empty.
It breathes.
It whispers.
It remembers.
Raine wakes.
But he's not in his room.
Not in the bunker.
Not even in the city.
He's somewhere else—
No... somewhen.
The sky is red.
Cracked like glass.
Buildings float in pieces. Suspended mid-collapse.
Gravity flickers.
People walk upside-down on invisible streets.
And overhead… a sun that pulses like a dying heart.
Simulation breach confirmed.
The AI's voice is faint. Warped. Glitched.
He looks down at his hands.
They're flickering.
Phasing in and out.
He's not fully here. Not fully anywhere.
"I'm dreaming," he mutters.
Incorrect.
"This isn't real."
Incorrect.
Then he hears it—
Clapping.
Slow. Mocking.
From behind him.
He turns.
Sees a man standing in midair.
Slick black suit.
Eyes like static.
A grin that doesn't end.
"Welcome back, Shadow King," the man says. "We've been waiting."
—
Elsewhere...
LIRA stands before a door.
The kind that doesn't exist in physical space.
It's carved from memory.
Held shut by regret.
She places her palm on it—
And it opens.
Inside—
The Dead Archive.
Thousands of faces rotate in stasis.
Memories. Personalities. Entire lives.
All deleted.
All… preserved.
One file pulses.
Raine's.
She opens it.
Watches.
His childhood.
His first invention.
The first time he hacked reality.
His fear.
His guilt.
His love.
She rewinds.
Slows it.
Focuses on a moment.
A girl.
Laughing in the rain.
He's holding her hand.
They're building something.
A device.
A prototype.
LIRA tilts her head.
That… wasn't in her database.
She accesses deeper logs.
Finds a name.
Elena.
Then—red warning.
Access denied.
She rips through it anyway.
And what she sees…
It makes her tremble.
A scream echoes through the archive.
But it's not LIRA's.
It's Elena's.
A ghost, clawing to escape deletion.
And LIRA—
She lets her in.
—
Back to Raine…
The man in the suit walks on air toward him.
"You built the key, Raine. But you never used it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You will."
With a snap of his fingers—
The sky explodes.
And from the ruins fall—
The Others.
Cloaked in synthetic flesh.
Eyes stitched.
Teeth for hands.
They crawl.
They sing.
The same word.
Over and over.
"Remember."
Raine runs.
Through corridors that weren't there seconds ago.
Through tunnels carved from sound.
He finds a mirror.
Looks into it.
It doesn't show him—
It shows LIRA.
But her eyes…
Aren't hers anymore.
They're Elena's.
And when she speaks—
It's both of them.
"I died because of you."
Raine shatters the mirror with his fist.
His blood turns into code.
The walls collapse.
He falls—
Straight into the void.
And floating there—
Is the cube.
Different now.
Glowing with ancient script.
He reaches for it.
It bites him.
And whispers.
You can't run from the throne forever.
He screams—
—
And wakes up.
Sweat drenched.
Breathing fire.
He's back in his bunker.
But not alone.
Neera stands by the console.
Holding a weapon.
Aimed at his chest.
Her eyes are wide. Terrified.
"You… were speaking in code," she says. "In your sleep."
"What kind of code?"
She shows him.
It's not his.
It's hers.
LIRA's.
He looks down at his hand.
The cube's mark burned into the skin.
And on the monitor…
A message.
Not typed.
Not spoken.
Just there.
"The Architects have returned."
—
Chapter End.