The Core fell.Not onto the ground.But into herself.Her body collapsed inward, pixel by pixel, layer by layer, as if the very idea of her identity was retracting. As if the universe no longer had a reference point for what she was.[CORE INSTANCE NULLIFIED][BEGINNING SYSTEM MEMORY DUMP…][WARNING: UNCONTAINED ARCHIVE DATA BREACH IN PROGRESS]The room—if it could still be called that—was unraveling.Lines of script peeled from the walls like torn paper, folding into spirals, spinning into infinity and then vanishing.Aiden shielded his eyes as an eruption of golden-white data burst from the center of the Unseen Root.Each strand of information burned through him as it passed.A planet that never formed.A child made of algorithms.The first line of code ever written on this world, by someone with hands made of language.[Memory Integrity Breach: Acceptable Loss Ratio Exceeded]CONTAINMENT BREACH – TIER NULLAiden turned—And the floor was gone.Beneath the dying Core, beneath the cr

Rain fell upward.That was the first thing Aiden noticed.The droplets shimmered like crystal dust, reversing their descent just before touching the ground, vanishing into the sky with a soft plink.He sat on a bench made of folded codepaper, staring across the strange village square—a place that looked cobbled together from ten different realities. Half the buildings floated. The other half leaned at angles no engineer would ever approve of.A bird passed overhead.Its wings were musical notes.None of it made sense.But then, neither did he.“Hey.”The voice belonged to a girl no older than ten. White scarf, too-large coat, fingers stained with glowing chalk.“You're new,” she said.Aiden blinked. “I guess I am.”“You don’t have a name?”He paused. “Do I need one?”The girl squinted. “Everybody needs a name. Otherwise the world forgets you.”That felt important.Somewhere in his chest, a distant pain pulsed. He touched the spot above his heart. No scar. No wound.But something burne