Folded City – Sector Alpha, 5:23 A.M. The world hadn’t healed yet. But it had stopped bleeding.Damien Voss sat hunched against the remains of an overturned tram, breathing hard, watching the memory fog lift from the wreckage of the shattered Archive.The black shard, the key the dying woman had pressed into his palm, was gone now. Burned out. Spent. But something else pulsed faintly in his jacket pocket. He pulled it free. Not tech. Not a weapon. A slip of paper. Old. Smudged. One line written in faded black ink: "The First Library is not a place. It’s a question." Voss’s hand tightened around it. Because that meant it wasn’t over.Zurich – Atlas Emergency Room. Eva Malik sat in a conference pod, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee she barely tasted. The room buzzed with confused analysts and memory architects, all trying to make sense of the sudden flood of recovered memories across the world. People remembered wars that hadn't been fought. Families mourned loved ones they'd forgot

Folded City – The First Library, Internal RiftThe Library was dying. Memory storms ripped through the structure like wildfires, shredding whole aisles of stored lives. Pages disintegrated midair. The floor splintered beneath Damien Voss’s boots.He ran through it, heart hammering. Behind him, Specter followed, unrushed, unbothered, almost evolving with every second of chaos. "You can't outrun yourself, Damien!" Specter's voice taunted, distorted by the collapsing reality.Voss pushed harder, shoving through a tangle of fragmented memories, a father calling to a daughter who never existed, a wedding crumbling into dust, All fake. All stolen. But they still felt real. And that made them dangerous.Zurich – Folded City PerimeterMalik's boots slammed into cracked pavement as she and Handler.13 pushed deeper into the ruins. Spectral anomalies flared around them, remnants of the Library's death throes. "Signal's fluctuating," Handler said, scanning the tablet. "Voss is moving-fast.""And

Zurich – Atlas Underground, 2:07 A.M. The elevators wouldn’t go this deep anymore. Damien Voss, Eva Malik, and Handler.13 descended through cracked service shafts, their boots scraping old maintenance ladders caked with rust. Below them, at levels Atlas had once sealed off after the reset, something ancient was reawakening. Something they had accidentally fed.Atlas Command – War Room Commander Rhea watched the team’s descent via remote cam feeds. Most of the senior staff had already evacuated. Those who stayed behind? Believers. Fighters. But even their loyalty trembled when the feeds glitched-flickering not to static, but to memories they didn't recognize.Images of wars that never happened. Presidents that never existed. Families they remembered... but had never had. Reality itself was beginning to rewrite beneath them.Atlas Underground – Sublevel 12The walls pulsed with low, rhythmic vibrations, like a heart buried under stone. Malik whispered, "Do you hear that?" Voss nodded gr

Zurich – Atlas Sublevel 14, 6:42 A.M.Sirens wailed in the distance, a low mechanical moan echoing through the crumbling levels. Damien Voss coughed against the dust swirling through the air. His ribs ached. His muscles screamed. But he was awake. Alive. Malik hovered above him, bruised but smiling like she hadn’t smiled since before the reset."You stubborn bastard," she said, voice shaking."You too," he rasped, managing half a smile.Handler.13 knelt nearby, checking vitals, her jaw clenched tight in focus. Above them, Atlas trembled, but the overwriting had stopped. Reality had snapped back into place. They had won. Or so it seemed.Commander Rhea oversaw stabilization protocols from the emergency hub. Civilian memories were normalizing. Digital records began to self-correct. Zurich’s skyline flickered once, and then held steady. For the first time in days, Atlas was quiet.But beneath the data streams and victory reports, one tiny anomaly blinked on her console:RESIDUAL THREAD D

Zurich – Atlas Surface, 7:23 A.M. The extraction shaft exploded upward, flinging Damien Voss, Eva Malik, and Handler.13 into the dawn light. They hit the rubble hard, coughing dust and blood.Above them, the final shockwave from the collapsed Orchard Vault tore into the sky, a swirling blue spiral, impossible to hide from the world watching. Handler shielded her eyes, gasping.Malik pulled Voss to his feet. They staggered toward the emergency evac transports lined along the shattered perimeter. Atlas was burning behind them. But the world? The world looked different.Commander Rhea limped through the smoking remains of Atlas HQ. Dozens of survivors emerged from the wreckage. But something was wrong. As she barked orders, she noticed how they hesitated, not at her injuries, but at her. As if they didn't recognize her.Or worse, As if she was something they had been taught to fear. She caught her reflection in a cracked window. Her face. Her uniform. The Atlas insignia. But behind her r