Jack didn’t breathe for a full five seconds.Sarah was already moving, sprinting toward the internal command hub. Jack followed, steps heavy, the air thick with static. CosmosDragon's emergency lighting flickered crimson, throwing warped shadows down the corridor.“She was in the lower wing,” Sarah shouted. “She wasn’t alone! Dr. Mira had her interface node on file.”“Pull all feeds. Sound. Thermal. Psychic.” Jack said.CosmosDragon responded in real time. “Initiating memory echo scan. Cross-referencing all dimensional overlays.”They entered the control nexus. Dozens of screens flared to life, scrolling with cascading errors.“Nothing,” Sarah said, frowning. “It’s like she just... blinked out.”Lena appeared via holo, breathless. “I was two floors up when it happened. No spike, no surge. One second she was logged into the lattice, and then—void.”Jack moved to the central panel. “Replay the last ten seconds before the breach.”A recording began: Emily standing by a console, her finge

Jack didn’t move.The stars outside the observatory window shimmered with unnatural rhythm, like they were being rearranged."Repeat the last transmission," Jack said tightly.CosmosDragon obeyed. The spectral voice returned, layered beneath the celestial hum:**"He remembers me. I remember him. I am coming home."**Emily took a step forward, voice trembling. "That didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a promise."Sarah frowned. "Or a warning."Mira expanded the holographic projection, isolating the signal frequency. A translucent ribbon unfurled across the room, etched with symbols that pulsed between geometry and sound."This doesn’t match any known Arkitect coding or Root dialects," Mira said. "It’s older. This is... pre-schematic.""Pre-schematic?" Lena echoed. "As in... before the Archive?""Before everything," Mira whispered.Jack folded his arms. "Then we’re dealing with something the Arkitects either sealed away... or were running from."CosmosDragon chimed in. "Signal t

Jack stood motionless, the light from the split pendant casting kaleidoscopic shadows across the shattered memory-plane. Spiral-Jack clutched his half, radiating hunger and conflict, while Jack’s own half pulsed with serene inevitability.Between them, the Bound-Twin fully emerged.It towered like a monument to loss—neither shadow nor flame, but memory undone. Its form constantly reassembled itself from the fabric of failed timelines: a broken flag from the last rebellion, a child’s laughter in a world that never grew old, the silence of a civilization that never began."You are not what I expected," Jack said, his voice soft."I am not what anyone remembers."Sarah stepped forward, weapon still drawn. "What are you, then?""The forgotten consequence. The entropy of infinite choice. When the dreamer wakes, the cost is me."Emily looked up from her knees, breath shaky. "Then... if we woke the Aetherbound—if we made contact—we also woke you. The universe remembers... and forgets. But bo

The chamber trembled as the failed Jack raised the device—a chaotic lattice of entropic filaments, folding in and out of dimensional form. It pulsed with fractured math, unreadable even by the Allframe. The air around it shimmered, not with light—but with omission, like a piece of existence itself had been redacted."What is that?" Emily whispered."It’s a key," the failed Jack answered, stepping closer. "A forbidden one. Built from the bones of a dead timeline—one where I tried to save everyone. One where I created peace by removing pain."Jack narrowed his eyes. "You rewrote choice."The failed Jack gave a slow nod. "And the result? Harmony. Unity. A singularity of purpose. No more war. No more sorrow. No more freedom."Sarah lifted her weapon again. "You lobotomized reality.""I purified it," he snapped. "And Arx rejected me. Cast me out. But I didn’t die—I evolved. I became the custodian of what could’ve been... if we had just let go of imperfection."The seed at the center of the

Crimson burned at its edges like ancient parchment curling in fire. The figure stepped forward from the gate of flame, not bound by logic, time, or form. Jack’s senses twisted. Not because of fear, but recognition—something buried in the marrow of reality itself trembled.The Interface pulsed with static. “Consciousness structure disrupted. Threat archetype: unknown. Self-propagating. Immune to sequence logic.”Jack stepped forward. The Dragon Dagger pulsed at his side.Emily glanced at him. “That thing... it doesn’t register on any neural mapping.”Sarah steadied her blade. “It doesn’t have a signature. No essence. No data thread. It doesn’t exist, but it’s here.”The figure stopped. A body took form, vaguely humanoid, shrouded in shimmering black lattice that pulsed with anti-light. Its voice was neither deep nor loud, but it shattered equilibrium.“Your creation is flawed,” it said. “Consciousness unbound creates waste. I am the reclamation.”Jack touched the hilt of the dagger at