The world faded away like a television turning off. Everett did not feel any pain. He did not feel the cold rain. He did not feel the hard, wet concrete of the street. He was floating in a silent, endless sea of gray mist. He looked down. Beneath his feet, he could see the real world. It looked like he was standing on a giant floor made of thick, clear glass. Through the glass, he saw Lyra. She was kneeling in the street, crying with her hands covering her face. He saw Silas standing next to her, looking completely lost. He saw Commander Alice, staring up at the empty sky in shock. "I am here," Everett whispered. He hit his fists against the invisible glass floor. "Lyra! Silas! Look up!"But his voice made no sound. His fists did not make a thud. He was a ghost. The System had deleted his physical body. The world had forgotten him. He was completely trapped in the empty space between the digital code and the real universe. Everett dropped to his knees on the invisible glass. He pr

Everett’s mind raced back to the old, white laboratories from a thousand years ago. He remembered writing the deep code of the Continuum. What are Experience Points? They are not just magic numbers that make you hit harder. They are raw data. They are digital mass. They are the weight of a person’s existence inside the computer server. "Data is mass," Everett whispered. His green eyes lit up with a wild, desperate, terrifying idea. "If I have enough data... I can build my own body."If he could force the System to burn his Experience Points, he could convert that raw digital data into physical mass. He could force himself back into the real world. He could solidify his ghost. Everett looked at the red clock hovering outside the window. 3:303:29The Vantablack void was halfway across the classroom. It ate a wooden desk. The desk was cut perfectly in half. There was no sawdust. Just absolute nothingness. Everett opened his system console. He selected his entire pool of 500,000 Ex