[POV: Clyde]
The world didn't reset. It shattered.
Clyde felt it in his bones—splitting like old code, brittle and unstable. One second they were standing together, surrounded by fractured versions of himself. The next, the sky ignited red and the floor dissolved beneath his feet.
Then—nothing.
Until he opened his eyes again.
He was alone.
Darkness.
Silence.
The hum of code threading the air like electric whispers.
He looked down. The ground beneath him wasn't real—glass over data, flickering with half-loaded memories. Faces swam beneath the surface. Lira. Echo. Arden. Versions of them.
Not real.
Or maybe too real.
He knelt, fingers brushing the ghost of Lira's face in the code. The last thing he saw before the Purge beam hit him… was her reaching for him.
And then—
SISTER.
It was still in his memory buffer. One word. A key that hadn't been erased.
But why? Why that?
Clyde stood.
"I'm not done yet."
[POV: Lira]
Lira came to inside a corridor filled with static snow—walls that shimmered and bent like faulty reality. The map she'd carried was gone, its data burned into her skin. Her hand glowed faintly now, the sigil etched across her palm like a curse.
She staggered forward.
Footsteps behind her—then silence.
"Clyde?" she called.
No answer.
Then a whisper.
"You left me."
Lira froze.
That voice… wasn't Clyde. It was higher. Softer. A girl's voice.
Her voice.
She turned.
Standing in the corridor was a girl no older than ten, barefoot and pale.
Again.
"You always leave me behind."
"I don't know you," Lira said.
The girl stepped closer, tilting her head. "You knew me before you were rewritten. You remembered me just before the purge. That's why it left the word."
"What word?"
"Sister."
Lira's heart stopped.
No. No, that couldn't be. She didn't have a sister. That memory… that part of her life was—
Erased.
The girl reached forward and touched Lira's glowing hand.
"Come find me. Before they overwrite me again."
And she vanished.
[POV: Echo]
Echo wasn't where he should be.
The code around him was pre-architect. Primitive. The systems here were barely holding themselves together—loops and fragments of past simulations stacked like broken mirrors.
He moved cautiously, his body twitching with phantom feedback.
Then—he heard humming.
Not digital.
Human.
He followed the sound.
In the middle of a wide chamber sat a man. Back turned. Hooked to dozens of cables feeding into his spine. Screens floated around him, blinking with fractured memories.
"Clyde?" Echo stepped closer.
The man didn't turn.
But the humming continued.
Soft. Familiar.
The same tune Clyde used to whistle when he was debugging a firewall. A private habit.
"Hey. Talk to me," Echo said, voice trembling. "Where are we?"
The man turned slowly.
It was Clyde—but not the one Echo knew.
His eyes were pure black.
His mouth twisted in a grin too wide.
And his voice—
"Your Clyde's gone. I'm what's left after the purge eats what it can't understand."
Echo stepped back.
"You're not him."
"No," the thing said. "But I remember everything he does. Want to see how it ends?"
It raised its hand—and Echo screamed as his vision filled with fire.
[POV: Arden]
Arden opened his eyes to pain.
His memories flickered. He remembered charging the Observer. A final act. A desperate stand.
But now he was here.
Wherever here was.
The sky above him was black glass. The stars moved in loops. Gravity shifted beneath him like waves. He stood slowly, one hand over his ribs—still bruised.
He wasn't alone.
The Observer stood at the edge of the glass platform, watching the stars.
"You survived," Arden muttered.
"I always do," the Observer replied.
"Where are we?"
"The space between writes. Where fragments of deleted timelines bleed. You weren't supposed to survive the purge."
"And yet here I am."
The Observer didn't answer.
Arden stepped forward. "Why keep talking? Why not finish this?"
"Because one of your friends just opened a door that should've stayed closed."
Arden froze. "Clyde?"
"No," the Observer said. "Lira."
[POV: Clyde]
He found the gate.
Deep in the void, where code threads snapped and reformed, a structure loomed. Ancient. Massive. A rotating cylinder made from obsidian-like metal. Covered in symbols no system language recognized.
It was breathing.
And it had a lock.
Clyde stood before it, the word still burning in his mind.
SISTER.
He didn't know why, but saying it aloud felt like the answer.
He stepped forward.
"...Sister."
The gate cracked open, a slit of light forming.
And inside—he saw her.
Lira.
But not his Lira.
Younger. Full of light. Wearing a necklace he'd seen before—once, long ago, in a memory erased during his first death.
She looked up.
"You found me," she whispered.
And the gate slammed shut behind him.
[POV: Lira]
She collapsed to her knees.
The corridor broke apart behind her, the girl's voice echoing in her ears. The name sister felt like a knife to the chest—like a truth she wasn't ready to face.
She reached into her coat, fingers trembling.
Inside a hidden pocket was a photo she didn't remember putting there.
Two girls. One older. One younger. Smiling.
The younger wore that necklace.
Her breath caught.
"No…"
The system had wiped it.
Had rewritten her.
Had taken this from her.
And she was going to take it back.
She stood, fire in her eyes, and walked straight into the light forming at the end of the hall.
[POV: System Log – Internal]
User LIRA_013 has initiated memory trace.
Unauthorized fork access detected.
Identity merge in progress.
Probability of collapse: 73%
Emergency rewrite unavailable.
Purge Sequence incomplete.
Awaiting next trigger word…
[POV: Clyde]
The girl stared at him.
He stepped closer. His voice shook.
"You're not a copy, are you?"
She smiled, a mix of pain and affection.
"I'm what they tried to erase from both of you."
Clyde's pulse pounded.
"Then why do I remember you now?"
"Because you reached far enough into the code to bring me back."
She touched his chest—right over his heart.
"But someone else is trying to reach me too."
Then the wall behind her exploded.
From it, he stepped through.
The fake Clyde. The one Echo saw. The corrupted fragment.
Smiling.
"I told you," it said, "you don't win this game."
Clyde turned, shielding the girl behind him.
"No," he said. "But we change the rules."
The corrupted Clyde charged—
And everything went black.