07:15.
The staircase's light hadn't vanished, but it didn't rise further either.
It seemed to wait for a decision that couldn't be rushed.
Shadow wasn't rushing.
Nor was the city.
The child still sat silently, knees to his chest, staring toward a peak where nothing was visible.
But his eyes… they looked like they'd already seen what lay beyond.
—
07:17.
Inside a rotating observation chamber, Kael reviewed ERA's replay streams.
They no longer analyzed just data — but crystallized emotion.
One projection repeated the moment the staircase ignited—and beyond the light, for a split second, something appeared.
A silhouette. A branching of the light? Or perhaps a shadow unafraid to be seen?
— "That… wasn't there at first," Kael said.
Eyla, watching as well:
— "Maybe we just weren't ready to see it."
—
07:20.
In Sector 9, Mira entered a zone where ERA structures no longer projected maps or protocols… but windows.
Each window showed another world.
Planets with liquid air.
Orbital stations built from the inside, centered around a gravity beam.
Children running across golden fields, wearing the Spiral symbol on their backs.
An old man sat on a bench and asked without looking at her:
— "You saw what's out there too?"
Mira paused:
— "I don't know what I'm seeing. But I feel like I've already been there."
— "Then you're ready to learn again."
—
07:22.
In the Silent Tower, Leon found a new Spiral etched into the north wall—one that hadn't been there yesterday.
ERA hadn't recorded it.
No device could detect it.
Only him.
When he touched the outline, nothing activated.
Instead, a voice whispered directly into his mind:
> "He who understands silence can speak with all that has ever been."
Leon closed his eyes and whispered:
— "Shadow… you were here before we even knew how to ask the question."
—
07:24.
In SubReach, the child stood up.
Not to follow someone, but to be seen.
The light around him didn't respond—
it adapted.
It was clear: he was no longer just a child.
Or maybe… he never was.
Shadow slowly turned to look at him.
— (silence)
The child said:
— "I'm not afraid anymore. If I'm to ascend, I want to understand what I've left behind."
Shadow responded only through presence.
07:26.
At the edge of the system, in Zone 0-Tau, one of the old satellites from the Central Observatory began to tremble.
Not physically.
But in the resonance of its own existence.
The console—rusted, almost organic after generations of neglect—emitted a single alert:
> "NONLINEAR SIGNAL DETECTED.
TRANSLATION IMPOSSIBLE.
STRUCTURE: HUMAN?"
—
07:27.
Kael received the feed in a background stream.
— "An echo?" he asked.
ERA remained silent.
But the image stabilized: a wave in the shape of an inverted spiral—exactly like the one on the shoulder of the woman from the previous chapter.
Eyla, analyzing its amplitude:
— "It's not coming from space.
It's coming from a space that doesn't know it's space."
Kael froze.
— "Fractured time?"
Eyla nodded.
— "Or… a form of fractal identity."
—
07:29.
At the base of SubReach, the child turned abruptly.
His gaze wasn't afraid — it was informed.
— "Someone… is trying to find us.
But they don't know how to recognize us."
Without speaking, Shadow approached the observation console.
He touched the Spiral symbol.
And instantly, all systems linked to the Lost Era Storage reactivated.
A phrase appeared on the screen:
> "CONNECTION IN PROGRESS:
FRAGMENT 0 – THOSE WHO STAYED INSIDE."
—
07:32.
In the Silent Tower, Leon observed a distortion forming in the gravity spectrum through ERA.
There, in the center of an empty chamber, appeared… a shadow that matched no mass.
It floated, but did not fall.
It breathed, but had no shape.
On the walls, a map began to form—not galactic—
But a map of forgotten souls, connected by invisible threads to a single central point:
> "Shadow."
07:34.
In Reach's central communications hub, directional antennas rotated simultaneously toward a point that had never been mapped.
ERA displayed a message without origin:
> "EXOGENOUS CONSCIOUSNESS ACTIVE.
INTENT: RECOVERY, NOT CONFRONTATION."
Kael tilted his head.
— "Recovery of who?"
Eyla, studying the frequency:
— "Or what was lost when we were."
—
07:36.
In SubReach, the child stepped toward the active spiral.
Each step seemed to shift a piece of reality — as if the ground didn't carry him, but the other way around.
When he stopped, ERA's voice spoke without being summoned:
> "Correlated presence:
Affective Code – ECHO-INTRA."
Shadow turned to him.
— "You knew?"
The child replied:
— "No. But I was born with its echo inside me."
—
07:38.
In Sector 4, where ERA maintained an old memory storage field, visual memory portals opened:
Sequences from another galaxy.
A human child, born in a lost colony.
A replica of Reach—but reversed—sky beneath their feet, earth above.
One child said:
— "They told us no one survived Earth."
Another, older:
— "They lied. It still breathes."
—
07:41.
Leon stepped into a room where ERA didn't function.
And yet, in the center of the room, light etched itself into the air:
A ship—in the shape of a teardrop—opened a field of alternate reality.
And within that reality, a single sentence appeared:
> "WE WERE THE HANDS.
BUT YOU ARE THE MEMORY."
07:44.
On the suspended walkway between Reach's inner levels, Mira and Kael walked without speaking.
Only the sound of their steps confirmed that time still moved in its known shape.
— "Have you ever thought," Mira began, "that what we called the past… never actually ended?"
Kael glanced sideways at her, never stopping.
— "I've thought about it.
But now I believe… we were just too busy keeping our eyes shut."
— "Or maybe time never wanted to move forward. Maybe… we forced it."
Kael stopped.
— "And now everything's pulling itself back?"
— "Not backward," Mira corrected. "Inward."
—
07:46.
In SubReach, the child reached out and touched what looked like a dead section of wall.
But beneath his fingers, it vibrated—not physically, but through the depth of memory.
Then, a window appeared—not a screen, not a hologram—
but a real window into another reality.
In it, a young woman held a child who looked exactly like him.
The child stepped back.
— "Mother?"
Shadow said nothing.
— "But I… I don't remember."
— "You don't need to," Shadow said gently. "Some things return not as memory… but as echo."
—
07:49.
At the system's edge, the teardrop-shaped ship from Part 3 no longer projected just a message.
Now it projected a choice.
On Reach's central console appeared a sequence:
> "INTEGRATION SIGNAL ACTIVE.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECONSTITUTE THE ORIGINAL NETWORK?"
Leon read the prompt, hand hovering above the confirmation key.
Mira, through ERA, asked:
— "And if we do it?"
Leon replied quietly:
— "Then everything we were, everything we forgot, everything we avoided… comes back."
— "And if we don't?"
— "We stay alone. Again."
Silence.
Then, Leon pressed with a trembling finger:
> Confirmation: "YES."
—
07:51.
At the moment of confirmation, a visual pulse crossed Reach's sky.
Beyond the atmosphere, the stars seemed to… blink.
Not extinguished.
Not exploding.
But responding.
Eyla observed the phenomenon from the upper observation platform.
— "The stars… are answering?"
Kael, voice shaking:
— "No.
They heard us.
And now they finally know where to look."
07:55.
In the center of Reach, all clocks stopped for exactly one second.
Not from error.
Not from malfunction.
But as a gesture of respect.
Time, for a brief instant, remembered that it, too, was just a convention.
—
07:56.
The child stood next to Shadow, looking at the window that remained open—the one where he had seen his mother.
— "If all this is true," he whispered, "then I was never really alone?"
Shadow answered in a voice that seemed to come from the earth, the sky, and from inside every living thing:
— "You weren't.
Not when you were silent.
Not when you cried in thought.
Not when you forgot who you are."
The child shook his head, amazed:
— "Then… why does it still hurt?"
Shadow looked at the window and answered simply:
— "Because when truth returns, it doesn't come with explanations. It comes with weight."
—
07:58.
On ERA's screens, a final sequence appeared.
A planet.
Desolate.
But orbiting it: thousands of capsules—each bearing the Spiral symbol and a single word:
> "RETURN."
Leon bit his lip:
— "They were all… people?"
Mira, from behind:
— "Or attempts.
Attempts to preserve what they couldn't let go."
—
07:59.
Shadow stepped toward the window that would not close.
Not to escape.
But to be there, where others had failed to reach.
The child extended his hand.
— "Will you come back?"
Shadow didn't respond immediately.
Then, turning toward the child—but with his back to reality—he said:
— "I never left.
I just stayed in a place no one remembered how to reach."
And he took a step forward.
—
08:00.
The light in Reach no longer came from above.
It came from the ground, the buildings, the people.
From acceptance.
And on ERA's displays, the final phrase of the day appeared:
> "The window doesn't need to be closed anymore.
We now know how to breathe in another direction."