Fracture
The door wept.
That was the only word Orion could think of. Not "leaked," not "bled" but wept. Data streamed from its seams like tears from a grieving god. The strands of corrupted code flickered, whispering long-forgotten truths in languages half-formed, half-broken.
She stepped through first. The moment her body crossed the threshold, reality buckled.
Inside the Core
There was no sky. No ground. No sense of up or down. Just a vast plane of shifting energy, suspended in a void of cascading fragments. Orion found herself floating, unanchored, as if consciousness itself had become disembodied.
Cole tumbled in behind her, growling as he tried to find footing on a platform that refused to materialize. Echo drifted like starlight, limbs folding inward, eyes burning with calculations.
