The compound felt colder.
Not temperature-wise—narratively. Like the air itself was hesitant to finish scenes.
Root sat in the back corridor near the archive chamber, alone, except for the Grin snoozing in a shadow with all five mouths softly giggling in its sleep. Veyr was off sulking after their last argument, having lost yet another debate about whether biting an Auditor counts as a system crime.
Root didn't care.
He was staring at something only he could see.
A prompt.
[ Hidden Instance: UNAUTHORIZED SCRIPT NODE DETECTED ]
[ WARNING: This memory file does not match canonical timeline. Viewing may destabilize emotional coherence. ]
[ View? Y/N ]
He didn't hesitate.
Y.
The world blurred.
Not with images, but impulse. Root wasn't transported—he was overwritten. His breath shortened. His fingers curled into a shape he hadn't made in years.
And suddenly—he remembered.
But not the memory he'd known.
No siblings.
No escape.
No fire.
Just… a chair.
A room of mirrors.
And a voice—familiar, but glitched.
"You were chosen because you were empty. That's what made you perfect."
Root trembled.
The file showed a young boy—him, but not quite—sitting in the center of a ritual, veins open, sigils injected into his skin like programming.
A test subject.
Not a survivor.
Not a summoner.
A seed.
The vision ended abruptly.
Root was back in the corridor, gasping, sweat soaking his collar. The Grin had woken and was staring at him—expression unreadable, for once.
Veyr appeared a second later, materializing mid-complaint—
"If you summon another cursed rat I swear I'll—"
He stopped when he saw Root's face.
"What happened?"
Root didn't answer right away.
Then: "I saw something. A version of me that… never left. That never became me."
Veyr's mask tilted.
"That wasn't a memory."
"No. It was a message."
Root stood.
"Someone's trying to remind me of what I could've been. Or should've been. Or might still be."
Root didn't sleep that night.
The others noticed but said nothing.
Instead, he sat cross-legged on the cold floor of the archive wing, tapping silently on the thin sigil interface that hovered in front of him like a nervous breath.
[ FILE ACCESS: LIMIT EXCEEDED ]
[ SYSTEM FLAG: Attempting to reconstruct non-canonical memory thread… ]
[ USER OVERRIDE: ROOT // HOLLOW ANCHOR ]
[ Access granted. ]
A single file appeared. No folder. No path. Just a title:
[Project Dravos]
Root's heart stuttered.
He hadn't heard that name in years.
He'd buried it.
"That's not me," he whispered.
"It was," said Veyr, voice softer than expected. "Before you gave yourself to the Hollow."
Root opened the file.
It didn't show text. It showed images.
A child with gray eyes, shackled in a classroom. A laboratory with broken sigil-chambers. Names etched into walls, all scratched out—except one.
DRAVOS, ALEN.
His real name.
The one he'd erased.
"Why is this still in the system?" he asked.
Veyr's mask seemed to darken.
"Because some parts of you were too stubborn to die properly."
Root kept scrolling.
Each image stung.
One showed a document labeled:
SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION – NULL SEED / RIFTBORN CANDIDATE
Another showed a familiar face—Veyr's—but incomplete. Unmasked. Expressionless. Watching the boy in the lab without speaking.
"They planned you for me," Root whispered.
Veyr didn't respond.
"I wasn't born with the Hollow System," Root said. "I was the Hollow System."
The final image glitched violently.
It didn't show a person. It showed a shadow with his silhouette, standing atop a hill of System corpses, crown cracked, sigil bleeding down one eye.
Captioned:
[ PROJECTED OUTCOME: CATEGORY RED THREAT. SYSTEM OVERRIDE ADVISED. ]
Root stared.
Then deleted the file.
"That's not who I'm becoming."
Veyr tilted his head.
"No," he said. "But it is who they're afraid you already are."
Root sat on the rooftop of the compound, staring out into the simulated dusk. The sky shifted in low-resolution waves—like even the weather didn't trust the narrative anymore.
The Grin clung to a rusted pipe nearby, silently tracing Root's shadow.
Veyr floated beside him, for once saying nothing.
Not sarcastic.
Not smug.
Just present.
Root's mind replayed the final image: the crowned version of himself… eyes hollow, sigil dripping, standing atop a pile of broken rules and rewritten systems.
"Alen Dravos," he muttered aloud.
The name tasted like blood and iron.
"That was the name they gave me. The one they branded into the data stream. A placeholder. A container."
"Then bury it," Veyr said gently.
Root didn't look at him.
"Or own it."
He let the silence stretch.
The name had been his once. Before the Hollow. Before the rebellion. Before the voice inside him whispered that nothing written must stay written.
And yet…
He wasn't that boy anymore.
He wasn't a tool. Or a test. Or a failed experiment waiting for the system to finish his story.
"I'm not Alen Dravos," Root said finally.
"And I'm not his echo."
He opened the system interface with one hand.
[ NAME ENTRY REQUESTED ]
[ Confirm: 'ROOT' as permanent Hollow designation? ]
He pressed YES.
The air pulsed softly.
A small system note appeared:
[ Canon Deviation Locked. ]
[ Subject has severed all narrative tethering to prior identity. ]
[ ROOT is now a fixed point. ]
Veyr's grin, for once, matched his name.
"Atta boy."
From the shadows, the Grin clapped. All five mouths cheered quietly in different tones.
Root stood, eyes glowing faintly with nulllight.
"I'm not who they remember."
He turned toward the rising breachlight on the horizon.
"I'm who they'll never forget."