The night was unnaturally still.
Leo sat in the silence of his quarters, barely breathing. The lights of the city outside shimmered like a galaxy of dying stars, distant and indifferent. Yet within the confines of his room, something felt alive—an ancient force stirring beneath the floor, within the circuits, inside his mind.
"Protocol initializing…"
The voice echoed again, low and melodic, as if whispered directly into his skull. It wasn't a synthetic monotone. It carried weight, tone, emotion.
Leo wasn't hallucinating.
"Who are you?" he whispered aloud.
"I am the Architect. You are the Chosen Fragment."
His terminal flickered without warning. Symbols—impossible shapes that twisted the eye—streamed across the screen, faster than any language he knew. Then, a circle of shifting energy emerged on the screen, glowing with faint, iridescent lines.
Leo's heart pounded.
"What do you mean? Fragment of what?"
"Of what was once whole. The Ascension Protocol was shattered to protect it. You are one of the seven vessels."
He blinked, trying to understand.
"Ascension Protocol… It's real?"
"More than real. It is buried beneath your reality, encoded in every particle, waiting to be reassembled."
"Why me?"
The silence stretched. Then—
"Because you died."
The memory slammed into him like a freight train. The explosion. The pain. The darkness.
He had died.
Yet here he was, breathing, questioning. Alive.
"How…?"
"You were reconstructed using a fraction of the Protocol's dormant code. That act activated the sequence prematurely. Now, others will come."
Leo stood up abruptly, backing away from the screen. The floor felt unsteady beneath his feet.
"Others? Who?"
"Seekers. Devourers. Those who want the power reassembled… and those who wish it scattered forever."
Just then, a knock pounded at his door.
Not a polite knock. A command.
Leo turned instinctively, body tense. He didn't speak.
The door hissed open on its own.
Standing there was a woman—early twenties, dark crimson coat, hair pulled into a sharp braid, one mechanical eye glowing faintly blue.
"Leonis Raen," she said, voice flat, "I'm here to protect you. Or kill you. Depends on what side you're on."
Five minutes later, Leo found himself seated across from her at the rusted kitchen table, the woman calmly sipping synthetic tea from a cracked mug.
"Name's Riven. Tasked with finding early awakeners like you. You activated a signal beacon when the Protocol fragment in you stirred."
"You knew this would happen?"
She scoffed. "We all did. Those of us in the Protocol Resistance."
"Resistance? Against what?"
"Against the ones who want to finish the Protocol. You don't understand, Leo. If the Protocol is restored… it won't save humanity. It'll overwrite it."
Leo blinked, stunned. "But… this is power. Knowledge beyond the stars, right?"
"Exactly. Too much for any species to hold. The last time it was fully assembled, three galaxies collapsed into singularities."
He stared at her, disbelief warping his logic.
"So why not destroy it?"
Riven's eye flashed.
"Because you can't. The Protocol is not a thing. It's law—the law behind all other laws. It rewrites the physics of anything it touches."
She paused, her voice softening.
"But there's something different about you. You triggered a deep layer. One no one's accessed before."
Leo was still processing everything when the lights went out.
Complete black.
Then… red emergency lights flickered on.
Riven stood, pulling a matte black blade from her coat.
"They found you faster than I thought."
A crash echoed below.
Metal bent. A ceiling tile dropped.
Riven grabbed Leo and shoved him against the wall. A section of the floor glitched, pixels breaking reality like a corrupted game file. Through it, something rose.
Not a person.
A hunter.
It wore a human face—shifting and wrong—like someone who had scanned the idea of "human" and failed to replicate it. Its limbs were too long, fingers jointed backwards, and it radiated an aura of data static.
Leo felt his lungs freeze.
"You are an active node," the hunter said in a corrupted voice. "Hand over the fragment. Now."
Riven moved fast.
The blade sliced the air, sparking as it collided with a translucent energy barrier surrounding the creature. The thing hissed, swiped—and Riven was thrown across the room, crashing into the wall.
Leo stood frozen. Until—
"Ascension Protocol – Layer 1 Engaged."
His vision glitched.
And then, he could see it.
Lines of code overlaid reality like a digital skin. The hunter was a mess of corrupted scripts, defense lines, and weak points.
Leo raised his hand instinctively, and the Protocol responded.
A pulse of pure white shot from his palm.
The hunter's shield disintegrated.
Riven stared, eyes wide. "You just activated an admin-level function."
The hunter shrieked, lunging—
But Leo's instincts took over. Time slowed.
He reached out mentally, tapped the Protocol's code, and rewrote the gravity around the hunter.
With a scream, the creature collapsed to the floor, crushed under its own weight.
Silence returned.
Only their breathing remained.
Later, as the sky began to lighten, Riven and Leo sat on the rooftop.
"That wasn't just a defense mechanism," she said slowly. "You didn't repel it. You rewrote it. Like you had command access."
Leo was silent for a long time.
"I don't understand it. It's like the code flows through me… but it's not mine."
"It won't be for long," Riven said grimly. "Once you reach Layer Two, the Protocol starts testing you. Morally. Spiritually. It needs to know what kind of god you would become."
Leo looked out at the rising sun.
"And what happens if I fail?"
Riven didn't answer for a while.
Then, with a hollow voice—
"Then you become one of them."