The city blinked.
Just once—like it forgot to breathe.
Riven felt it in his chest before he saw it.
The lights across the skyline flickered, buildings lagged, then reality caught up again like a skipped heartbeat.
"Another reset?"
"Another reset?" Lira asked, her voice cutting through the drizzle.
Riven didn't answer. He was too busy counting the seconds between the lightning flicker and the thunder that never came.
One. Two. Three.Nothing.
He sighed. "No. Just a glitch."
"Define 'just.'"
He didn't. Because there was nothing just about a glitch in a world designed to be perfect.
They walked fast through the empty street.The people around them moved in neat little patterns — no accidents, no noise, no mistakes.Continuum's choreography.
Once, Riven would've admired it. Now it just made him feel sick.
He touched his wristband — dead.That was good. If the band wasn't syncing, Continuum couldn't track them.Or maybe it already was. You never knew anymore.
A child ahead tripped on the curb.And then… didn't.The world reversed, rewound, corrected itself.The child kept walking, happy, dry.
Lira stopped cold. "Did that kid just—"
"Yeah."He didn't look. "System repair."
"Repairing what?"
"Reality," he muttered.
They turned down a narrow alley. The walls sweated steam and flickered faint light — the smell of metal and heat.
At the end was a door that didn't belong — rusted, old, physical.It looked out of place in a world that recycled itself every 31 days.
Lira squinted. "That thing's still standing?"
Riven brushed the dust off the handle. "Continuum doesn't delete what it can't understand."
She gave him a look. "So, what's behind it?"
He smiled. "The parts of the city even Continuum couldn't fix."
The door groaned as he pushed it open.
The Ghost District looked like the world mid-construction — half-formed buildings and streets that just… stopped.Floors floating without walls.Light flickering like breath in fog.Everything here felt unfinished. Forgotten.
Riven exhaled. "I used to design sectors like this."
"Used to?"
"Before they decided architects were too human for perfection."
Lira gave him a sidelong glance. "Guess you proved them right."
He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Then the whisper came.
Architect.
The sound slid through the fog, soft as static.
Riven froze. "You heard that?"
Lira pulled her weapon. "Yeah. Tell me it's not what I think it is."
"Echoes," he said. "Old data fragments. Leftovers from people Continuum erased."
You left us unfinished.
The fog thickened.Shapes moved within it — faint outlines of people, flickering like broken holograms.
Lira swore under her breath. "There's more than one."
Riven nodded. "Continuum doesn't delete. It repurposes."
One shape stepped forward.And Riven's stomach dropped.
Same coat. Same eyes. Same face.
It was him.
The copy tilted its head.
We are what you left behind.
Lira aimed her gun. "Which one's the real you?"
He swallowed. "Don't shoot either. You'll hit something worse."
Continuum forgets to protect itself. You built the flaw. We became it.
The ground shivered beneath their feet — the hum of a system trying to repair a paradox.
"EMP," Riven snapped.
Lira slammed the puck to the ground.
Blue light exploded, washing the fog away in an instant.Echoes screamed — not in sound, but in flashes of memory: laughter, fire, a girl standing in the rain.
Then silence.
When the light cleared, the fog was gone.
And someone was standing where the echoes had been.
A girl. Barefoot. Silver hair slicked to her face.She looked too human to be data. Too fragile to belong here.
Riven forgot how to breathe.
Lira whispered, "Who is that?"
He knew the answer.He just couldn't say it.
The girl looked up, and her eyes — pale, sharp, almost familiar — found his.
You remember.
Her lips didn't move when she spoke. The voice came from everywhere — the air, the walls, the sound of rain.
Riven took a step forward. "You're not supposed to exist."
Neither are you.
And then the world blinked again.
Light.Silence.Reset.