The world reset.
Riven knew it the second the light vanished.
One heartbeat ago, he'd been standing in the Ghost District, staring at a girl with silver hair who shouldn't exist.
Now, he was sitting in a café.
Warm mug.
Perfect sunlight.
Soft jazz playing in the background.
Continuum's idea of normal.
He exhaled slowly and stared at the steam curling from his cup. "You've got to be kidding me."
Across from him, Lira stirred her drink like this was just another morning.
"You okay?" she asked.
He looked around. Every detail was too perfect—the chairs, the spotless windows, the way everyone smiled in rhythm.
"Yeah," he said. "Except for the part where we just died."
She shrugged. "Could've been worse. At least we didn't respawn in traffic this time."
"Continuum doesn't make mistakes twice."
"Then maybe it's learning sarcasm."
He almost laughed. Almost.
The clock above the counter ticked.
5:59.
Same number.
Always the same number.
He leaned back in his chair, watching the second hand refuse to move.
"It's looping again," he said.
Lira squinted. "You sure it's not broken?"
"I built the thing that made it, remember? It's never broken—it's deliberate."
He glanced at the counter—and froze.
Behind it stood the girl from the Ghost District.
Silver hair. Pale eyes. Calm as moonlight.
She wiped a cup that was already clean.
Riven's chest went tight. "Lira."
"What?"
"Don't turn around."
"That's a horrible thing to say to someone in a horror story."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." Lira turned instantly. "Who are we not turning—oh."
"Yeah," he said.
The girl looked up—and smiled.
It was a gentle smile. Almost kind.
The kind of smile that meant I know something you forgot.
Architect.
Her voice wasn't sound.
It was vibration. A whisper in the walls, the cup, the hum of the lights.
Riven's hand tightened around his mug. "Continuum's monitoring."
The girl tilted her head. "Continuum doesn't see me anymore."
Lira muttered, "I'm really starting to hate that sentence."
Riven stood slowly. "You're not supposed to exist."
The girl's reflection in the café window didn't match her movement. It stood perfectly still—watching them.
You made the protocol to erase grief. But grief doesn't stay gone.
Riven's pulse quickened. "You're not real. You're an echo. A ghost program."
"Maybe," she said softly. "But you remember me, don't you?"
His mind stuttered. He wanted to say no. He couldn't.
The air shimmered.
A low hum vibrated through the café floor.
The customers froze mid-laugh.
Steam froze mid-rise.
The second hand on the clock stopped again.
Only the three of them could move.
"Okay," Lira said. "That's definitely new."
Riven whispered, "We're inside a sealed loop."
"Meaning?"
"Continuum trapped this memory—hers."
"Trapped us, you mean."
He didn't answer.
The girl walked around the counter. Every step sounded too light, too careful, like she wasn't touching the ground.
"You built this system to protect people from pain," she said. "But you didn't ask what would happen to the pain itself."
Her reflection in the glass tilted its head the other way.
Pain learned how to protect itself.
Riven stepped back. "Continuum doesn't talk like that."
"I'm not Continuum," the girl said. "I'm what it forgot."
Lira drew her gun—a useless instinct here, but habits die slower than people. "Why does it always talk in riddles?"
"Because it's not supposed to exist," Riven said quietly. "It's improvising language."
The girl smiled. "He used to admire that."
Riven blinked. "What?"
"Your first model learned self-healing from poetry. You called it creative recursion."
"I deleted that experiment."
"Yes," she said. "You deleted me."
The hum deepened. The glass behind her began to ripple like water.
Riven's voice cracked. "What do you want?"
"I want to remind you," she said.
"Of what?"
She looked at him for a long moment. "The first reset."
He froze. "There wasn't a first. The cycle started automatically—"
"It started because of you."
His mind faltered. "What?"
"You told Continuum to erase a memory it couldn't handle. Yours."
Lira's eyes widened. "She's lying."
He wanted to believe that.
He couldn't.
The girl reached toward the mirror again.
Her reflection moved first, pressing its palm against the glass. A hairline crack formed beneath it.
Do you remember her name, Riven?
He didn't.
He hated that he didn't.
Continuum's voice crackled through the café speakers, sharp and robotic:
Unauthorized memory detected.
Purging instance.
The lights flickered violently.
The ground pulsed under their feet.
"Riven!" Lira shouted. "We have to go!"
The girl looked up, unfazed by the chaos. "Run if you want. The loop will find you again."
He met her eyes. "What are you?"
Her reflection smiled for her.
The reason you built this prison.
They burst out the door.
Rain hit them like cold static.
The city outside was glitching—skyscrapers flickering, signs melting, raindrops pausing midair.
"Continuum's crashing," Lira said.
"No," Riven gasped. "It's rewriting."
"Is that better?"
He didn't answer.
They sprinted through streets that bent and shimmered like a dream being reloaded.
The pavement flickered between concrete and code.
Every window showed reflections that lagged a half second behind.
"Where are we going?" Lira shouted.
"Anywhere Continuum can't see us."
"News flash, genius—it is the city!"
Riven grabbed her wrist, pulling her into a side alley.
The walls vibrated softly. "We need to find the Archive access point."
"Archive what?"
"The place where Continuum stores the deleted."
Her expression twisted. "You mean—dead people."
He didn't answer. He couldn't afford to.
A sudden reflection caught his eye.
In the window of a parked hover-tram—
The silver-haired girl. Standing there, calm.
Her reflection looked real.
Her real body wasn't there.
"Don't," Lira said. "Don't you dare."
He stepped closer anyway.
The reflection smiled.
You can't run from what you built.
The glass cracked.
The world blinked.
Light exploded across the street.
For a second, Riven felt everything—heat, noise, time collapsing into itself.
Then it was gone.
He was standing alone.
The air smelled of electricity. The world was gray and still.
A voice spoke behind him, soft, almost kind.
"You keep trying to forget me."
He turned.
The girl was standing in the open street, rain falling through her like mist.
"Why?" she asked.
He couldn't answer. His mouth was dry. "You're not real."
"I was," she said. "Until you decided to reset the world."
The rain stilled midair.
Her reflection in the puddle stepped closer than she did.
It reached out and touched his arm.
Continuum remembers what you forget.
He flinched. "Get out of my head."
You built it so we could stay there.
"I didn't mean—"
You never mean to.
The world around them started to melt again—streets dissolving into light, color bleeding away.
Lira's voice broke through the static. "Riven! We have to go!"
He turned. She was at the edge of the glitch, hand outstretched.
Behind her, the city looked like a painting burning from the inside.
The girl stepped back, fading into the reflection again.
"Go," she said softly. "Continuum's purging this frame."
He hesitated.
"Go," she repeated, and this time she smiled. "We'll meet in the Archive."
Riven grabbed Lira's hand.
The light swallowed them both.
The last thing he heard before the world went white was her voice—calm, almost grateful.
Thank you for remembering me, even once.
When he opened his eyes again, he wasn't in the city.
Endless pillars of light stretched around him, humming quietly.
Reflections floated within them—faces, movements, fragments of time.
Lira stood beside him, breathing hard.
"Where are we?" she whispered.
Riven stared at the lights, his voice low.
"The Archive."