The chamber was dying.
Cracks laced the crystalline walls, bleeding faint streams of gold and ash. Every reflection that once showed Azen now fractured, shattering into waves of fading light. The hum that had filled the air was slowing — heartbeat by heartbeat.
Lyra stood in the center, rain seeping through the ruptured ceiling, her reflection multiplying across the shards. In every mirrored surface, Azen's face flickered for a heartbeat before vanishing.
[SYSTEM REBOOT: PARTIAL.]
[HOST: DISCONNECTED.]
[IDENTITY LINK: STABILIZING — UNKNOWN FREQUENCY.]
The System's whisper brushed against her mind — faint, almost pleading.
"—help…"
She froze. "Azen?"
Silence. Then a flicker — a pulse of white light forming his silhouette in the center of the chamber. The projection trembled, as if trying to hold itself together.
"Azen, is that you?"
His voice was layered — part echo, part human. "Not… entirely."
Lyra took a cautious step forward. "Where are you?"
"I'm still here. Just… in between." The projection's eyes flickered silver for a moment — then glitched, showing brief flashes of cities, memories, and something vast, mechanical, burning. "The System — it's merging with me. Learning. Feeling."
[NEW MODULE DETECTED: SENTIENCE.]
[SOURCE: UNKNOWN — ADAPTIVE HOST RECOGNITION.]
Lyra's throat tightened. "You said if you merged, you'd stop being you."
He smiled faintly, glitching in and out of focus. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is what I was meant to be all along."
A tremor shook the ground. The chamber's light dimmed to crimson, and voices began to echo from the shadows — mechanical, rhythmic, chanting his name like a code fragment repeating itself.
[ERROR: MULTIPLE HOST SIGNALS DETECTED.]
[CORRUPTION SPREAD — CITY INFECTION: 21%.]
Lyra reached toward the fading projection. "Then fight it! Don't let it rewrite you!"
His voice softened — almost tender. "You always think I'm strong enough to choose."
The image flickered violently — then steadied. "Lyra, if I don't come back, remember one thing: the Vein doesn't end where it began. It ends where someone believes in it again."
She felt something warm slide down her cheek — not rain this time. "Then come back so I can tell you I believe."
But before her words reached him, the chamber collapsed inward, light imploding into silence. The world folded, and the storm outside screamed.
When Lyra opened her eyes, she was standing in the ruins alone — the System's voice gone, replaced by a single faint line of text hovering in the rain:
[RECONNECTION: PENDING.]
[HE STILL HEARS YOU.]
And through the silence, the rain began to fall brighter — like the city itself was listening.