The sky didn't open.
It was rewritten.
Aarav watched as the violet clouds above Drift-City peeled apart like layers of code, revealing something beneathsomething that wasn't supposed to be visible. Lines of glowing symbols ran across the exposed sky, moving, reshaping themselves in patterns too complex to follow.
The air thickened.
Gravity wavered.
And then the Architects arrived.
They did not descend.
They resolved into existence.
Three figures formed where the sky had been rewrittentall, faceless, wearing structures that resembled robes made of geometry. Their bodies weren't solid. They shimmered with layers of light, each layer showing a different version of the same being.
Aarav couldn't breathe.
Mira grabbed his arm, digging her fingers into his skin. "Don't look at them too long."
"Why?" he whispered.
"Because they'll start editing you."
The first Architect tilted its head.
And suddenly
Aarav remembered things that had never happened.
A childhood where his parents never fought.
A version of him who drowned at seven.
A future where he died alone on a train platform.
He gasped, clutching his chest.
"Stopstop doing that!" he yelled.
The Architect's voice didn't come from its mouth.
It came from everywhere.
"Witness identified."
Aarav's phone exploded with alerts.
> MULTIVERSAL AUTHORITY DETECTED
RISK LEVEL: ABSOLUTE
RUN
Mira didn't need to be told twice.
She yanked him forward, and they sprinted deeper into the tower.
Behind them, Drift-City began to decompile.
Buildings turned into glowing wireframes. People froze mid-motion, then shattered into fragments of light. Streets folded into themselves like collapsing paper.
"They're erasing the entire reality!" Aarav screamed.
"They do that," Mira shouted back. "It's Tuesday for them!"
"WHY?!"
"Because it deviated!"
They slid through a narrowing corridor as a wall behind them dissolved into glowing dust.
Aarav's lungs burned. His thoughts were racing.
"They decide what realities live or die?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Who gave them that right?!"
Mira glanced back at him.
"That's the question that gets people erased."
They burst into a circular chamber. In the center floated a massive holographic sphere, filled with shifting universessome bright, some dark, some flickering like dying bulbs.
Mira slammed her hand onto a console.
"Emergency jump!" she yelled.
Aarav staggered. "Jump where?!"
"Anywhere that's not here!"
The room shook violently.
A shadow stretched across the wall.
One of the Architects stepped through the door without opening it.
Reality bent around it like it was made of rubber.
Aarav felt the thing looking at him.
Not with eyes.
With probability.
"Witness anomaly confirmed."
Mira stood in front of him. "Back off, glitch-god."
The Architect raised its hand.
Mira screamed.
Her body flickered.
Aarav's heart slammed against his ribs. "Mira!"
Her arm pixelated, dissolving into glowing squares.
"Nononono"
Something inside Aarav snapped.
The symbol on his chest ignited.
The room slowed.
Not timemeaning.
He could see the Architect's layers. The logic behind it. The rules it obeyed.
And the loopholes.
Aarav stepped forward.
"Stop," he said.
The Architect paused.
"You do not have clearance."
"Then grant it."
Mira stared at him. "Aarav, what are you doing?"
"I don't know," he said honestly.
But he felt something guiding him.
Like a memory from a future he hadn't lived yet.
Aarav raised his hand and pulled.
Reality bent.
The Architect's layers desynchronized.
For the first time
It reacted.
"Paradox detected."
Aarav pushed harder.
The Architect stumbled back.
Mira gasped.
"You're… you're destabilizing it!"
"I don't want to!" Aarav yelled. "I just want it to stop hurting people!"
The Architect's form glitched violently.
Then the other two moved.
The room fractured.
Mira slammed the jump sequence.
"Hold onto something!"
Aarav barely had time to grab her before
The universe folded.
They were torn through something that wasn't space.
Aarav saw flashes:
A city made of glass.
A forest growing upward into the sky.
A world where humans had wings.
A black void filled with screaming stars.
Then
They crashed.
Hard.
Aarav hit solid ground, rolling, coughing.
He lay there for a moment, staring up at a pale blue sky.
Normal.
Too normal.
Birds chirped.
Trees rustled.
He sat up slowly.
They were in a park.
Children were playing.
People were laughing.
Ice cream trucks.
No glitches.
No cracks.
No horrors.
Aarav blinked. "Did we… die?"
Mira lay beside him, staring at the sky.
"No," she whispered. "We hid."
She turned to him.
"You just attacked an Architect."
Aarav swallowed. "I didn't mean to."
"They don't care about intention."
She sat up.
"Do you understand what you are now?"
He shook his head.
Mira took a deep breath.
"Witnesses don't just observe."
"They interfere."
Aarav looked at his hands.
They were still faintly glowing.
"So I'm not a viewer," he said.
"I'm a problem."
Mira nodded.
"To the people who control reality? Yeah."
He let out a shaky laugh. "Of course I am."
Mira's expression softened.
"You saved me."
Aarav looked at her.
"You matter now," she added. "Which means you're in danger."
Aarav stared at the peaceful park.
The laughing kids.
The normal people.
"How long until they find us?"
Mira checked a device on her wrist.
"…Minutes. Maybe less."
Aarav closed his eyes.
"Okay," he said. "Then tell me everything."
She hesitated.
Then
"Okay, Witness," she said. "Let me tell you how reality actually works."
Above them, unseen
Something recalculated.