Kael woke to the sound of wind moving through broken things.
Not the clean whistle of air through trees or alleyways, but the restless whisper of debris—loose metal clinking against concrete, torn banners snapping from skeletal towers, glass shifting where it should have long ago fallen. The sound carried memory with it, as though the city itself were trying to speak and failing to form words.
For a moment, Kael didn't move.
He lay on his back atop cold stone, staring at a sky bleached thin by dawn. Pale light filtered through clouds that looked scraped rather than shaped, like someone had tried to erase the night and done a poor job of it.
He breathed in.
His chest rose.
He was alive.
That thought used to bring relief.
Now it brought unease.
---
The Hollow District
The place the Unbound had brought him to was known—at least in fragmented records—as Hollowpoint District. Once, it had been a dense residential and commercial zone. Now it was a dead space, quarantined not by walls but by neglect.
No one came here unless they were lost, desperate, or deliberately hiding.
Buildings leaned at incorrect angles, their foundations subtly rewritten by long-past Revisions. Streets curved where they shouldn't, looping back into themselves like unfinished sentences. Old signage flickered with corrupted light, repeating the same half-second of animation over and over.
Kael pushed himself upright, joints protesting.
His body felt… wrong.
Not injured—lighter. As if some internal resistance he hadn't known was there had been quietly removed.
He searched himself instinctively for the thing he had erased.
Nothing answered.
That was the worst part.
---
The Unbound's Philosophy
"You're awake faster than expected."
The voice came from nearby, calm and almost amused.
Kael turned.
The Unbound sat atop a collapsed light pole a few meters away, one leg dangling, the other folded beneath them. In the clearer light of morning, Kael could make out more details—layers of clothing stitched from different eras, different lives. A sleeve that looked like a school uniform. Boots that might have once belonged to a soldier. Fabric that shimmered faintly with unresolved data.
Their mask remained unreadable, its text constantly shifting, refusing coherence.
"How long was I out?" Kael asked.
"Thirty-seven minutes," the Unbound replied. "Long enough for the Archivum to lose your trail. Short enough that you didn't forget anything new."
Kael frowned.
"That's… comforting, I guess."
The Unbound hopped down lightly, boots crunching on glass.
"Welcome to Hollowpoint," they said, gesturing broadly. "A city margin. A place the Grave Circuit never bothered to fully correct."
Kael followed their gesture, eyes tracing the warped skyline.
"It feels like it's watching me," he said.
The Unbound laughed softly.
"It is."
---
A Name, Finally
They walked.
No destination announced, just movement through the ruins. Kael noticed the Unbound never stepped on unstable ground, never hesitated before choosing a path—even when the street ahead folded into something impossible.
"You keep calling me 'the Unbound,'" Kael said after a while. "Do you have a name?"
They paused.
For a fraction of a second, the text on their mask stuttered.
"I did," they said. "Once."
Kael waited.
They didn't continue.
"…What should I call you now?" he asked.
Another pause.
"Riven," they said at last. "It's not what I was born with. But it's what's left."
Kael nodded.
"Kael," he offered, then winced. "I mean—you already know that."
Riven tilted their head.
"I know your record," they said. "Not you. There's a difference."
That distinction lingered uncomfortably.
---
Internal Conflict — The Fear of Becoming Empty
As they walked, Kael's thoughts kept circling the same point.
What happens when there's nothing left to erase?
He remembered Iria's words: When an Editor reaches zero, they stop being human.
Kael didn't feel powerful. He felt… temporary. Like a solution that worked only because it wasn't meant to exist.
"Why help me?" he asked suddenly.
Riven glanced at him.
"Because you shouldn't exist," they said plainly. "And neither should I. The Circuit hates that."
"That's it?"
"No," Riven said. "It's also because you scare me."
Kael stopped walking.
"Good," he said. "That makes two of us."
Riven smiled beneath the mask. He could hear it in their voice.
---
The Second New Face — Lysa Calder
They reached a structure that looked less broken than the others—a transit hub half-swallowed by creeping vines and data-scarred concrete. Inside, dim lights glowed steadily, uncorrupted.
Someone lived here.
A voice rang out the moment they crossed the threshold.
"Riven, if that's another stray Editor, I swear I'm not patching them up again—"
A woman emerged from behind a stack of salvaged equipment, mid-sentence, then froze when she saw Kael.
She was around Kael's age, maybe a year or two older. Short dark hair tied back messily, goggles perched on her head. Her clothes were practical, layered, stained with oil and ink. A faint shimmer of Interface glyphs hovered near her wrists, dormant but ready.
She stared at Kael like he was a live grenade.
"…Oh," she said. "You brought that."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"Nice to meet you too."
Riven spread their hands.
"Kael, this is Lysa Calder. Margin engineer. Revision medic. Chronic overreactor."
Lysa scowled.
"I don't overreact," she snapped. "I react appropriately to existential threats."
Her eyes flicked back to Kael.
"He's wrong," she said. "I can feel it."
Kael exhaled.
"Yeah," he said. "I get that a lot."
---
Lysa's Perspective
Lysa circled Kael slowly, her gaze sharp and analytical. She wasn't hostile—not exactly—but alert in the way of someone who'd survived by trusting her instincts.
"You don't resonate," she said. "Your record… it's like static. Like trying to read a page that's already been burned."
Kael shifted uncomfortably.
"Sorry?"
Riven leaned against a console.
"She's not being metaphorical," they said. "Lysa can read residuals. It's how she fixes people the Archivum writes off."
Lysa shot them a look.
"I don't fix people," she said. "I keep them from unraveling."
Her gaze softened just a fraction.
"Usually."
She stopped in front of Kael.
"What did you erase?" she asked.
Kael opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His stomach dropped.
"I… don't know," he admitted.
Lysa's jaw tightened.
"That's what I was afraid of."
---
Flashback — The First Erasure
That night, as Kael lay on a makeshift cot inside the hub, sleep came in fragments.
And with it—memory.
Not clear, not complete.
Just an image.
Himself, younger, standing at a crossroads in the rain. Two paths. One lit, safe, known. The other dark, uncertain.
He remembered choosing the light.
He did not remember why that mattered.
He woke with his heart pounding, the sensation of loss heavy and undefined.
---
Symbolism — The City of Margins
The next day, Lysa took him to the roof.
From there, Hollowpoint stretched out like a scar—beautiful in its brokenness. Plants grew where concrete had cracked, fed by strange energies. Birds nested in impossible places. Life persisted in the margins the Circuit had abandoned.
"This place exists because no one corrected it," Lysa said quietly. "The Archivum tried once. Lost three Redactors and a Vault."
She looked at Kael.
"Sometimes, what's broken survives better than what's preserved."
Kael thought of Iria.
Of her calm certainty.
"Sometimes," he said. "Broken just means waiting to collapse."
Lysa met his gaze.
"Or waiting to change."
---
The Third New Presence — A Watcher
Riven stiffened suddenly.
"Someone's here," they said.
The air shifted.
A ripple passed through the skyline, subtle but wrong.
High above, on a distant tower, a figure stood—still, observing.
Even from this distance, Kael felt the weight of their attention.
Archivum.
Or something worse.
"They found me," Kael said.
Lysa shook her head.
"No," she said. "They found us."
Riven's voice was grim.
"Looks like your existence is already rewriting the board, Kael."
Kael clenched his fists, feeling the hollow spaces inside himself stir.
He didn't want to erase anything else.
But he also didn't want to disappear.
---
Choice, Again
As alarms began to hum softly through the hub, Kael realized something.
This was the pattern.
Choice followed by loss.
Action followed by erasure.
The Grave Circuit demanded payment.
But maybe—just maybe—he could choose what he lost.
He looked at Riven. At Lysa. At the city that shouldn't exist but did anyway.
"I don't want to be preserved," he said. "And I don't want to become nothing."
Riven crossed their arms.
"Then you'll have to learn something no Editor ever does."
"What's that?" Kael asked.
Riven smiled, sharp and sincere.
"How to live with what you refuse to erase."