The world was quiet when it happened. Too quiet.
Kael had taken a patrol shift in Zone 3, a perimeter ring half-swallowed by collapse. Most of the buildings were condemned—except nothing really got condemned anymore. It just got ignored. Like people did. Like he did.
[QUEST: PATROL ZONE 3 – LOOK BUSY]
REWARD: +15 XP | +Visibility Reduction | +1 Chain Loyalty]
It was a joke of a quest. Walk a grid, pretend to scan things. It was meant to discourage squatters, which was hilarious—because Kael was one.
The air was thick with electrical hum and the faint scent of metal decay. His boots crunched glass as he walked past the husk of an old learning node, one of those offline memory stations meant to teach pre-chain history. The kind his mother used to drag him to, back before she—
Kael stopped.
The door was open.
Not just unlocked—open. Swinging gently, like it had been waiting.
Inside, the lights were flickering. Dust hung in the air like frozen static.
He stepped in.
Nothing activated. No interface. No tutorial voice.
But something else came online.
The screen at the far end of the room blinked once, then filled with white light. Slowly, it formed a video feed. Grainy. Low-res.
Kael's breath caught.
It was his mother.
Younger. Smiling. Holding something in her lap.
A toddler. Him.
He stumbled forward, heart hammering.
She was talking. He couldn't hear it—there was no sound—but he recognized the shape of her lips. The way she used to say his name when she thought he was sleeping.
She looked happy.
That wasn't right.
He didn't have any recordings of her like this. He didn't remember her ever looking like this.
The screen flickered.
She turned and looked straight at him.
Eyes locking with the camera—and with him.
Then her mouth moved again. Not "Kael." Not any lullaby.
Just three words:
"Don't trust it."
The screen shattered.
Kael staggered back, glass crunching underfoot. His HUD exploded with errors. Static raced across his lens. His drone screamed in his ear.
[CORE STATUS: TRIGGER EVENT REGISTERED]
[6 OF 6 COMPLETE]
[ACCESS GRANTED]
The floor beneath him lit up, one tile at a time—lines of white code burning through the grime.
[WELCOME TO THE CORE, KAEL ARDEN]
He turned—instinct, panic, something—and the world blinked out.
Not a crash. Not a fade.
A switch.
He was standing in the void again.
Only this time, it wasn't silent.
Lines of data spiraled around him. Symbols he half-understood pulsed in and out of focus. Ghost-code whispered through the air like wind.
And she was there.
The woman in white.
Closer now. Face still unreadable. But this time, she spoke.
"You broke through," she said, voice layered like overlapping radio signals. "They'll come looking now. But it's too late."
Kael's mouth was dry. "What is this?"
She looked at him—no fear, no warmth, just certainty.
" Not a game"
A pause
"Not anymore"