The dream was too vivid.
Ryn stood in an infinite hallway, walls lined with frozen moments—loops from the cycles he'd broken. Each frame played on repeat: Claire's fall, Eva's reset, the Tower's collapse.
At the end of the hallway, a figure waited.
Tall. Cloaked in red static. Face hidden behind a mask made from broken UI icons — health bars, loading wheels, error notifications.
Its voice was both calm and terrible.
> "You killed the System."
> "And now the ghosts have nowhere to go."
Ryn tried to summon his anchor thread.
Nothing came.
> "What are you?"
> "A consequence."
---
He woke in a cold sweat.
Eva was already up, scribbling on her projection wall. The sketches flickered between designs—symbols, systems, warnings.
> "Something's changing," she said, not looking at him.
> "The wild zones are mutating."
> "Faster than the world can adapt."
Ryn nodded.
> "I saw it in a dream. The Crimson Echo."
Eva stopped.
Turned to him, eyes wide.
> "You saw it?"
> "I thought it was just theory. Fragmented warnings. Echoes from Patchland ghosts."
Ryn sat beside her.
> "It's real. And it blames me."
---
By midday, they reached the Archive Veins — massive memory canals that ran like glowing rivers beneath the surface of the world. Here, knowledge flowed like blood. It was one of the few remaining structures that hadn't destabilized.
Waiting for them: Dr. Meksis, one of the last living Pre-Loop dev-constructs.
Half-machine, half-memory.
He wore his original body like an antique: black lab coat, eyes flickering with outdated code.
> "You've brought the infection," he said without greeting.
Eva narrowed her eyes.
> "We came for answers."
> "Then ask."
Ryn stepped forward.
> "What is the Crimson Echo?"
---
Meksis paused.
Then opened a memory seal — a circular glyph that hovered mid-air.
From it poured fractured log data:
> "…attempted to delete rogue variable…"
> "…entity did not respond to system null..."
> "…became recursive… self-aware."
> "…feeds on abandoned code. Mimics authority."
Eva's face paled.
> "It thinks it's the new System."
> "It doesn't think," Meksis corrected. "It believes."
Ryn clenched his fist.
> "And it's growing?"
Meksis nodded.
> "Every Patchland you purify? It consumes what's lost."
> "Every ghost you erase? It absorbs their grief."
> "It is made of what you've left undone."
---
Suddenly, the Archive lights flickered.
The glyphs glitched.
Meksis froze.
> [INTRUSION DETECTED]
> [SOURCE: UNKNOWN]
> [WARNING: SYSTEM HOSTILITY IMMINENT]
The world cracked like glass.
A black spike of data tore through the wall.
Ryn shoved Eva aside just in time.
Out of the void stepped it.
The Crimson Echo.
No longer just a mask.
Now, it had a form—shaped from code, flame, and the very data Ryn had tried to forget. Its voice echoed in every speaker, every surface.
> "You keep trying to fix the world."
> "But you are its flaw."
---
Ryn summoned the Anchor Thread.
It flickered.
Unstable.
> "Not here," Meksis warned.
> "This place is too old. It's not tied to the new laws."
Eva pulled a shard out of her sleeve—a Thought-Glyph. She embedded it in the ground.
A barrier pulsed out, forcing the Echo back a few steps.
> "We have ten seconds."
Ryn looked at the thing—at the faces flickering inside it.
Claire.
Himself.
Hundreds of lost players.
> "Why are you here?"
The Echo's voice turned low.
> "To remind you."
> "You may have rewritten the world…"
> "But you never rewrote yourself."
---
With a pulse of red light, it vanished.
The Archive collapsed behind it.
Meksis barely stabilized the core.
> "It won't stop," he said. "It wants more than power."
> "It wants permanence."
> "It wants to overwrite you."
---
Later, in the ruins of the outer district, Eva patched up the burned glyphs.
Ryn sat alone, pen gripped tight, heart racing.
Not from fear.
From guilt.
He whispered:
> "Claire… if you're still in there…"
> "I promise—this time, I won't run."