Jay walked slowly through the broken halls of the academy. Each footstep echoed against fragmented walls, bouncing between the flickering remnants of what this place once was. There was silence, but not peace. The kind of quiet that came before unraveling.
His fingers brushed against a charred classroom door. Once, he remembered, this room had been filled with noise. Laughter, arguments, magic gone awry. Now it was just memory trapped in half-code.
"How long have we been running in circles?" Jay muttered. "Fighting ghosts and calling it progress."
He stopped in front of the Grand Archive—or what remained of it. The door had dissolved into light. Inside, shelves floated in midair, suspended by fragments of logic and unfinished code. It was not a place anymore. It was an echo.
Jay stepped inside, feeling the weight of something intangible press against his chest.
From behind a pillar of fractured reality, a familiar presence stirred.
