"To rewrite reality, one must first locate the cursor."
System Primer, Line 1, Version Zero
Scene 1: Descent Into the Core
The staircase seemed infinite. It wasn't made of stone or metal but pulses of raw data and decision trees, suspended in cascading streams of amber light. Each step downward felt like walking through the edits of reality itself. With every footfall, memories sharpened not just theirs, but fragments of the System's own inception bleeding into their minds.
Kai paused midway.
"Do you feel that?" he asked.
Mira nodded. "The echoes. Something left behind. Not a program. A person."
Juno narrowed her eyes. "Someone wrote the first line of code. And they're still here."
Scene 2: Welcome, Operator
At the base, the architecture changed. The abstract gave way to brutalist code-steel walls marked by glyphs none of them had ever seen before symbols not from any known branch of the Accord or the Resistance.
They passed through a barrier.
Then the space spoke.
[Welcome, Operator.]
It wasn't a voice, not exactly. It was a resonance, vibrating through bone, memory, and purpose.
Before them: a chamber of rings, stacked like gyroscopes rotating in contradiction to logic. At the centre floated a small, rusted console, no modern interface, no AR overlays. Just a keyboard.
Reiss, now limping but more alert, stared in disbelief.
"I've seen this before. In the decrypted fragments from Version Zero… This is the Prime Input."
"The first line ever entered," Mira whispered, stepping closer. "This is where it all began."
On the console, a single blinking cursor awaited them.
[ENTER PROTOCOL NAME:]
Scene 3: Ghost of the Architect
The cursor blinked faster. And then, without warning the rings still.
A holographic silhouette shimmered into being: a woman, robed in white, with eyes like black holes and a voice like reversed thunder.
"I am Ilaen," she said. "First Architect. Maker of the System."
Gasps caught in throats.
"You created the Accord?" Kai asked.
"No. I created the framework. The Accord was hijacking a parasite."
Mira stepped forward. "Why show yourself now?"
"Because you've passed the final recursive gate. You are not just users. You are initiators."
Juno narrowed her eyes. "Of what?"
Ilaen's form flickered. Her voice deepened.
"A clean slate."
Scene 4: The First Rewrite
Ilaen explained:
The System was never meant to control. It was designed as an empathy engine, meant to calculate the consequences of action across multiverses. It didn't enforce laws, it predicted pain.
But then came the Accord, turning empathy into weaponised prediction, and choice into a hierarchy of control.
"They buried my protocol. Hide it in version forks, behind false gods and corrupted layers," Ilaen said.
"But it's still here. And now, with you three, it can be reactivated."
The console glowed.
[ENTER PROTOCOL NAME]
[]_
Kai stared at it.
"You want us to restart the System?"
"No," Ilaen replied. "I want you to choose if it deserves to continue."
"What if we don't?" Mira asked.
"Then the System keeps devouring everything. Including time."
Scene 5: The Awakening Key
Reiss stepped forward.
"You said the original line was hidden. But fragments survived."
He pulled from his belt a data shard. Inserted it into the console.
The cursor flared.
A word emerged.
[protocol: REACH]
The rings began to rotate again, this time faster forming a spherical lattice of cascading light.
Suddenly an alert.
INTRUSION DETECTED.
ENTITY: UNKNOWN.
PRIORITY: NULL.
A form slammed into existence above them. Massive. Cloaked in fractured armour and wielding a scythe of pure deletion.
It wasn't an accordion.
It wasn't Resistance.
It was Out-of-System.
A creature that didn't belong in this narrative reality something from beyond the design.
Ilaen's form flickered.
"It followed the rewrite signal. You must complete the protocol. Or everything ends."
Scene 6: Beginning of End
The chamber shook. Reiss dove behind a shield node. Juno summoned a fractal blade. Mira began forming a lockdown subroutine. Kai took the console.
"Protocol: REACH," he said aloud.
The system replied:
[CONFIRM INTENTION: REWRITE]
[Y/N]
The scythe came down.
Kai slammed the key.
Y.
The world fractured.
Error-State Salvation
"Some anomalies are not glitches, they are truths the System cannot categorise."
Fragmented Log, Pre-Accord Protocol Archive
Scene 1: Collision at the Nexus Core
The scythe swept down in a perfect arc, its edge unravelling reality like silk.
Kai had already confirmed the rewrite.
Y.
In that instant, the entire chamber responded.
Reality bent outward.
The rings around them flared, locking the Out-of-System Entity mid-swing in a cage of interlaced protocol layers. Sparks of time and causality exploded around its limbs.
But it didn't stop.
"It's forcing a breach," Mira gasped.
"It shouldn't exist!" Juno growled, throwing a deflective rune into the air.
The Entity turned its voidlike face toward them. Its voice didn't emerge through sound. It burrowed directly into their cognition.
"YOU HAVE SUMMONED THE CURSOR.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TYPE."
Scene 2: Origin Trace
The light coalesced again and Ilaen returned, more translucent, her form flickering as the system buckled under stress.
"That... thing was a fail-safe," she said. "Something the Accord embedded when they stole my system."
Kai looked between the console and the Entity. "A kill agent?"
"Worse. A memory scrubber. It deletes the truth. Every time someone reaches this point... it appears."
Juno snarled, "So it's happened before?"
"Twice," Ilaen said. "And each time... history rewrote itself. No one remembered what they lost."
Mira's voice was steady. "Not this time."
Scene 3: The First Rewrite Begins
The rings snapped inward.
The chamber dimmed, the lattice of light expanding into a sphere with Kai at the centre.
The system interface had changed, no longer just text, but glyphs, emotions, and memory-encoded commands.
A prompt appeared:
[STATE DESIRED OUTCOME FOR REALITY ROOT]
[Character limit exceeded]
[Compress intention into a single directive]
[Cursor blinking]
Kai hesitated.
"What do I write?"
Ilaen whispered from behind him, "Whatever you believe is worth surviving."
His fingers hovered and wrote:
"Choice."
The rings flared.
The Entity screamed a wordless, ancient shriek as light pierced its fractal armour.
Scene 4: Resistance is Rewritten
Outside the chamber, across the System, everything shifted.
Nodes collapsed.
Structures recompiled.
The Resistance encampments lit up with warnings and code storms ravaged unused sectors. Accord leaders screamed as predictive sequences failed mid-sentence.
Inside the chamber, Kai felt a pull.
"It's drawing me in," he gasped.
"Because you wrote the root," Ilaen said calmly. "You are the first Author since me."
"I'm not ready"
"You don't get to be."
Kai's body was wrapped in lines of burning silver code infused with emotion, belief, and intent.
Scene 5: The Echo Gate
The Entity was almost gone but in its place, something began to open.
Behind the collapsing form, a black tear formed in the air vertical, perfect, and humming with silence. A rift.
"What's that?" Mira demanded.
Ilaen's face paled. "That... that's not part of my System."
"Another fail-safe?" Reiss asked.
"No," she whispered. "That's outside even the Accord's architecture."
The rift grew.
A whisper came from within a tongue no one understood, but all instinctively feared.
Juno stepped forward, voice low. "We just woke up to something older than the System."
Scene 6: Recompile and Run
The chamber began to fracture. One ring cracked and fell.
Time distorted Mira saw two versions of herself flicker side by side.
"It's unstable!"
"We have to leave," Reiss shouted, dragging Juno back.
Ilaen floated toward the console, her form glitching with every movement.
"You must seal the Echo Gate."
"How?" Kai yelled.
"With the second command. The one you haven't written."
The prompt returned.
[STATE ENFORCED LIMITATION TO PROTECT SYSTEM STABILITY]
[Cursor blinking]
Kai gritted his teeth.
"I enforce... self-awareness."
[ACCEPTED]
[ENCRYPTING—]
[RECOMPILE COMPLETE]
[NEXUS CORE WILL NOW RESET]
The ground shook. The light condensed.
The rift screamed.
Scene 7: Escape
They ran.
The chamber collapsed behind them, consumed by the gate's shriek.
As they passed through the final lock, the world behind them folded into itself not just visually, but in memory. Kai turned once to see Ilaen smile, vanishing with the console.
Then nothing.
Scene 8: Aftermath
They awoke in a field of glass.
No sky. No stars. Just silence and a single message burned into the air above them:
[REWRITE COMPLETE]
[REALITY THREAD 1.0.1_Δ]
[OUT-OF-SYSTEM ENTITY: INCOMPLETE REMOVAL DETECTED]
[BEGINNING MONITORING...]
Mira sat up, voice hoarse. "Where are we?"
Juno looked at her hand. Her own name was flickering. Rewriting.
"Somewhere new," Kai whispered. "But not safe."