The desert dissolved behind him.
Kael stood now in what looked like a library, but the air was freezing, and the books were not paper. Each one was a cube, glowing faintly, pulsing with rhythm like a heartbeat.
> Third fragment acquired.
> Memory Plague spreading…
That last line haunted him.
Every step he took now was warping reality. Not metaphorically—literally. His presence infected each layer with something the system had spent cycles burying.
Truth.
But truth, unprocessed, was dangerous.
It wasn't a weapon.
It was a disease.
---
Kael walked through the aisles of memory-cubes. Most hovered still. But a few flickered, twitched, or wept.
Yes—some dripped liquid from between their edges. Blue, like coolant. Or tears.
One cube rolled off its shelf and bounced to his feet.
It whispered.
> "This one's not yours."
Kael picked it up anyway.
And the moment he touched it—the library went dark.
---
A flash—
A scream—
An ocean that reflected nothing—
And a hallway made of people's open mouths—
---
Kael gasped as the vision ended.
The cube melted in his hand.
It wasn't his memory.
It wasn't anyone's.
It was an Unauthorized Memory—a scrap of data never meant to exist. Something the system didn't create. Something older.
Before the Protocol. Before the Subjects. Before Kael.
The air pulsed.
A deep, grinding sound echoed across the library.
Not footsteps. Not movement.
A reset signal.
The system had noticed.
> "Intrusion Detected."
"Core Memories Leaking."
"Deploying Architect."
Kael backed up.
> "Architect?"
He knew that term.
The Architect wasn't a person.
It was a failsafe.
A world-sized entity. A protocol in physical form. It didn't repair layers. It reconstructed them from scratch. Entire cities, minds, simulations—erased and rewritten in seconds.
The sky above the library split like glass.
The Architect began to descend.
Not a being.
A blueprint of light and void, building itself as it fell—spires, engines, symbols.
Kael turned to run—but the shelves were already vanishing.
He wasn't in a library anymore.
He was inside a memory storm.
And it wasn't made of his thoughts.
It was made of everything the system ever erased.
People. Rooms. Events. Mistakes.
The memories had nowhere left to go—so they clung to him.
One voice echoed louder than the rest.
> "Kael… you were never supposed to wake up. Not really. You were the failsafe too."
> "You just forgot."
---
End of Chapter Eight