Erevan pressed confirm.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. And then—the White Null tore itself apart. Not quietly, not like a soft sigh of absence, but with the deafening, impossible hush of erased code. Every sound unraveled. His own breaths vanished. Sir Quacksalot's quacking—gone. Even the Whisperer's endless, twisted laughter was swallowed, muted as though reality itself had yawned and devoured it whole.
The world didn't pause. It didn't even break. It unraveled.
Only the Codex glowed, pages fluttering violently, as though a storm raged within it. Glyphs, intricate and sharp, uncoiled from the pages like serpents of light and latched onto Erevan's skin. They burrowed beneath the surface, threading into veins, scraping along nerve endings with a sort of electric intent that made him shiver—and scream inwardly.
The shard in his chest throbbed, each pulse a heartbeat that wanted to escape. Fire crawled along his ribcage, and his human eye stung, tears of blood pricking at the edges. His glyph-eye spun like a storm, painting impossible images across his vision—entire timelines fracturing in and out, villages looping endlessly, people frozen mid-laughter, grotesque mannequins caught in corrupted frames of existence.
Kaelith's voice cut through the static storm, sharp and desperate.
"Erevan! Stay with me!"
Her hand shot toward him, but it dissolved mid-air into pixels before reassembling, the glow of her blade reflecting fractured, flickering versions of herself across the Null.
Vega's form jerked violently, glitching like shards of broken glass caught in a storming wind.
"If he collapses now…" their voice cracked with static, "the entire Null goes with him!"
Erevan swallowed a jagged gasp, throat on fire.
"Oh, of course," he muttered through gritted teeth, voice ragged, "the universe has a wonderful habit of tying my chest to global extinction."
From the edge of his vision, the Whisperer slithered along the void, teeth bending in impossible dimensions, grins drooling anticipation. Its voice was no longer a voice—it was raw, living code curling directly into his skull.
Yes… yes… rewrite yourself. Shed the human. Become pure code. Become mine.
Erevan gagged against the searing heat of the Codex in his palms.
"Not yours… never yours," he growled, tasting iron and static on his tongue.
Then, molten truth appeared, blazing across the Null like a challenge no mortal should withstand.
Core Rewrite Parameters
Human: Restore. Fragile, grounded, mortal.
Anomaly: Stabilize. Unstable, power unbound, dangerous.
Architect: Ascend. Rewrite reality itself.
The third option pulsed erratically, shards of jagged light slicing through the swirling glyphs. Erevan's glyph-eye spun wildly, visions overlapping.
In one breath, he saw himself lying in a sterile chamber. Tubes wired into his body, fluids shimmering against his skin. Was that… the real past? Or a trap, a lure from the rewrite, dangling omnipotence like a poisoned carrot?
Kaelith's roar tore through the Null, furious and desperate.
"Erevan! Don't let it erase who you are!"
Vega hissed, static sparking in panic.
"If you pick wrong… nothing will remain. Not you. Not any of this."
The Codex's pages twitched, almost sentient, words rearranging themselves across its surface. It reflected the chaos in his glyph-eye, pulsing in perfect sync with his hammering heart.
Memories—no, fragments of life—threaded into code and slammed into him.
He was a child, floating in a glass pod. Liquid pressed against his skin. Lungs filling, breathing without drowning. A woman in a lab coat pressed her hand to the glass, whispering words he couldn't hear—but could feel—icy and insidious along his spine.
He was older. Standing in a simulation room, staff in hand, laughing with others who weren't strangers but co-conspirators of some cruel, grand experiment. Names flashed, familiar yet foreign. Erevan—the tester, the pawn, the prototype.
And then death. Sharp, sterile, mechanical. Alarms screaming, shards piercing his flesh, a whispering voice slicing into him:
You will be the anomaly. The fail-safe.
Erevan clutched his head, blood streaking his palms, eyes wide with panic and defiance.
"No… no! This isn't me! It can't be!"
The Codex pulsed in reply, pages flipping like a furious heartbeat, words slicing through reality, demanding him to choose, to define himself amidst the strands of his fractured existence.
Kaelith's distorted, determined voice cut through the chaos.
"You're Erevan! Not some experiment. Not some system's tool! They don't get to write your story!"
The Whisperer hissed back, teeth twisting in impossible angles around him.
Define yourself, then. Rewrite it. But every rewrite costs fragments of truth.
Erevan's body quivered as light and shadow danced across his skin, glyphs lashing like serpents along his chest. The three options glowed, mocking, waiting.
Human, Anomaly, Architect.
He exhaled, voice ragged, trembling but resolute.
"Fine… if I am the rewrite… I decide what that means."
He slammed his hand onto the Codex. Pages exploded outward. Glyphs tore through the Null like a storm.
The White Null shuddered. The Whisperer screamed, teeth fracturing like glass.
Time fractured.
Memories—or something dangerously like memories—poured into Erevan all at once. They weren't orderly. They didn't make sense. One second, he was a child, floating in a glass pod, liquid pressing against him, lungs filling yet not drowning. A woman in a lab coat pressed her hand to the glass, whispering words he couldn't hear, but felt like ice crawling down his spine.
Then he was older. In a simulation chamber, staff in hand, laughing with others who weren't strangers—but pawns, testers, vessels of someone else's cruel experiment. Names flashed across his mind with intimate cruelty, familiar yet alien. He was part of it all, both subject and observer.
And then death. Alarms screamed. Shards pierced his flesh. A mechanical whisper cut through his mind:
You will be the anomaly. The fail-safe.
The Null swirled violently around him, fragments of reality peeling off like burned paper. The shard in his chest pulsed with ferocious intensity, hot enough to set his blood on fire. Glyphs coiled and recoiled over his skin, etching impossible shapes, each one reminding him that every decision was a knife-edge.
Kaelith's voice tore through the storm, desperate and unyielding:
"Erevan! You are not a tool! You are not a pawn! Do not let this… this system write you for them!"
Vega flickered, sputtering fragments of static as they tried to anchor him.
"If he fails now… everything collapses. The Null, the Codex, reality itself!"
Erevan's hands shook. The Core Rewrite parameters glowed like molten promises above the Codex:
Core Rewrite Parameters
Human: Restore. Fragile, grounded, mortal.
Anomaly: Stabilize. Unstable, power unbound, dangerous.
Architect: Ascend. Rewrite reality itself.
The third option pulsed erratically, shards of jagged light stabbing through the swirling glyphs, beckoning him with a dangerous, intoxicating lure. His glyph-eye spun, visions layering atop each other like broken film reels.
One vision showed him as a child in the sterile pod again. Another, him older, standing in the simulation chambers. And then the moment of death, the system shutting down, the shard piercing his chest. The Null itself seemed to lean closer, pressing in, whispering:
Yes… rewrite. Become the Architect. Become pure code. Become mine.
Erevan gagged, chest heaving. Blood and static coated his tongue.
"Not… yours… never yours," he spat, trembling.
The Codex pulsed in reply, almost sentient, a heartbeat syncing with his own. Its pages flipped, each movement slicing the Null like wind through silk. Words reassembled themselves constantly, demanding him to define himself, to declare which fragment of potential would survive.
Kaelith's voice cut through again, sharper, fiercer.
"You are Erevan! Not some experiment! Not their system's pawn! Hold onto who you are!"
Vega's static-cracked voice added, pleading:
"If you pick wrong… nothing will remain. Not you. Not any of this!"
The Null shrieked, folding in on itself. Light and shadow danced violently across Erevan's skin. The glyphs lashed like serpents, twisting and pulsing in rhythm with the shard, with his heartbeat, with the very fracture of reality around them.
He could feel the temptation of the Architect option, its promises of omnipotence radiating through him. He could feel the pull of Anomaly, the intoxicating surge of power unbound. And yet, Human… fragile, grounded, mortal—it whispered of who he was underneath all the chaos, beneath the shards, beneath the system's rules.
His chest heaved. His mind spun. Every memory, every shard of life, every possibility pressed into him like a living weight.
Then, amidst the chaos, a small, absurd thought broke through: This is insane. I'm supposed to pick like I'm choosing a snack, but reality is screaming and my chest is on fire.
He exhaled raggedly, hands trembling, eyes locked on the three pulsing options. Pain and defiance tangled in his veins. He could feel Kaelith's hand somewhere nearby, Vega's static-laced presence grounding him, tethering him to something real.
Erevan's voice came out in a harsh whisper, raw, almost broken, but steadying itself with every word:
"Fine… if I am the rewrite… I decide what that means."
The Codex pulsed violently, pages exploding outward, glyphs tearing through the Null like a storm breaking against a cliff. The White Null shuddered violently, and for a single heartbeat, the Whisperer screamed. Teeth fractured and scattered, powerless against the declaration forming in Erevan's mind.
He was forging himself amidst the chaos. Not entirely human, not entirely anomaly, not entirely Architect yet—but wholly himself.
Amid the chaos, a sound pierced the Null. Small, absurd… yet commanding.
A quack.
Sir Quacksalot waddled forward, glowing with a golden intensity that made every corrupted fragment of reality around him recoil. His eyes reflected entire worlds, twin suns burning with improbable authority. The quack wasn't just noise—it was a pulse, a rhythm that synced with Erevan's glyph-eye and resonated straight into the Codex.
Erevan blinked, disbelief etched across his face.
"No. No, no, no… I can't believe it… the duck is deciding my fate?"
The Codex trembled in his hands, as if acknowledging some ridiculous yet undeniable wisdom. Sir Quacksalot pecked deliberately at the glyph labeled Architect. Sparks of light shot from his beak, slicing through the chaotic swirl of glyphs like a maestro striking a final chord.
Erevan's laughter erupted—raw, fractured, tinged with delirium.
"Of course. Of course it's the damn duck. I swear… of all the moments in all the Nulls, it had to be the duck."
Even the Whisperer faltered, twisted grins contorting in confusion and fury. No! That path is forbidden!
The Codex flared violently.
Architect Selected
Immediately, pain tore through him. Glyphs coiled around his body like chains of living light, searing against skin, burrowing into muscle, binding to bone. The shard in his chest screamed, bleeding radiant energy with every pulse. His entire body was fire and ice at once, every nerve ending ablaze as reality itself tried to reconcile his existence with the rewrite.
Memories crashed in on him, raw, relentless, unstoppable.
He was a child again, trapped in glass. Liquid pressed against him, lungs filling but not drowning. The woman in the lab coat pressed a hand to the glass, whispering words he felt more than heard—cold, mechanical, shaping him without permission.
He was older, standing in simulation chambers, laughing with others—players, testers, co-conspirators in a game he never wanted to play. Names etched into his mind with intimate cruelty. He was subject and observer.
And then… death. The shard piercing, alarms screaming, mechanical whispers slicing into him: You will be the anomaly. The fail-safe.
Erevan clutched his head, blood streaking his palms, eyes spinning between human panic and glyph-driven chaos.
"No… this isn't me. I can't… I'm Erevan!"
Kaelith's voice cut through the storm, fierce, unwavering.
"You are Erevan! Not a pawn. Not a tool. Not their experiment! This is your reality!"
The Whisperer hissed, teeth bending impossibly through dimensions.
Define yourself. Rewrite. But every choice takes fragments of truth.
Pain and defiance wove through him like twin flames. Light and shadow clashed across his skin, glyphs lashing like serpents. The shard pulsed with unbearable rhythm. Time fractured. Reality trembled.
Erevan exhaled, ragged, a trembling, broken sound that somehow held steel:
"Fine… if I am the rewrite… I decide what that means."
He slammed his hand down onto the Codex. Pages exploded outward, glyphs tearing through the Null like a storm breaking against cliffs. The White Null shuddered violently. The Whisperer screamed, its teeth fracturing and scattering like shards of glass.
For a heartbeat, nothing existed. Nothing except him, the shard, and the Codex.
Then slowly, deliberately, he anchored himself.
I Am The Rewrite.
Reality bent to the declaration. The shard sealed with a blinding flash, pulsing perfectly with his heartbeat. The Codex hovered, inscribed with a single blazing command: Rewrite Me.
Kaelith stumbled forward, gripping his shoulders, eyes wide.
"You idiot. You almost erased yourself!"
Erevan coughed blood, smirked through the tremor of adrenaline and pain.
"Almost doesn't count."
Vega stabilized, glitch-fire outlining them sharply.
"He did it… he rewrote the rule of self. That's… impossible."
Sir Quacksalot quacked softly, as if reminding them who truly guided fate.
But even in this moment of grim triumph, the Null cracked wider than ever. Through the fissure, Erevan glimpsed the world beyond—a city skyline, sterile lab corridors, fragments of reality itself, as if staring at the bones of existence.
The Whisperer's voice slithered along the edges, cold, mocking: Rewrite all you want, but can you rewrite the truth?
Erevan raised the Codex, glyph-eye blazing with defiance. Heart pounding in perfect sync with the shard.
"Guess we're about to find out," he whispered.
And then, with a roar of determination, he stepped forward.
The world tore open around him.