When I opened my eyes, everything was quiet.
The hum of the Underlayer was gone, replaced by the low whisper of wind against concrete. I was lying on a rooftop overlooking Velridge, but the skyline didn't look right. Towers that should have glowed were dark, and streets that should have been busy were silent.
The cat stretched beside me, blinking lazily. "Either we won, or we broke the city trying."
I sat up slowly. The horizon shimmered faintly as if the air itself couldn't decide what to show me. For a moment, I saw two versions of the same street below—one full of life and color, the other empty and cracked.
The cat jumped onto my shoulder. "I'm not great with metaphors, but that doesn't look like victory."
I tried to open my communicator, but the interface wouldn't respond. Instead, a faint pulse of light flickered across the screen—Elior's symbol, distorted and looping.
I whispered, "Elior, where are you?"
The symbol pulsed once more before vanishing.
I took the stairs down, each step echoing strangely. When I reached the street, I saw a woman walking ahead, holding her child's hand. She passed right by me without looking up. I called out to her, but she didn't react. It wasn't that she ignored me—she didn't even register that I existed.
I moved closer, snapping my fingers near her ear. Nothing.
The cat's fur bristled. "Either we're ghosts, or they're sleepwalking."
I scanned the nearest terminal and froze. The system identified me, but my profile was blank. No history, no designation, no record of ever existing.
The city had forgotten me.
"Elior warned us," I murmured. "The rewriting began."
The cat pawed at the screen. "Then fix it. You're the Architect, right?"
"I can't fix what doesn't remember me," I replied quietly.
I walked further into the city. Every familiar corner felt wrong. Names of stores had changed, buildings had different numbers, and people passed through streets that didn't seem to belong to them anymore. It was as if Velridge had rewritten itself overnight.
But not everything was gone. Some walls had markings—symbols drawn in red chalk. The same symbol that glowed on Elior's pendant. I followed them through alleyways until I reached an old Bureau safehouse, half-buried under vines and time.
Inside, someone had been working. The place was alive with humming devices and scattered notes. A figure sat by a terminal, head bowed over a flickering screen.
I froze.
"Elior?"
He looked up slowly. His eyes glowed faintly, but his expression was distant, fragmented.
"Not fully," he said. "Not anymore."
I stepped closer. "You're still connected to the Underlayer."
"Part of me never left," he admitted. "When the construct collapsed, it took a piece of me with it. Now I exist between memory and reality."
The cat hopped onto the table. "Well, that's a little existential even for you."
Elior smiled weakly. "The city remembers pieces of me. But it's forgetting you. It's rewriting the Architect out of its history."
"Can we stop it?" I asked.
"Maybe," he said. "But it means going deeper—below even the Underlayer. Into the Origin Core. That's where the first memory of Velridge was written. The place where your name was born."
The room trembled faintly, and the lights flickered.
Elior stood, placing his hand on my shoulder. "If the city forgets its maker, it will lose its balance entirely. The people will start to rewrite themselves without knowing it. Memories will merge, identities will vanish."
The cat whispered, "So, apocalypse, round two."
"Something like that," Elior said softly.
I met his gaze. "Then we find the Origin Core. Before Velridge forgets what it means to be alive."
Outside, the sky split for a moment, and in the reflection of the glass windows, I saw the city's second version—the one that wasn't supposed to exist—staring back at me.
And in its mirrored streets, something was moving.