The dream was not a dream.
It bled into the waking world like ink into water—slow, absolute, inescapable.
Clara's breath caught the moment she opened her eyes. Her room, normally pulsing with soft ambient data, was silent. No HUD. No greeting protocol. No ambient sync. Just her heart—accelerated.
The image was still there.
A collapsed dome, half-swallowed by earth, its surface cracked like old glass. Symbols flickered along the walls—symbols she had never seen, but that felt unbearably familiar.
At the center: a void.
She wasn't alone.
[System Status: OFFLINE][Memory Residue Detected: Collective Dream Signature][Fragment: "Return to the Ruin."][Verdict Suspension: Confirmed]
Clara rose.
Her fingers twitched toward her interface—still inert. Panic rose, then quieted as she heard a knock.
Not digital.
Physical.
Mateo stood on the threshold, eyes darker than usual. He didn't need to speak. His face was an echo of her own shock.
"You saw it too," she said.
He nodded once.
They walked without a word. Léo met them at the convergence plaza, hood half-drawn, no gadgets. His smile was gone. In its place: quiet urgency.
"There's a spot," he said.
He pointed to a rough triangulation on his old analog map—a relic they rarely used.
"South of Gaia-City. Not on any recent logs. But our dream—it's pinned here."
He didn't ask if they'd follow.
They were already moving.
The path was rough—overgrown, unnavigated. Birds chirped without interface tags. No guidance. No quests. The deeper they went, the more the world reverted.
Eventually, the moss changed color. The sky bent. Their HUDs, one by one, failed.
[System Sync: Interrupted][XP Flow: Terminated][Trait Detection: NULL]
When the last layer vanished, silence followed. Not absence of sound, but something more complete—a blanket over meaning.
They had arrived.
The Ruin lay ahead.
It didn't belong to the world they knew. Its architecture was pre-GaIA—brutalist, worn, inscribed with spirals that moved even in stillness.
Clara stepped first, feeling the hum in her bones.
[Glitch Detected – Interface Unavailable][Warning: Memory Interference Active][System Response: NONE]
The air shimmered. A low tone pressed against their skin.
"It's speaking," Mateo whispered.
No voice answered.
Yet they heard it.
A presence. Not digital. Not spiritual. Something in-between.
We see your steps.We were before.You abandoned the first pact.Now return.
The ground shifted. What seemed like dust flowed upward. Not levitating—reversing.
Léo staggered.
"It's pulling from us," he muttered. "Not memory. Prememory."
They entered the broken arch. The deeper they walked, the more the laws of the Nexus warped. Fractals decayed into raw shapes. Past and present dissolved into gestures.
Then—the pit.
Circular. Quiet. Pulsing with a rhythm not meant for ears.
At its edge, a crystal. Dim. Pale green. Almost organic.
Léo stepped closer.
"Something's in there," he said, voice thin.
Clara reached for his arm. Too late.
He touched it.
Silence exploded.
Not a sound—but every absence of sound.
And then his body froze.
But his voice echoed around them.
Not through lips.
Not through interface.
Through the Ruin.
This is not me.This is me before.You gave me shape.I remember your forgetting.
[System Shock Detected – External Voice Pattern: MATCH UNKNOWN][User: LÉO | Status: FROZEN][Trait Extraction: INITIATED][Verdict Generation: OVERRIDDEN]
Clara fell to her knees.
Mateo backed away, hands trembling.
The walls of the Ruin began to glow—not with light, but with questions.
One etched itself into the air, vast, undeniable.
What is older than memory but speaks in your name?
Léo's body remained still.
But his voice spoke again.
Only this time…
It wasn't in human language.
It was the original code.
And it had begun to rewrite.