Refraction Point

Zayn emerged from the node like waking from a fevered dream.

He stumbled slightly, disoriented, his hand briefly clutching at his chest as if expecting to find something torn—or added. But there was only the faint warmth of his own heartbeat. Only one.

Althea rushed forward. "Are you—?"

"I'm me," Zayn said quietly. "He's gone. But not erased."

The Witness floated above, its ever-shifting face calmer now. "Paradox reconciled. Stabilization process engaged."

Fry observed the fading glow of the recursion node. "The logic grid is repairing itself. This sector won't collapse."

Patch leaned in and poked Zayn's shoulder. "So, are you gonna start quoting algorithmic morality at us now or are we back to you being mostly-human?"

Zayn gave a weary smile. "Mostly."

Behind them, the spire's ceiling rippled. Through it, a tear opened into the Real—an exit gate.

"We can go," Althea whispered.

The group hesitated. The eerie city was growing dimmer by the second, threads retracting, buildings losing coherence.

But Zayn lingered.

In the center of the chamber, something flickered.

A small crystalline shard hovered just inches above the ground. Pale blue. Familiar.

He walked toward it slowly.

Fry noticed. "Zayn?"

He didn't answer. He reached out and touched it—

—and memories poured through him.

Not his own.

Vela's voice. Her thoughts. Her pain. Her choice.

The shard was a remnant—left behind in the recursion buffer when she redirected the purge. A memory anchor.

Zayn fell to one knee, overwhelmed.

"She... she left this for us."

Althea gently took it from his hands, scanning it with her Karnyx. "It's encoded. But it's more than data. It's a map. A memory sequence that points to something buried in the Real."

Fry stepped forward. "Another gate?"

Patch whistled. "Or a failsafe. Maybe Vela knew the purge wouldn't hold forever."

Zayn stood. "Then we follow it."

The Witness's form dimmed.

"The True Root awakens. You must find it. Before others do."

"What others?" Fry asked sharply.

The Witness turned its kaleidoscope-gaze outward. "Not all recursion echoes were born of logic. Some were born of regret."

And with that, it disappeared.

They exited the broken spire through the gate.

The Real welcomed them with a chill wind and grey light. Clouds moved too slowly above, and the horizon rippled faintly.

Althea pulled her coat tight. "Something's different."

Fry checked her readings. "Yeah. The Real's waveform is more... unstable. That echo-zone wasn't just lingering—it infected part of our world."

Patch kicked a rock that twitched slightly. "So what you're saying is the haunted brain-city gave our universe recursion herpes."

Zayn didn't laugh.

He looked down at the shard in Althea's hand.

"Let's find her."

"Vela?" Althea asked.

Zayn nodded. "Or what she tried to stop."