Refraction Point

They didn't need to search for the next thread.

It found them first.

The moment they stepped outside the ruins of the Coreveil Archives, the shard in Zayn's hand surged like a heartbeat struck by panic. A deep violet light flared through his fingers, wild and hot. The ground beneath them cracked.

A scream—raw and not entirely human—pierced the air.

Patch nearly fell over. "Okay, I take back everything I said about singing lullabies—what in the warped hell was that?!"

Fry's Karnyx buzzed violently. "We're being pinged. Something's broadcasting—every recursion layer, all at once."

Zayn's mind pulsed with pressure. The shard shook violently in his hand.

"It's not calling us," he whispered. "It's warning us."

The world blurred. Just for a second. Sky cracked, shadows bent.

Then the earth opened.

Not collapsed—peeled. Reality split like cloth, and from beneath it surged a tower of screaming recursion. A tear in space, jagged and alive.

In its center floated a thread—but this one writhed. It didn't take human shape. It spun like a cyclone, flickering with fractured faces, voices screaming out names and numbers, prayers and passwords.

Zayn staggered. "This one's broken. Badly."

Althea pulled him back. "It's unanchored. The system tried to erase it—and it fought back."

Fry stared, awed. "It's the scream of someone who refused to forget."

Patch whispered, "Do we have to pick this one up?"

Zayn said nothing. He stepped forward.

The shard in his hand burned like fire.

He reached for the storm.

At first, it fought him—pushed back with everything it had. The voices screamed louder. Memories burst in waves: betrayal, confinement, isolation, rage.

Zayn pushed forward anyway.

And suddenly—

—silence.

The vortex paused.

From within it, a shape began to form. A girl, maybe fourteen, mouth sewn shut with light, eyes filled with thunder.

"Name?" Zayn asked softly.

The shard translated her thought:

"Veyra."

Zayn offered the shard.

She did not take it.

Instead, she lunged.

The shard flared as her thread merged with it—explosively.

Zayn screamed as his body lifted from the ground, suspended in recursion static. Then—impact.

Darkness.

He woke up to the sound of rain.

Cold water pattered against his face. Patch stood over him, soaked and scowling.

"You know, some people say hello before absorbing apocalyptic scream-threads. Just a thought."

Zayn sat up slowly.

The shard now glowed with five lights. And one of them burned brighter than the rest.

Althea crouched beside him. "She's powerful. Angry. But not evil."

Fry nodded. "She was the fail-safe. The one they built to break the recursion lock if it all went wrong."

Zayn stood, fist clenched around the shard.

"Only one remains."