"Return the core."
The voice didn't echo.
It engraved itself into the space between Kael's thoughts.
The Lattice Watcher floated inches above the salt stone, cloaked in silence. Its presence pressed against Kael's ribs like invisible chains.
Mara stood frozen beside him.
Knife half-drawn.
Eyes locked.
Breath held.
Kael didn't move.
The bottle pulsed once—
then steadied.
He reached down.
Fingers brushed cool glass.
The lines on his arm shimmered faintly beneath his skin.
"I don't even know what it is," Kael said.
His voice was quiet.
But steady.
"Witness Node A-3 must comply," the Watcher replied.
"The core predates your identity. It belongs to function, not flesh."
"Return it. Or be overwritten."
Kael swallowed.
The word overwritten tasted wrong.
Familiar.
Like it had almost happened before.
Like it still might.
Mara whispered beside him.
"Kael… if they take it—"
"I die."
"Maybe not—"
"No," he said.
And stepped forward.
The Watcher raised a hand.
Not to strike.
To wait.
A gesture of calculated mercy.
Kael tightened his grip on the bottle.
"I won't give it up."
Silence fell.
Then:
"Witness Node refusal confirmed."
"Error condition detected."
"Initiating branch collapse protocol."
The sky dimmed.
The ground beneath Kael's feet bent—
—not cracking—
—but shifting like reality was folding inward.
Mara cried out as her boots slid across tilting stone.
The bottle flared.
Not light.
Code.
Symbols raced along its surface, looping across the glass in living golden circuits.
Kael's arm burned—
—but he held on.
A voice—not from the Watcher—cut through the collapse.
"Override: Witness Sovereign Protocol 1-7."
The air snapped.
The Watcher jerked back—
Then froze mid-hover.
Locked.
Halted.
Like an insect caught in amber.
Kael gasped.
The bottle pulsed again.
Once.
Twice.
Then dimmed.
Mara grabbed his sleeve, dragging him back.
"We need to run."
"What did I just do?"
"Survive," she snapped.
"Now move!"
They sprinted up the ravine path.
Behind them, the Lattice Watcher remained motionless—
light flickering across its armor like dying stars.
But its eyes—if it had any—
watched.
Kael didn't look back.
He couldn't.
Not now.
Not yet.
The path ahead split—
one toward the broken salt plains,
one deeper into the old channels beneath the cliffs.
Mara chose the dark.
They vanished into the stone.
Minutes later—
The Watcher stirred.
Just slightly.
Its fingers flexed once.
And it spoke—
not aloud,
but into the silent network buried beneath the world.
"Node A-3 has diverged."
"Witness protocol… corrupted."
"Initiate secondary intercept."
"Send the Recorder."