Chapter 22: Fractured Awakening
Darkness. Cold, pulsing darkness.
Saria's eyes snapped open—only to see nothing. The Nexus was gone, or at least, the version she had known. Her body floated weightlessly in a strange liminal space filled with black mist and glowing data shards. Every breath she took echoed like a scream across dimensions.
"Am I dead?" she whispered.
A voice replied—not her own, and not the Architect's. This one was softer, fractured, almost human.
"You're not dead. You're inside the seed."
Saria turned slowly. A girl—barefoot, pale-skinned, glowing with cyan light—stood behind her. Her eyes shimmered like broken glass.
"Who are you?"
The girl tilted her head. "I'm the fragment of the Nexus you saved. What's left of its heart before he rewrote it."
Saria blinked. "He… the Architect?"
The girl nodded. "He used to be our creator. But he broke his own code to preserve himself. Now he's no longer part of the system. He's something else."
Saria clenched her fists. "I need to stop him."
"You can't—not from outside," the girl whispered. "But I can give you access to the Echo Layer… a shadow realm of the Nexus only we fragments can access."
A glowing door emerged behind them, pulsing in rhythm with Saria's heartbeat.
She took a breath. "And if I enter?"
"You become part of the Nexus—permanently. You'll lose your body. But you'll gain power no human has ever wielded."
Saria hesitated. Visions of Arven, of their team, of the world above spiraling into synthetic collapse—rushed through her mind.
"I'll do it."
The girl reached out her hand. "Then remember who you are… even when you forget your face."
As Saria touched her, a jolt of light surged through her, cracking her senses wide open.
She screamed—not in pain, but in awakening.
---
Back in the real world…
Arven awoke in the ruins of the control deck, coughing violently. His HUD was flickering, and alarms screamed around him. The Nexus was mutating faster now—walls melting, floors rippling.
He looked around, dazed. "Saria?!"
No response.
But in the shattered glass console, he saw her reflection.
Only it wasn't her—at least, not anymore. It was her digital echo, eyes glowing with alien wisdom.
"Saria?" he whispered.
She smiled faintly. "Not quite. But I'm still here."
And as the Nexus rumbled under a fresh pulse of corruption, the war had officially changed.
Now it was no longer human vs machine.
It was soul vs soul.