Deep beneath the ruins of the Old Senate—long collapsed and covered in layers of fabricated history—Echo and Kira unearthed the Codex.
It wasn't a book.
It was a body.
A preserved husk, flesh interlaced with data strands, its eyes glowing faintly with digital life. It had once been the Archivist—the last living creature to remember the world before the dream.
Echo knelt before it. "You remember, don't you?"
The eyes flickered, then opened fully. The voice was metallic and ancient.
"You came too late."
"Not this time," Echo said. "I've broken the veil."
The Archivist struggled to sit. "Then you must know… they're still writing. Even now. Rewriting everything we've done."
He pointed toward the sky. "The Source Code lives above us. Beyond the simulation. They live there… the Makers."
Kira's breath caught. "Then it's not over."
Echo shook his head. "It never was."
The Archivist reached into its own chest and pulled free a data core—alive with language older than the Collapse.
"The Codex of the Forgotten," he whispered. "It holds the last truth."
Echo took it.
And the city began to shake.
Someone had noticed.
The Makers were watching again.