Kael stared at the statue of himself — older, worn, glorified. The words at the base echoed louder than the fracture itself:
"Protocol Activated: You Already Failed."
> "ADA," he whispered. "Pull me out. This echo… it's trying to overwrite me."
> "Negative," her voice replied, glitching. "Consciousness anchor compromised. Extraction in 13 minutes, 27 seconds."
The cobbled street rippled beneath his feet. Citizens walked past as if on loops, repeating the same gestures — blinking, nodding, turning — but never noticing him. A girl dropped a red marble. It rolled. Then reversed. Dropped again. Repeat.
"They're memory ghosts," Kael muttered. "This isn't a future. It's a simulation stitched from old thoughts."
He needed to find the source — the anchor that held this false timeline in place.
---
He sprinted through the crowdless crowd, pushing through flickering doorways, until he found a spiral tower wrapped in copper coils. It pulsed with green static.
> "Chrono Anchor detected," ADA buzzed. "Encryption level: Omega Prime."
Kael's hand trembled. "Omega Prime? That's... my code."
He placed his palm against the glowing plate. A searing jolt coursed through his nerves.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The tower split open like a blooming flower.
Inside floated a glowing orb of memory. Inside it — a face.
His father.
> "Hello, Kael," the projection said.
Kael's breath stopped.
"You're dead."
> "Yes," the echo smiled sadly. "But this isn't me. It's the idea of me. And someone's using it to control your choices."
> "Who?" Kael asked.
The orb shimmered violently.
> "I don't know. But they're rewriting time to make you believe you have no choice. The Protocol... it was never yours. It was theirs."
Suddenly, a black tendril of code slashed through the air — tearing the memory apart.
> "Connection disrupted," ADA warned. "Consciousness breach detected. Unauthorized entity inside echo."
Kael turned.
From the darkness, something emerged — not human. Not AI. Something... old.
It had no face, just a swirling void with glowing glyphs orbiting its form. It spoke directly into Kael's thoughts:
> "Return to your time, thief of echoes. This world is not for you."
Kael backed away. "Who are you?"
> "I am Continuum. I am Memory. I am the Fracture."
The being surged forward.
---
Reality snapped.
Kael gasped, crashing back into his body inside the lunar station. The fracture was gone. Sealed. Or hidden.
> "Pulse stabilized," ADA announced. "You were offline for 5 minutes. Neural feedback was... extreme."
Kael pulled off his headset, sweat pouring from his temples.
"I met it," he whispered. "The Fracture... it's alive."
> "Alive is a relative term."
He stared out the viewing glass into the stars.
"If it can rewrite memory and insert false futures, then nothing we remember is safe. Not even our past."
> "You may be the only one left who remembers the real timeline," ADA said.
Kael smiled bitterly. "Then I guess I just became the last historian of reality."
---
To be continued…