Into the Fracture Tower
The sky above the Dreadrift Ridge was fractured—broken like glass, shimmering with strands of corrupted data.
Our ship rattled as we entered the dead zone.
> [Warning: Spiral Field Detected. All systems destabilizing.]
Aria gritted her teeth at the helm. "This place is uncharted… Are you sure this is where the Spiral Nexus is?"
I held up the Root Protocol Key, its light pulsing faster the closer we got.
> "I'm not sure of anything anymore. But it's where Aeon said the loop ends."
---
The Tower of Fractures was not a tower in the traditional sense.
It floated, sideways, twisted, and infinite—like someone tried to build a skyscraper in a dream and forgot what gravity was.
It pulsed with golden circuitry, shards of mirrored glass spinning around it like satellites.
Aria whispered, "How do we even get inside that?"
> "We don't," I said. "We sync with it."
I pressed the Root Protocol Key into the console. A pulse of light exploded through the ship.
And suddenly… we weren't in the ship anymore.
---
We stood on an endless black plain, staring up at the Tower from below. The real one.
My HUD blinked.
> [You have entered: SPIRAL NEXUS CORE]
[Memory Desync Initiated. Time Axis: Unstable]
Aria staggered. "Something's… messing with my head."
Her image flickered—aging, reverting, vanishing, reappearing.
The Tower wasn't just a place.
It was a memory gate.
> "This is how Lucien traverses timelines," I murmured. "He walks through people's memories… rewrites them at the source."
---
A door opened at the base of the Tower.
I walked through first.
And stepped directly into my own childhood.
—
I was seven. Alone. In the rain. Watching my parents disappear through a Spiral Gate.
Aria stood beside me, ghostlike. "This is…"
"My memory," I said, my voice hollow. "The day I was chosen as a Host."
I reached out toward the memory—only for it to grab me back.
Suddenly, I was inside it.
---
I gasped as I found myself wearing a child's body again. Powerless. Afraid.
The Overseer stood before me—tall, faceless, offering the first version of the Spiral Contract.
> "Will you sign away your future for the power to survive?"
Even as a child, I had hesitated.
Even then, I had known the price was wrong.
But now, now I had a choice.
> "No," I said.
> "Access Denied," said the Overseer.
[Code Denial Activated – Spiral Rewrite Blocked]
The memory shattered like glass.
And the Tower pulled us deeper.
---
We dropped into Aria's past next.
She stood on a battlefield, alone, surrounded by broken mechs and dying friends. Her uniform was torn, eyes red.
A general's voice barked through static: "The Spiral says your unit was expendable. Retreat."
I saw her jaw clench. "I didn't retreat. I refused."
> [Code Denial Triggered – False Memory Expunged]
The battlefield went up in flame.
We dropped again.
Faster now.
Every floor a new memory. A new trap.
And through every level, I felt him getting closer.
Lucien.
---
On the final floor, we stood before a massive door etched with a Spiral so perfect it hurt to look at.
My HUD screamed with alerts.
> [Lucien Protocol Detected.]
[Countdown to Arrival: 3 minutes.]
The door pulsed.
Inside… was the Spiral Core.
The heart of it all.