The moment the Core opened, I felt the world snap.
Not break—snap.
Like a string pulled too tight finally giving way.
The ghost's voice faded, but the echo of her message stayed: Rebuild reality.
Ash and I were flung backward as the Core's data sphere dissolved into light. It surged outward in a pulse, cracking the walls of the Thread itself.
Then—
> EJECTING SUBJECTS FROM NODE 0.1.2
My eyes snapped open.
The real world returned.
The hard floor of the holding cell. Dim blue lights. And a siren echoing through the prison.
Ash coughed. "We're back."
Only we weren't alone.
The girl—the real one, not the ghost—sat upright on the other side of the room.
She was awake.
And staring directly at me.
"Who are you?" I asked.
Her voice was clear, calm, and wrong in every possible way.
"I'm not supposed to be here. But now I am. Because of you."
Ash stood quickly. "What do you mean?"
She tilted her head.
"They called me a projection. A derivative. But when you touched the Core, you made me real."
Elian stepped back.
"You're… part of the Thread?"
"I was the part they feared. The outcome they couldn't control."
"Then what do we call you?" Ash asked.
She smiled.
"Call me what they wouldn't: Hope."
The cell door burst open.
Guards flooded in, weapons raised.
But everything was different now.
The prison systems blinked, glitched—and then shut down.
Ash looked around. "What the hell?"
Hope walked past the stunned guards. They didn't even see her.
She turned back.
"You're not prisoners anymore. You're variables."
I felt something click in my brain. A new awareness. As if I could see behind the code of the room.
"She changed us," I muttered.
Ash was already moving. "We need to get out. Now."
We ran.
Not just from guards.
From the Ministry's entire system beginning to reboot around us—sensors flickering, turrets going blind, alarms swallowing themselves into static.
Hope led the way.
We emerged through a maintenance shaft into the outside—
A dome city drenched in artificial rain. Towers curved into the clouds. Ministry banners hovered in the air, flickering with glitched symbols.
Ash gasped. "They're losing control."
Hope touched my arm. "This is your chance. Before they recover."
"What do I do?"
She pointed to the eastern skyline. A black spire with violet light pulsing at its peak.
"Ministry Memory Relay. That's where they broadcast reality control."
"And if we take it?" I asked.
"Then they can't erase you again."
A gunshot cracked through the rain.
Ministry agents on the rooftop.
Ash returned fire.
I turned to Hope. "Can you shut them down?"
She nodded.
With a blink, every agent dropped. Frozen mid-motion.
Ash lowered his weapon. "Remind me never to piss her off."
We escaped into the city as the Ministry scrambled to reassert control.
But it was too late.
Something new had begun.
And I was no longer just a test subject.
I was the rewrite.