Clyde opened his eyes.
Gone were the glowing halls of the Archive. Gone were the glitching walls, the flickering skies, the echoes of corrupted code. What replaced them was… the world.
Grass swayed under his feet. A breeze—real, warm, alive—brushed against his face. Trees rustled in the distance. The sky above stretched wide, painted in shades of orange and pink as the sun dipped toward the horizon.
It was beautiful.
"Are we back?" Clyde asked, barely believing his own voice.
Rhea stood beside him, eyes scanning their surroundings. "Not exactly."
Clyde turned. "What do you mean?"
Rhea knelt, brushing her fingers through the grass. It shimmered faintly, as if reality was holding its breath. "We're in the rewritten layer. A fabricated version of Earth, built over the ruins of the original data. It's stable… but not permanent."
Clyde's chest tightened. "So we're not really out."
Rhea met his gaze. "We escaped the Archive, but the system is still active. Somewhere, something—or someone—is still running the program."
Suddenly, a voice crackled through the air.
"Welcome to Layer Zero."
Clyde spun around. A figure stood at the edge of the forest. Not glitching. Not corrupted. Fully formed—and watching them closely.
He wore a dark suit, pristine and out of place in the natural world. His face was calm, almost kind, but his eyes shimmered with static.
"I've been waiting for you," the man said.
"Who are you?" Clyde demanded.
The man smiled. "I'm the Architect. The one who designed the Rewrite Project… and the one who ensured you would never remember."
Rhea stepped forward, her hand glowing faintly. "Why reveal yourself now?"
"Because the system is collapsing faster than I anticipated," the Architect said. "You've interfered with the original plan. But that doesn't mean it's too late to begin… again."
Clyde narrowed his eyes. "You... Want to start over?"
The Architect nodded. "Erase this flawed iteration. Begin a cleaner rewrite. No anomalies. No remnants like you."
Clyde stepped in front of Rhea. "Then you're going to have to erase me first."
The Architect sighed. "I expected you to say that."
The world shimmered.
And the sky turned red.
Reality was rewriting itself once more.