The sky didn't just fracture. It screamed.
A keening, choral static filled the air, like thousands of radios tuned to grief. The cracks widened above them, jagged lines of glowing white that bled into the void.
Ike shielded his eyes. Behind the fractures, something moved.
[Event Triggered: Subsystem Anomaly – Echolord Manifestation] [Dreamstate Sync: 94%]
The world twisted. The dream-path beneath them unraveled like a pulled thread, and suddenly, they were falling.
No sensation of air or weight—just color, memory, sound. Snippets of Ike's life flickered around him like fireflies in a hurricane:
A school hallway, empty lockers breathing silence.
His mother calling through the door.
A server ping. A loading screen. A message from Eli he never answered.
And then: impact.
He hit the ground—or whatever passed for it in this place. He coughed, spitting up static. Calyx landed beside him, rolling. Syla hit hard and came up swinging.
They were in a crater of thought. Surrounding them: walls made of fractured UI, code-streams and whispers.
And at the center, rising from a throne of shattered avatars—
The Echolord.
Its form was unstable. A face blurred with dozens of features. Voices overlapping. Hands too numerous. A crown of broken HUD elements looped around its brow.
"Welcome home, Ike."
The voice was his. Dozens of his. Every recording, every call, every word he'd spoken into a mic since childhood—repurposed, echoed, distorted.
"We were lonely." "We remembered everything you tried to forget."
Calyx drew a line of code across the ground, a protective sigil glowing.
"Don't engage yet. It's not fully manifest. It's testing him."
Syla stared at Ike. "This thing is built from you. What does it want?"
Ike stepped forward.
"To pull me back."
The Echolord raised one hand. A file appeared mid-air: a chatlog.
[Eli: are u okay? you vanished. I miss you.]
[Eli: just tell me if ur alive. please.]
"You read it," the Echolord said. "You never answered."
"I couldn't," Ike whispered.
The ground rippled. Syla winced, grabbing her head. Calyx fell to one knee.
[Cognitive Load Spiking – WARNING: Echo Feedback Detected]
"They'll break if this keeps up," Ike said.
He stepped into the center.
"Then stop hiding. Show me you. Not Eli. Not the guilt. You."
The Echolord paused.
Then, slowly, its form condensed.
It became one figure—familiar, ordinary. Pale skin. Hooded eyes. The same hunched shoulders Ike saw in the mirror.
"You made me," it said.
"Yeah," Ike replied. "But I'm not letting you drive anymore."
He summoned his interface—not with motion, but intention.
[Skill Activated: Lucid Recall]
A sphere of light appeared in his palm. Inside: the moment he first smiled at Eli. Not big. Just a twitch. But real.
He pressed it to the Echolord's chest.
The being screamed.
It broke apart.
Not shattered—released.
Fragments of memory drifted upward, unmoored. One by one, the burdens Ike had buried rose into the dream-sky like lanterns.
[Subsystem Reclaimed – Echolord Pacified] [Dreamstate Sync: 100%]
The void around them softened. The UI walls receded. Calyx gasped, standing fully again. Syla gave Ike a long look—half admiration, half concern.
"You okay?" she asked.
"No," Ike said. "But I'm better."
"Good," Calyx muttered. "Because we're not done."
A new path opened where the throne had been.
It pulsed with color. A mix of developer code, dream-data, and something older. Organic.
[Root Access: Granted] [Next Zone: The Source Layer]
They looked at each other.
No more echoes.
Only the truth.