The city wasn't broken.
It was shattered.
Layer-17 clung to life like cracked glass held together by static and memory. Its skyline blinked, glitched, and looped—like the world couldn't decide which version of itself it wanted to be. Digital birds froze mid-flight. A flickering stoplight turned red-green-red every second. Somewhere in the fog, a siren wailed—then reversed like someone hit rewind.
Kairo Verin walked alone.
Courier bag on his back. Collar up. Eyes half-closed like they always were. His boots clicked against fractured concrete that hummed beneath him.
He didn't know why, but something felt… wrong.
Layer fatigue?Code bleed?No. It was something else.
His route hadn't changed. Same alley. Same time. Same old neon sign above the corner shop that spelled "REME⸺R" instead of "REMEMBER."
But tonight, it wasn't just the lights flickering.
It was his pulse.
Kairo slowed as he reached the intersection.
The air was… thinner here. More quiet than it should've been. The kind of quiet that usually came after a Layer purge.
And then he saw it.
A shape in the alley. Curled. Still. Limbs splayed wrong.
He took one step closer.
Then another.
Then stopped.
Because his breath froze.
His bag hit the ground.
The body wasn't a stranger.
It was him.
White hair, just like his.
Black courier jacket.
Same boots. Same scar.
Inverted-S cut, left lip.
Eyes open—but blank.
His stomach dropped.
His heart didn't beat faster—it felt like it stopped entirely.
He wasn't looking at a hallucination.
He was looking at his own dead body.
For three full seconds, the world held its breath with him.
Then—
The corpse flickered.
A static line cut across its skin.
Then another.
Glitch.
Its arm twitched.
Kairo stepped back. His mouth moved but no sound came.
The corpse's eyes rolled toward him.
And then—
It smiled.
[RES_ONANCE: TRIGGERED]
—Echo Drift Detected—
—Identity: Nonlinear Signature—
—Source: KAIRO-17—
—UNREGISTERED—
His mind split.
He felt everything.
Twelve versions of himself—dying.
Burning. Falling. Crushed. Screaming. One whispered Astra's name. Another didn't get to scream at all.
His skull burned like someone was carving memories into it with fire.
He dropped to his knees.
Make it stop.
The light above the alley burst. Sparks fell like rain. The world flickered again—black, white, glitch-blue. Kairo's vision fractured.
That's when he saw it.
A flower.
Growing through concrete.
Its petals shimmered with broken color: red, white, black.
It pulsed. Like a heart.
Like it was breathing in the glitch.
It grew near the corpse's hand.
And for one breathless second, Kairo thought:
It's not just a flower.
It's… a memory.
Then, silence.
The glitch vanished.
So did the body.
So did the flower.
Only the cracked sidewalk remained.
Only the cold.
And the voice that whispered inside him:
"You're not the first, Kairo."
"And you won't be the last."
Kairo stood slowly. His legs trembled.
His fingers brushed his lip. The scar was still there.
He looked at the empty alley.
He could still feel it—deep in his spine—the residue.
Like an echo that hadn't stopped ringing yet.
Like a version of himself had stayed behind.
"What the hell… was that?"
No answer.
Just the wind.
Just the sound of a neon sign overhead, blinking in and out:
REME⸺R
Then the thought came.
Not a scream. Not a panic.
Just a quiet, cold question:
Am I real?
End of Chapter 1