He woke up choking.
His body spasmed, muscles locking and releasing in jagged bursts as if something deep inside him had rewritten the rules of how it all should work. Heat pulsed behind his eyes, burning in slow waves. He rolled onto his side and vomited black fluid that steamed as it hit the concrete.
His HUD blinked back to life, flickering like a dying candle.
[Neural Signature Altered.] Host Integrity: Unstable.
[ Echo-Null Integration: 17%. ]
[Warning: Pathway Unknown.] The system cannot predict outcomes.
Riven lay there for minutes.
Breathing.
Shaking.
Listening to the dull hum of the ruin around him and the new rhythm echoing in his chest, not a heartbeat. Not really. Something older. Smoother. A pulse like machinery buried under skin.
When he finally stood, he noticed it.
The silence.
The static was gone.
So was the fog.
Everything felt… still. Too still. Like reality itself was holding its breath.
He staggered up the broken shaft, his limbs heavy, skin damp with fever-sweat. Something inside his mind itched constantly, like a puzzle being solved in the background. Half-finished images drifted in and out of view, code lattices, schematic fragments, alien architecture built on rules he didn't understand yet.
By the time he surfaced, the Ashlands had changed.
The air was clearer.
The sky was worse.
Lines of burning script hung across the clouds, symbols he somehow understood now. Not with words. But with meaning.
Boundary Instability Detected. Sector Entropy: 62%. Surface Degradation In Progress.
He turned away.
There's no point in trying to understand the sky. Not now. Not yet.
Instead, he ran.
…
3 Hours Later
The colony wasn't called a city.
It didn't deserve the word.
Mirestead was a half-buried orbital wreck, welded to a chunk of old highway and repurposed with stolen metal, synthplastic, and hope. The people lived in stacked cargo units, makeshift pods, and pressure-sealed tunnels that hissed every few hours like dying lungs.
The walls groaned as Riven passed through the east gate, nodding at the half-dozing sentry with the rusted exo-suit. He moved fast, head down, hood up. His vision still pulsed with strange overlays—faint schematics and broken language crawling across every surface.
Buildings weren't just buildings anymore.
He saw weak points in the welds.
Core fractures in the shielding.
Optimization paths that made no sense—yet felt real.
What did that thing do to me…?
He reached his unit. A rust-colored pod four meters wide and three meters high. Two bunks. One broken heater. Zero privacy.
Riven collapsed into the lower bunk and stared at the ceiling. The wiring in the wall hummed louder than before. He could hear the frequency, taste the difference in power flow, and feel the resonance through the floor.
He clenched his teeth.
And then it happened again.
The world blinked.
Just for a second.
[Echo-Null: Prompt Received. Interface Available.]
[Core Pathway Accessed: Archetype "I" Architect of Remnants"]
[ Initiate First Protocol? Y/N ]
He stared.
"Architect… of Remnants?"
The words weren't human. But they felt familiar. Like a title etched into the bones of someone who no longer existed.
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
But somewhere, something heard his answer anyway.
Yes.
[Protocol One: Perceive Ruin.]
[Passive Ability Unlocked: "Traceform Sight"]
You can now see residual structures of extinct tech and material blueprints. Warning: Overuse leads to mental erosion.
The room shifted.
Every object bled ghostly lines of light.
Faint, blue outlines flickered into view, mapping not what was but what had been. Broken drone wiring inside the walls. A melted console near the floor. Burnt memory chips in the frame of the bunk above.
The power wasn't magic.
It was perception. Understanding Interface.
And Riven suddenly realized he could build.
Not in the old way. Not with tools and hours and sweat.
He could reshape the bones of the old world. If he found enough remnants… if he could survive the strain… he could reconstruct what the Core once was.
And somewhere, something was watching.
Not hostile.
Not friendly.
Just… waiting.