There was no ground.
No sky.
No system interface.
Just potential.
Jay floated weightlessly, Rei beside him. The corridor, the doors, the phantom reflections—they were gone now. Burned away by a single act of rebellion:
Jay had refused the System's endings.
And the universe had blinked.
Now they drifted in a white expanse, streaked with threads of color that pulsed like veins—red, gold, blue, violet. They were not lines—they were futures, twitching with possibility, fighting to be born.
Jay whispered, "Where are we?"
Rei slowly turned in place. "We're in-between. A world the System doesn't own."
A ripple passed through the air. A single floating line of text scrolled into view:
[Pathway: NULL. Purpose: SELF-DETERMINED.]
[Initializing: Free Will Protocol…]
[Warning: This may result in system collapse.]
Jay chuckled, a little breathless. "I think we just broke the game."
Rei smirked. "Feels good, doesn't it?"
