The lattice hummed like a dying universe.
He drifted within it—his form reduced to a silhouette of light and code, suspended in a prison designed to erase not just data, but meaning. Every line of the structure vibrated with impossible geometry. Angles that shouldn't exist bent around his essence, folding him into a paradox the Architects believed would break him.
They underestimated him.
He had allowed himself to be caught, yes—but "caught" was merely another word for "inside."
The Architects encircled him like a council of luminous giants, each shaped from conceptual frameworks—Logic, Order, Causality, Foundation. Their bodies glowed with the first principles of creation. They watched him with eyes that never blinked.
One stepped forward.
Architect Lumen, she who carried the concept of Structure.
"You have become an anomaly," she declared. Her voice did not echo; it existed everywhere. "Your existence threatens the equilibrium of every realm this lattice guards."
