When Echo opened his eyes, the world had changed.
Not visibly. The buildings still stood. The air still buzzed with artificial life. But he could see it now—the seams, the loops, the design.
Everything was a story.
A lie.
And he was finally reading between the lines.
Kira stared at him. "You saw it, didn't you? The First Memory."
He nodded slowly. "I was the first to give in. That's why I had to be the one to wake up."
She placed her hand over his. "Then you know what comes next."
He looked to the horizon. A wall shimmered in the distance—not a barrier of stone or steel, but thought. Belief. Consensus.
"The Great Lie," he murmured.
To go further, he would need more than memory. He would need those who had been broken and left behind. The fragments. The rebels. The forgotten.
"I need to bring them back," he said. "All of them."
Kira stepped back, her eyes wide. "You're going to rebuild the real world."
"No," he whispered. "I'm going to unmake this one."
He turned toward the fracture.
And walked into the storm.