The entrance to the Archives didn't look like much.
A blank metal slab embedded in a slanted corridor wall, nearly hidden behind what appeared to be stacked crates of decommissioned glyph projectors. Most of them buzzed softly, like dying insects caught between worlds. A few sparked when Zero passed too close, whispering strings of corrupted phrases:
"Protocol... undefined. Fragment error: Name not found."
"Please do not observe the red hour."
Patch tried to whistle. It came out as a backwards tune.
"Charming place," he said. "Smells like dust and regret."
Fry held up a small mirror shard and angled it toward the slab. A shimmer passed through it, like a ripple of oil on water.
The wall vanished.
Revealing the Archives.
The first thing Zero noticed was the quiet. Not silence—the kind of quiet that has depth. Weight. As though the space itself was holding its breath.
The Archive chamber was vast and cathedral-like. Towering shelves curved inward like ribs, stretching up into a ceiling that didn't quite exist. Above them, data floated—fragments of images, moving text, looping moments from a thousand different lives. All flickering like ghosts.
He took a slow step forward. The floor pulsed faintly under his feet, reacting to his presence.
Fry whispered, "Welcome to the memory graveyard."
The shelves weren't labeled alphabetically or numerically. They were organized by feeling.
Patch pointed to a row labeled "Homes You Don't Remember Missing." Another: "Apologies That Were Never Said."
Fry walked confidently toward a section marked "Contraband Realities."
Zero lingered at a shelf labeled "Warmth (Misplaced)."
A glowing orb hovered just above eye level. When he touched it, it bloomed into a fragment of someone's life:
A boy, maybe seven, hiding under a stairwell as fireworks exploded outside. A warm coat wrapped around him. The smell of cinnamon. A hand brushing his hair.
Then it dissolved.
Zero stepped back, blinking.
"Those were real?"
Patch leaned against a shelf. "They were felt. That's what matters in here."
Fry reached a locked alcove.
A translucent interface hovered in front of it. She tapped through symbols at blinding speed.
Zero leaned in. "What are you looking for?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Then, softly: "Fragments who've interacted with the Karnyx before you."
That made him go still.
"...There were others?"
Patch answered, unusually quiet. "Always are."
Fry's tapping slowed. A list appeared.
Fragment 3 – Drifted
Fragment 4 – Reabsorbed
Fragment 5 – Static-bound
Fragment 6 – Unknown Termination
Fragment 7 – Active (You)
And then, below it, an unauthorized entry:
Fragment X – Architect Locked.
Fry frowned. "That's new."
Zero pointed. "What's Fragment X?"
"No clue. But it's sealed under a Class-9 anchor lock."
Patch gave a low whistle. "That's deep system. You need root glyphs and an override pulse to even see those."
Zero's eyes lingered on the title. "Who would lock that?"
Fry didn't answer.
Instead, she turned away. "Let's keep looking."
The further they walked into the Archives, the weirder the data became.
Zero passed a hovering reel showing himself, asleep on a park bench.
Only he'd never been there.
Patch found a drawer full of cassette tapes labeled "Things You Almost Believed."
Fry stood before a memory cube that refused to open unless someone nearby cried.
"It's bait," she muttered. "Memory-traps. Psychological mines. They're usually built by—"
"Unauthorized access detected."
All three froze.
The Archive darkened.
A soft tone—three notes, rising—echoed through the air.
Fry hissed, "Patch—door, now."
Patch scrambled toward a corridor, yanking out a string of magnetic keys.
Zero turned back toward the entrance.
There was someone there.
Not a Curator. Not one of the reflections.
It was a boy, maybe ten, standing barefoot on the glowing floor. His eyes were silver. His skin flickered like a broken hologram.
He looked right at Zero and smiled.
"Found you."
Patch pulled him away. "Zero, move! That's not real!"
Zero tried to look back—but the boy was gone.
Only now his ears rang. Not with noise. With words.
"Do not trust the one who leads you to light. The dark was your beginning."
They burst into a side corridor, Fry slamming the security glyph closed behind them.
She turned on him, furious. "Don't look at Archive ghosts! They imprint!"
Zero's head spun. "It—he—he knew me."
Patch was pale. "Or he knew a version of you. Doesn't matter. Archive ghosts are echoes that want to be remembered so badly they'll take your mind to do it."
Zero didn't reply. He couldn't shake the boy's voice.
Or what he'd said.
Don't trust the one who leads you to light.
Was that… Fry?
No. Couldn't be.
Could it?
Fry was muttering to herself now. "This whole section's destabilized. Someone's been pulling memory nodes without resetting the anchors."
Zero finally asked, "Who would do that?"
Fry looked at him.
And for just a second, her face wasn't angry.
It was scared.
"Someone who wants to rewrite what the Karnyx remembers."