The memory was soft, warm, and impossibly vivid.
Kelechi could smell the faint dust of the red earth beneath his sandals, feel the uneven straps of his plastic schoolbag cutting into his shoulders, and taste the mango-flavored candy melting on his tongue — a brand he hadn't seen in over 15 years.
His mother crouched in front of him, adjusting his collar like she always did, humming that same Igbo lullaby she'd sung when he had fevers as a child.
"Nwa m nwoke… your shirt is crooked again."
Her voice had no echo. That's how he knew it wasn't real.
"Why this memory?" Kelechi asked quietly.
A woman walking past paused mid-step. Just froze — like someone hit pause on a remote.
A bird in the sky stopped flapping its wings, suspended in midair.
And his mother — his memory's version of her — stopped humming.
"You're still learning how to ask the right questions," she said, her tone flattening. Her pupils dilated until there was no white left. "This is the last memory you still trust."
Kelechi's stomach turned. "Who are you?"
She smiled — not his mother's smile, but something else behind it. Something sharp.
"I'm the echo that volunteered to keep you hidden."
The sky above them rippled like fabric in a storm.
"You've got maybe two minutes before it finds the fracture. So listen carefully."
"You were never meant to reach Stage Two."
She stood now, dusting her skirt. Her shadow stretched unnaturally long behind her.
"You weren't chosen. You weren't initiated. You weren't awakened. You just… slipped through. Like a crack in the code."
Kelechi frowned. "Code?"
"Oh yes. The Garden's root system is built like a machine — elegant, self-correcting, bound by narrative and obedience. Most Threadbearers ascend by following the script: survive Stage 1, pass the Dreaming Trial, achieve lucidity, enter the Archive, request a Path…"
She eyed him.
"You skipped all of that."
"So what does that make me?"
She shrugged. "Either a glitch… or a threat."
The paused memory world began to flicker — buildings de-rendered into wireframes, people dissolved into unfinished outlines.
"But there's something different about your thread," she continued. "It's older than the rest. Deeper. That's why you remember fragments from past cycles."
"You mean timelines?"
"No," she whispered. "Iterations."
Then she reached forward and touched his forehead.
The world exploded.
Kelechi gasped and stumbled back into himself.
He was back in the office — but not as it had been. The desk was gone. The ceiling torn open. The lights flickering like strobes.
Nnadozie was holding off the Collector with a loop of glowing script — letters in languages Kelechi had never seen, floating midair like a magical firewall.
"You're back!" Nnadozie said through clenched teeth. "Took you long enough!"
Kelechi dropped to one knee. "She said I'm not supposed to be in Stage Two."
Nnadozie laughed bitterly. "She's right. You're a narrative paradox. Which means we need to get you somewhere safe — before this thing figures out what you are."
The Collector was pushing forward. The script in the air was burning, letter by letter.
"She said my thread is older than the rest."
Nnadozie froze.
Then he turned slowly toward Kelechi.
"…You saw your own origin?"
"I didn't see it. I felt it. Like I've been through all this before."
Nnadozie cursed under his breath. "We don't have time. If your thread is truly pre-Garden, you're not a glitch. You're a seed."
"What does that mean?!"
"It means," Nnadozie said, snapping his fingers and summoning a rippling doorway of silver light, "you're not the first you. You're the last."
They jumped through the door together.
The Collector lunged — but the portal closed just in time, slicing off one of its arms.
The dismembered limb writhed on the floor like a dying vine, then disintegrated into black ash.
The place they landed was… different.
A vast library. Books stacked in impossible spirals. Floating aisles. Shifting staircases. Paper birds flitting from shelf to shelf, whispering titles into the air.
"The Archive," Nnadozie said. "Off-limits to anyone below Stage Four — which makes this the perfect hiding place."
Kelechi was still catching his breath. "You've been helping me… but why?"
Nnadozie hesitated. "Because I was you. Once."
That silenced the room.
"What?"
Nnadozie sat on a bench carved from old spines and stone.
"I failed my run. I deviated at Stage Three. Tried to break the Garden. They fragmented me, scattered my minds across timelines, recycled the rest into data."
He looked up at Kelechi with tired eyes.
"But the thread kept part of me alive — and when you began to deviate, my echo activated."
"You're an echo," Kelechi said slowly.
"I'm the warning."
They sat in silence, broken only by the flapping of paper wings.
"So what now?" Kelechi asked.
Nnadozie pointed to a pulsing pedestal near the center of the Archive — a stand wrapped in glowing vines and ancient symbols.
"You ask for a Path."
Kelechi frowned. "I thought I skipped all that."
"You did. But now we need it. Without a declared Path, you're just a stray thread. Easy to cut. With a Path, the Garden has to let you play — at least until Stage Six."
Kelechi walked toward the pedestal. As he approached, the air grew heavy, like stepping underwater. The symbols on the vines shimmered.
Path Selection Initiating…
A voice echoed through the chamber.
Threadbearer 7319-A has deviated from protocol.Override authorization pending…Thread origin: Unknown.Seed designation: Confirmed.
The ground trembled.
Path assigned: "Archivist of the Broken Root."
Nnadozie stood. "That's… not one of the standard 12."
Kelechi turned. "Is that good or bad?"
Nnadozie smiled.
"It's terrifying."
The pedestal glowed brighter.
Stage Two complete. Path accepted.Stage Three unlocking in T-minus 6 minutes.
The thread above Kelechi's head curled into a new shape — a key. Then, like a snake shedding skin, it split in two.
One stayed tethered to him.
The other slithered away — toward a sealed door at the far end of the library.
Kelechi narrowed his eyes.
"What's behind that door?"
Nnadozie hesitated.
"…Your next self."