(Data Fragment Detected. Source: ???. Classification: Broken Perspective Log)
[Note: Visual distortion logged. Memory strand unstable. View at your own risk.]
[Scene 1 – ???]
Aren stands.
But he's not.
He was.
He will never be again.
The corridor bends inwards on itself like a throat, walls pulsing as if made of flesh. No gravity. Just directionless descent. Metal panels crack like bones under each step.
"Where—" he begins.
A whisper answers. Not words—textures.
Then: a sudden cut to black.
[Scene 2 – ???: Observation Log A731]
Subject: Aren Kolaris? Possibly not. Figure indistinct.Timestamp: N/ALocation: Mirrorwell Depths / Or Falsified Reconstruction?
A flickering scene: dozens of Aren's—bloody, burned, with eyes gouged out, with mouths sewn shut—stand in a circle. One steps forward. This one speaks without lips.
"We failed. So you could try."
"But you are too clean."
The walls twist. A screeching sound like reverse laughter tears through the frame. A silhouette watches from the ceiling, head too long, limbs like strings of obsidian.
[Scene 3 – ???: Transcription Corrupt]
They are not Aren.
They are not even people.
Just remnants of something that wore human shape to get closer to the core.
You see:
A boy drowning in blacklight.
A girl whose name was never born.
A tower of hands reaching into themselves.
A god choking on its own prayer.
Then you hear it:
"⟟ ⍙⏃⋏⟒ ⏁⍜ ⊬⟒⍜ ⊑⟟⏃⋏⋏⟒⍀…"
And understand none of it.
But your soul flinches.
[Scene 4 – ???: Viewing Chamber 000]
Juno watches the footage. Her eyes don't blink for 17 minutes. Her mouth slowly opens in quiet, static-drenched horror.
"He wasn't supposed to see that," she whispers.
The screen shows Aren—or a shadow of him—curled inside a coffin made of wires, with his own voice looping back at him:
"I don't remember choosing this."
Another voice, crueler:
"You did."
[Scene 5 – Sector ███: Undercode Fragment]
A council of architects. Not human. Not even physical. Intelligences formed from binding rules and abandoned truths.
"The Subject's awareness exceeds tolerance range."
"Thread must be severed."
"But The Observer marks him."
"Then purge the reflection, not the source."
One by one, their shapes vanish. But one lingers.
And it smiles.
[Scene 6 – Final Fragment: Location Unknown]
You are now viewing through something else. A camera not built for humans. A perspective designed for censoring. A relay that was never meant to relay this far.
You see a door.
Then a child.
Then a planet screaming.
Then a hand closing around the sun.
Then—
ERROR: MEMORY LIMIT EXCEEDEDCATASTROPHIC DATA BREAKFEEDBACK LOOP DETECTED⟟⏁'⏃ ⏁⍜⍀⍜ ⏁⍀⟒⏃⏁⍀⟒⍀…
[End of Chapter 16?]Entry may not persist. Data unstable. Archive flagged for quarantine.