Maxx hit the ground for the THIRD time in one day.
He didn't even scream anymore. He just groaned and laid there like a depressed tortilla.
"Why… WHY does this always happen to me?"
He flopped a hand in the air.
"Is there a cosmic being whose hobby is RUINING MY SPINE?"
No answer ,just silence.
Heavy, unnatural silence filled the air.
He pushed himself up—
—and froze.
They weren't on a rooftop.
They weren't in the Archive.
They weren't anywhere recognizable.
The world around him flickered like a corrupted game map.
Chunks of terrain were missing.
Floating cubes of old data rotated slowly.
A half-formed sky glitched in and out.
Lyra and 4531 stood a few meters away, both stabilizing their bodies.
Lyra looked shaken.
4531 looked furious.
Maxx looked… done.
He threw his hands up.
"GREAT. AMAZING. Another cursed place. I swear if something whispers in my ear one more time I'm suing the Afterlife for emotional damage."
4531 scanned the area, sparks falling off her broken armor.
"This sector is not on the current map."
Lyra murmured, "This is… an Old Layer. A forgotten part of the system."
Maxx blinked.
"Forgotten? You can FORGET entire DIMENSIONS?"
Lyra stepped toward him, eyes flickering.
"The teleport targeted your signature. This place… reacted to you."
He pointed at himself.
"Me?! Why me?! I am NOT a special event—I'm barely a functioning student!"
Lyra and 4531 exchanged a look.
A look Maxx didn't like.
"Don't tell me," he whispered, "it's because I'm the Key. Isn't it? I knew it. I KNEW IT. Every time something awful happens it's 'because Maxx is the Key.' Why couldn't it be 'Maxx gets a free pizza because he's the Key' for once?!"
The ground pulsed under him.
Lyra's expression tightened.
"Maxx… something is waking up."
He paled.
"What does that mean—"
The sky cracked.
A ripple of white-blue light slammed into him—
—and the world vanished.
FLASHBACK — BEFORE HE DIED
"The Moment Everything Changed… And He Never Noticed"
Warm rain.
That was the first thing Maxx noticed as consciousness slipped into the flashback.
Real rain. Not Afterlife-coded rain.
He stood on the sidewalk, outside the flickering convenience store sign, watching his past self slog down the street — drenched hoodie, tired eyes, footsteps dragging like the whole world was heavy.
Maxx swallowed.
"…Yeah. I remember this day."
He remembered the feeling even more than the moment —
that low, quiet ache you don't tell anyone about.
He wanted to reach out, warn himself, shove him out of the road, anything—
—but he couldn't move.
The memory kept playing.
Past-Maxx stepped off the sidewalk, head down, completely unaware of the truck skidding on wet asphalt.
And then—A flicker of light not behind him but stalking him.
Not following him for years.
No.
Just suddenly there, like a glitch sliding into a file that never belonged to it.
A violet shimmer hovered inches behind Past-Maxx's shoulder.
Dim. Faint. Easy to miss in the chaos.
Maxx realized with a chill:
He never saw this then.
Not even in his wildest dreams.
The Entity spoke softly, layered like multiple voices stacked:
"A compatible soul… finally."
Maxx's eyes widened in horror.
"You— you didn't cause this, did you?!"
The entity didn't answer.
Its attention was entirely on his past self.
The truck fishtailed then metal screamed and the giant LED billboard of him blasted neon light across the rain.
MAXX — STREAM 'TIL YOU BEAM!
Past-Maxx looked up—
CRASH.
The moment of death.
In the instant Maxx's soul tore free, the violet figure reached out, touching the raw fragment of him claiming it like it's his.
"You will do."
Reality snapped at that moment.
BACK IN THE OLD LAYER
Maxx jolted awake with a gasp, heart punching his ribs.
Lyra was right beside him.
4531 stood guard, blade humming.
Maxx's voice trembled.
"I— I saw something. In the crash. At the LAST second. It didn't cause it no— it just… took me. Like I was a free sample!"
Lyra's expression crumpled.
4531 went still.
"That," Lyra whispered, "was the Root Source."
4531 added quietly:
"It wasn't following you. It was waiting for the right moment. The moment your soul loosened."
Maxx's jaw dropped.
"So my death really WAS just a freak accident, and THEN some cosmic USB drive decided to DOWNLOAD ME?!"
Lyra gently touched his cheek.
"Maxx… whatever the Root wants with you… it started the second you died."
Maxx stared at them, horrified.
"…Can someone PLEASE tell me why my life — AND my afterlife — suck equally?!"
Maxx pushed himself to his feet, wobbling like a newborn goat.
His head still buzzed with the memory — the crash, the rain, the violet glow.
That voice.
"You will do."
He shuddered so hard his hoodie almost flew off.
Lyra steadied him with a hand on his arm.
4531 did the same from the other side — more aggressively, like she was ready to lift him AND the world if needed.
Maxx threw his hands up.
"Okay. Okay. Quick recap.
I died normally — LIKE A NORMAL Streamer IDIOT —
and then a cosmic creepy purple thing decided to download my soul like I'm a FREE TRIAL?!"
Lyra nodded softly.
4531 nodded like she wanted to murder a celestial being.
Maxx continued, pacing:
"So the Root didn't cause my death.
Didn't chase me for years.
Didn't whisper spooky messages in my cereal.
It just waited for the perfect moment to grab me?"
Lyra: "Yes."
4531: "Precisely."
Maxx threw his hoodie at the glitching sky.
"WHY IS THIS MY LIFE?! I can't even DIE without someone USING me!"
A deep rumble rolled through the Old Layer.
The glitched cubes in the distance pulsed with violet static.
Lyra grabbed his shoulders.
"Maxx—your emotional spikes are waking the sector."
Maxx froze.
"…I CAN'T EVEN HAVE A BREAKDOWN?!"
4531 stepped in front of him, scanning rapidly.
Her cracked armor hummed dangerously.
"The Root is aware of your memory recovery.
Something is approaching."
Maxx's voice hit a new octave.
"APPROACHING?! Like—approaching playfully? Approaching to offer a job? Approaching with snacks?!"
4531 answered flatly:
"Approaching to reclaim its property."
Maxx screamed into the void.
"WHY AM I PROPERTY?! I DON'T EVEN PAY RENT!"
The ground shook again and this time harder.
Glitched fragments of old code peeled off the floor like shards of glass.
Lyra held his face gently, forcing him to meet her glowing eyes.
"Maxx… listen. The Root marked you the moment you died.
But it did not choose you because you were weak."
Maxx blinked.
"…It didn't?"
"No," she whispered.
"It chose you because something in you resisted erasure.
Your soul… held its shape."
4531 added sharply:
"You are not a vessel.
You are an anomaly."
Maxx stared between them.
Then pointed at himself.
"Me? An anomaly again!
Hello? I cried at a commercial about bread last week!"
The sky cracked open — a massive fissure glowing the same violet color from his memory.
Lyra stepped into a protective stance.
4531 extended a blade of pure code.
Maxx swallowed.
"…That's the Root, isn't it?"
Lyra whispered:
"No.
That's just its scout."
Maxx squeaked.
"WHY DOES IT NEED SCOUTS?!"
The fissure began widening.
Something enormous started crawling through — a multi-limbed, code-corrupted creature with too many eyes and not enough sanity.
4531 grabbed Maxx's arm.
"Run."
Lyra grabbed his other hand.
"Now."
Maxx dug his heels in.
"WAIT—WAIT—WAIT—before we run—
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY A GIANT INTERDIMENSIONAL BUG THING WANTS TO STEAL MY SOUL LIKE I'M A LIMITED-EDITION NFT?!"
But there was no time.
The creature dropped fully into the sector.
It roared — the sound glitching the entire sky.
And all three of them bolted.