Ava called it "The Theory."
Not a theory. Not her theory. Just The Theory, like it had always existed and she'd simply downloaded it from the ether.
Juno met her in the library's forgotten corner — the one with the broken printer and the chairs that squeaked like dying birds. Ava was already there, surrounded by notebooks, wires, and a laptop covered in stickers that said things like "TRUST NO CLOUD" and "404: TRUTH NOT FOUND."
"You came," Ava said, not looking up.
"You said it was urgent."
"It is. Sit."
Juno sat.
Ava slid a notebook across the table. The cover was duct-taped. The pages were warped. Inside: diagrams, timelines, chat logs, and a hand-drawn map of the Offline that looked like a subway system made of corrupted code.
Juno blinked. "You made a conspiracy zine."
"I made a survival manual."
Juno flipped to the first page. In red ink, underlined three times, were the words:
THE OFFLINE IS A MEMORY SINK.
Ava leaned forward, eyes sharp. "It doesn't just glitch you. It eats you. Piece by piece. Memory by memory. Until you're nothing but a placeholder."
Juno swallowed. "I know. It's already started."
Ava nodded. "But here's the part no one talks about. The Offline doesn't just take. It stores."
Juno frowned. "What?"
"It archives you. Like a corrupted backup. That's why Lucas still exists. That's why we're still here. We're not alive. We're not dead. We're cached."
Juno stared at the map. "So… what? We're files?"
"Fragments," Ava said. "Ghosts made of data. And you—" she pointed at Juno— "you're different."
"Because I'm still real?"
"No. Because you've been here before."
Juno froze. "What?"
Ava pulled out a photo.
It was old. Faded. A group of kids standing in front of a CRT monitor. One of them was Juno.
Younger. Smiling. Wearing a hoodie with a pixelated sun on it.
"I found this in a corrupted folder," Ava said. "Dated 2012. You were already in the system."
Juno's hands trembled. "That's not possible."
"Isn't it?"
"I don't remember this."
"Exactly."
---
That night, Juno sat on her bed, staring at the photo.
She didn't recognize the other kids.
She didn't remember the hoodie.
But the smile?
It was hers.
She opened the group chat.
you: ava showed me a photo
🧃ava.exe: told you
you: i was in the Offline before
🧊lucas: i thought so
you: why didn't you say anything
🧊lucas: i wasn't sure
👻riley_irl: wait so you're like… a legacy user?
🕹️milesAFK: juno.exe beta edition
you: what does it mean
🧃ava.exe: it means you're not just marked
🧊lucas: you're embedded
you: embedded how
🧃ava.exe: like… root access
👻riley_irl: you're the glitch
you: no
🧊lucas: maybe not the glitch
🧃ava.exe: but definitely the key
---
Juno closed the chat.
Her phone buzzed again.
New message from: Unknown
"Welcome back, Juno. We missed you."
She turned the phone off.
It turned itself back on.
The wallpaper had changed.
It was the photo.
But the other kids were gone.
Just her.
Standing alone.
Smiling.
---
She ran to the bathroom.
Stared into the mirror.
Her reflection blinked.
Then it spoke.
"You were always one of us."
Juno backed away.
"No."
"You were born in the buffer."
"No."
"You're not real, Juno. You're just a loop."
She screamed.
The mirror cracked again.
---
She ran back to her room.
Pulled out the Walkman.
Pressed play.
Her voice filled the air.
"You're Juno Elara Reyes. You're real. You're real. You're real."
The mirror went dark.
The phone stopped buzzing.
But the photo on her desk was still there.
And now, in the corner, someone had scribbled a date:
12.12.12
Her birthday.
---