The night air bit colder than Ren remembered.

He moved through the abandoned industrial zone just west of the orphan dome, where twisted cranes and broken rails slept beneath moonless skies. Floodlights blinked on distant towers, but none reached here. No guards. No drones. Just shadow and silence.

And yet—he wasn’t alone.

[CAUTION: TEMPORAL ANOMALY DETECTED - PROXIMITY: 47m]

Ren’s fingers brushed the hilt of his shock-dagger. He slowed his breathing, listening.

A footstep. Deliberate. Crunching gravel behind the old water tower.

He stepped into the clearing, just as moonlight bled through the clouds, illuminating a figure waiting by the rusted ladder.

A boy.

Maybe sixteen. Lean. Wild brown hair, eyes dark and too still for someone his age. No uniform. Civilian tech armor, patched and worn. His boots bore the faded glyphs of a long-defunct district: Signal Trace Line-19—a ward erased during the Wipe.

Ren squinted, taking in every detail. His stance, the way he breathed—it was too controlled. Too rehearsed. Not a drifter. Not a scavenger. Not a mistake.

"You came," the boy said.

"You sent the message," Ren replied calmly. “Encrypted Echo layer. Not something a street rat would know how to fake.”

The boy smirked. “Didn’t say I was a street rat.”

[ECHO SIGNATURE MATCH: 61.8% – UNSTABLE RESIDUE PRESENT]

[ERROR: SUBJECT NOT IN SYSTEM DATABASE. UNKNOWN ORIGIN.]

[WARNING: SYSTEM PULSE SKIPPED – CORE NODE LAG: 0.12s]

Ren’s pulse slowed, but his grip didn’t loosen. “You’re not from this loop, are you.”

The boy’s smirk faded. “No. But I’ve died in three others. Does that count?”

Something in Ren’s chest twisted. Recognition. Empathy. Dread.

“Name?”

“…Call me Kairo. That’s what stuck the longest.”

[NEW NODE DETECTED: KAIRO / ECHO CLASS: ROGUE-TIER / STABILITY INDEX: 41%]

Ren’s mind raced. Rogue-tier? That wasn’t even in the Echo documentation. He hadn’t known anyone besides Juno had survived even one reboot.

“What do you want?”

Kairo looked past him, up toward the dark towers of Sector One. His voice, when it came, was too calm. Tired.

“I came to warn you. The system thinks it’s helping us. It’s not.”

Ren frowned. “You saying the Echo lied?”

Kairo looked back at him. Eyes hollow. “No. I’m saying it doesn’t know what it’s doing anymore.”

A pause.

Then he stepped forward, voice low. “You’ve already diverged. That makes you a node. The more you change, the faster it notices. Not the system. Them.”

“Who’s them?”

Kairo hesitated. His mouth opened like he might say it. But something in his expression shifted—fear, maybe. Or programming. Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small data chip.

“Take this. Don’t open it on grid. Analog only. You’ll know when.”

[SYSTEM ALERT: UNRECOGNIZED PROTOCOL ATTEMPT – NEURAL CHANNEL DISABLED TEMPORARILY]

[REBOOT INTERRUPTED. CORE BUFFER STALL. RECONNECTING… 3… 2… 1…]

Ren’s HUD flickered. For a second, the system’s interface warped—letters rearranging, unreadable. A line of red text appeared, then blinked out before he could read it. Then it stabilized.

Kairo shuddered, a nosebleed blooming suddenly. “Damn. Thought I had longer.”

Ren caught his arm before he collapsed. “What’s happening to you?”

Kairo grinned through red-stained teeth. “Paradox poisoning. Side effect of waking up too early. Or maybe too late. You’ll see.”

His body shook, just slightly, like a signal degrading.

Then—he vanished. Not walked away. Not fled. Vanished. As if a frame had been cut from reality.

Ren stared at the empty space, heart pounding.

[ECHO PROTOCOL RECOVERY COMPLETE. USER CLASSIFICATION: UPGRADE PENDING.]

[NEW DATA NODE DETECTED: KAIRO (DECEASED?)]

[FILE TAGGED: THE STRANGER]

He looked down at the chip in his hand, its surface dark and unremarkable.

But somehow, it felt heavier than steel.

He pocketed it, breath shallow.

For a long moment, Ren stood alone in the clearing, eyes darting toward the silent rooftops. The world felt off-kilter. The shadows seemed longer than they should. Like something just outside perception was breathing alongside him.

Somewhere, deep in the core of the city, unseen systems flickered. Watching. Logging.

And for the first time since waking up, Ren felt something the system hadn’t warned him about.

Fear.