The train ride to Sector 5 was supposed to be off-grid.

It wasn’t.

Ren stood near the rear of the empty mag-line carriage, watching the city fall away behind them in jagged pulses of light. Juno sat across from him, arms resting on her knees, eyes half-shut but alert. Neither of them spoke. The tension sat heavy between them, charged by the silence and the things they still hadn’t said.

[NOTICE: CIVIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM BREACH – ID TRACE BLOCKED]
[SPOOF NODE ACTIVE – STABILITY: 91.2%]

They had masked their IDs. Burned trail logs. Even rerouted through two dead stations. But Ren still felt the echo.

Something was following.

The hum of the mag-rails dulled as the train dipped underground. The lights inside flickered once—long enough for both of them to tense.

Juno opened one eye. “Tell me we’re not going to die before we get there.”

Ren didn’t answer.

[ECHO FIELD STRESS – NODE INTERFERENCE INCREASING]

The train slowed at a defunct checkpoint labeled in flaking paint: E-GHOSTLINE: MAINTENANCE ACCESS ONLY.

They disembarked into darkness.

A rusted service corridor awaited. The walls were too narrow, the lights too dim. Ren’s system flickered with interference. Juno’s field began to ping with subtle echoes of things that weren’t there.

[LOCAL GRAVITY VARIANCE: +0.4% – STABILITY BREACH PENDING]

They walked in silence.

Down here, time moved differently. The deeper they went, the less the system could explain. Arches bent at impossible angles. Doors opened onto dead ends and then weren’t there when you turned back. Paintings peeled in reverse. One hallway echoed with footsteps that weren’t theirs.

Ren marked walls with chalk. Each time he turned back, the marks were rearranged.

“We’re in a break,” he muttered.

Juno’s voice came low. “You mean the loop?”

He nodded. “Worse. This isn’t just time bending—it’s memory.”

At a pressure hatch marked “CORE ARCHIVE – LEVEL 0,” Juno placed her hand on the lockpad. It opened.

Behind it: darkness.

And stairs.

They descended. Slow. Measured.

The air grew colder. Then metallic. Then… wrong. Like breathing in regret.

Ren paused at the bottom. His HUD read no coordinates. No time stamp.

[SYSTEM ANCHOR LOST – CORE THREAD DISCONNECTED]

“This is it,” he whispered.

Juno stepped up beside him, her voice distant. “Feels like a wound.”

The hallway ahead was wider—lined with old server racks, most broken. The light came from strips of exposed energy conduit. As they stepped forward, the temperature dropped. Frost bloomed on the floor in delicate lines—like branching veins.

Ren stopped at a collapsed wall. Behind it, a familiar mural loomed. Scorched, partial—but unmistakable:

His face.

[ECHO REMNANT DETECTED – SUBJECT-021: PRIOR INSTANCE // STATUS: OBSOLETE // DATA: STATIC]

Below the mural, in smeared black ink:

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FORGET.

Juno stepped forward and touched the wall.

The mural shimmered.

And then it moved.

A fragment of recorded light burst into being. Not a video—an echo.

Ren saw himself—older, bloodied, screaming something inaudible as fire burned behind him. His voice was glitched, lips moving out of sync. The message looped. Then glitched. Then distorted into noise.

He stepped back, hand hovering near his blade.

[WARNING: ABERRANT PRESENCE – RANGE: 12.8m AND CLOSING]

Juno turned. “Something’s here.”

Ren’s breath clouded in the air. The frost beneath his boots pulsed.

From behind a server bank, it emerged.

Tall. Twisted. Pieces of armor and skin mismatched. Its face blurred—like reality rejected it. Limbs too long. Movements stuttering. It radiated echo feedback so intense Ren’s vision ghosted.

Juno gasped. “It’s... wrong.”

[SIGNATURE MATCH – CLASS: ECHO ABERRANT // TAG: “THE STITCHED”]

It didn’t speak.

It remembered.

Fragments of old loop echoes bled off its frame—scenes of death, failure, collapse. A girl crying in a stairwell. A city crumbling into flame. An instructor bleeding out. It dragged memory behind it like a virus.

Then it lunged.

Ren moved faster than thought. Drew his blade. The energy edge roared to life, clashing with a stuttering swipe from the creature’s jagged limb.

The blow nearly knocked him back. Juno was already moving—her own weapon in hand, shaped from raw Echo field. She struck high, forcing it to recoil.

[ECHO BLADE ACTIVE – JUNO SYNC: 37.5%]

[ABERRANT ADAPTATION IN PROGRESS – VARIANCE ABSORPTION DETECTED]

“Ren!” she shouted. “It’s copying us—adapting!”

The creature’s form shimmered—its limb now gleamed with partial mimicry of Ren’s own blade.

He cursed. “Split it!”

Juno feinted left. Ren surged right, driving a blade into the thing’s torso. Sparks and static burst, but no blood. Just memory. A scream echoed—not from the creature, but from deep inside the corridor.

Something else remembered them.

[DREAM TRACE BLEED – ECHO FIELD UNSTABLE]

The Stitched swung back hard, slamming Ren against the far wall. His vision crackled. A fragment of an old memory flashed—not his own—

A girl falling. A child crying. A command override. Static laughter.

He gritted his teeth and forced his system back online.

Juno screamed—her blade shattering against the creature’s adapting arm. She hit the ground hard, dazed.

Ren didn’t think.

He pulled the analog chip from his coat—the one Kairo had given him—and slammed it against the nearest conduit.

[ANALOG INJECTION DETECTED – CORRUPTION AUTHORIZED]
[PROTOCOL: ECHO JAMMER – ENGAGED]

The lights flared. The air trembled.

The creature shrieked, its form spasming as the feedback loop shattered.

“Juno—NOW!”

She raised her hand, channeling her Echo field into a spear of raw, flickering energy. She threw it.

It struck the creature’s chest—and this time, it didn’t adapt. It screamed, shrieked, disintegrated into a wash of corrupted data and ash.

Silence returned.

The lights dimmed. The frost receded.

Ren dropped to one knee, chest heaving.

Juno limped to him. “That thing—what was it?”

He stared at the ash. “A memory that didn’t want to die.”

The echo shimmer of his older self flickered again—then vanished.

And for a moment, all that remained was the mural.

Still watching.

Still waiting.