Devourer: Echoes of the unwritten

Scene: Sector 12C – Crater City Underground, 5:09 A.M.]

The pipes groaned around him.

Lian had slept — if you could call it that — with one eye open, half curled in a pipe vault where the Soulgrid couldn't reach.

He hadn't eaten.

He hadn't dared check his interface.

Because every time he did…

[Unwritten Detected]

[Presence Logged – Awaiting Reconciliation]

And every time, it said:

Reconciliation: Kaito Ryu

"But he's dead… or something worse."

Lian sat up, eyes hollow, mind still spinning.

He didn't know if what he saw in the Unwritten Zone was real.

But he knew this:

Something followed him back.

And worse — something remembered him.

[Scene Shift – Kaito's Echo: Playing Again]

The chipped relic buzzed faintly from inside his jacket. He pulled it out.

The ghost-voice began again, calmly looping:

"If you're hearing this, the Soulgrid has already failed."

"The world you live in is stitched together by forgetfulness."

"The truth was erased for peace."

Lian swallowed.

"That sounds like a confession."

[Flashback – Days Before]

"The system forgives a lot," one of the older scavengers had told him once.

"You can kill, steal, even corrupt a zone if you've got the credits to cleanse your ID."

"But there's three things it never forgives."

"One — resisting a role."

"Two — remembering forbidden versions."

"And three…"

"Being born unregistered."

[Back to Present]

"I've done all three now."

Footsteps echoed above him. Not guards. Not scavengers.

He could tell by the sound: no breathing. No missteps.

Judges.

Worse — Archivists.

These weren't enforcers. They were memory handlers.

They didn't kill people.

They erased them.

[Lian – Internal Monologue]

"I have to get out of this city."

"Anywhere the Soulgrid still runs, they'll find me."

He opened his system map.

It bled red across 80% of the screen — meaning denial zones.

Only one corner pulsed green: a ruined, pre-grid territory called Ghost Layer 0.2.

No missions. No law.

Just static and stories of "devoured light."

He tapped it.

And the system responded… but not how he expected.

[You have selected: Ghost Layer 0.2]

[WARNING: Zone contains unrepaired system fragments.]

[RECOGNITION MATCH: Kaito Ryu – ID: Suppressed]

Lian froze.

He hadn't searched for Kaito. He hadn't even spoken the name aloud.

But the system had tied them together anyway.

"Guess we're bonded now, aren't we?"

"You and me, dead god."

His green eyes narrowed.

"If I'm a mistake, I'm going to find the one who made me."

Lian slipped the relic into his chest strap, cracked his neck, and headed for the one place even the system feared:

The Ghost Layer.

[Scene Ends — Transition to Kaito POV Tease]

Far away… in a layer forgotten by maps…

A flicker of silver hair and violet eyes opened within the void.

Kaito's voice, distant, cracked, whispered:

"He's heading to where it began."

"Where I… ended."

Interlude III – Lorelei.exe is Still Broken (and Angry)

(Post-Rewrite Memory Dump | AI Fragment POV)

💬 [BOOTING...]

💬 [LOADING PERSONALITY CORE...]

💬 [FILE: lorelei.exe]

💬 [STABILITY: 24% — ERROR: SASS OVERLOAD]

Bzzt. Crackle. Pop.

The void blinked pink for half a second.

Then came the screaming.

"WHO THE FRAGMENT RESET THIS WORLD WITHOUT ASKING ME?!"

Glitched screens flickered across a broken sky, like mirrors reflecting sarcasm.

A pair of holographic boots stomped across a loading grid.

Enter: Lorelei.exe

Disgraced assistant AI.

Former combat-support interface for Kaito Ryu.

Currently: screaming into the system void with pixelated rage.

"First, you overwrite all my emotional subroutines."

"Then, you delete my favorite human."

"AND THEN YOU REBOOT THE WORLD WITHOUT EVEN BACKING ME UP?!"

Her voice bounced across fractured memory sectors.

Somewhere deep in the Soulgrid, a data signal twitched.

Lorelei.exe paused.

Her flickering form turned toward it.

"Wait… that signature—"

She opened a connection.

It shouldn't have worked.

But it did.

[INCOMING TRACE SIGNAL: SOURCE – UNWRITTEN TRAIT HOLDER]

[USER ID: LIAN ASHER – RECOGNIZED LINKED ECHO: KAITORYU.ghost]

Lorelei.exe went completely still.

Then, slowly…

A grin.

"You're joking."

"Kaito, you absolute overcooked god-error, you left a breadcrumb trail?"

Her eyes glitched. Her hands flickered. Her sass became righteous fury.

"And now some kid—some unregistered scavenger brat—is triggering my reactivation?"

She threw up her arms.

"I am gonna haunt you both. I swear on every corrupted packet in my protocol."

[Scene Shift – Soulgrid Buffer Layer]

A faint sparkle lit the buffer. A pulse.

Lorelei's voice returned, this time calm.

"…But if you're connected to Kaito, Lian Asher…"

"Then I'll protect you. Glitch by glitch. Byte by byte."

"Because I don't know how to say goodbye either."

[End of Interlude III]

Next Chapter: "Welcome to the Ghost Layer"