Refraction Point

The Coreveil Archives were more graveyard than library now.

Zayn's boots crunched across the skeletal remains of memory wafers that littered the hall. Fragments of recursive logs swirled overhead like ash, whispering in languages long broken. Some begged. Some wept. Others simply flickered in and out of recognition.

"I'm getting goosebumps," Patch muttered, stepping over a collapsed data rack. "Do dead files bite?"

"Only the corrupted ones," Fry replied, brushing her fingers along a console that blinked once before fizzing out. "Which is most of them."

Althea stood still. "Shard's flaring. Stronger than the last time."

Zayn lifted it. Three lights pulsed—amber, blue, and green. Mira, Laziel, and Riven. But now a fourth glow had begun to form—dim, flickering like a dying firefly.

"Third sub-level," he said. "It's under us."

Fry peered at the collapsed lift shaft. "Well. Hope you packed your knees."

The descent was a metal maze. Stairwells bent at angles that challenged physics, reinforced walls twisted into recursive spirals. It was less a structure now, more a frozen scream in architecture.

By the time they reached the sealed vault at Sub-Level Three, Zayn's head throbbed.

The shard in his hand lit up like a beacon.

Without needing to speak, he pressed it to the door.

It opened—not with a hiss or groan—but a breath.

Inside was silence.

At the chamber's center was a chair.

In it: a small child. Pale. Still. Surrounded by projections spinning lazily in orbit around him—memory echoes stitched into light.

Zayn stepped forward cautiously. "Hello?"

The boy's eyes flicked up. Hollow. Like he was seeing through time.

"Okay, I vote no sudden movements," Patch whispered.

Althea scanned her interface. "He's not a host. He's an anchor. The system used him to preserve emotional core logs."

"Meaning?" Fry asked.

"He remembers for everyone else."

Zayn crouched before the boy. "Can you tell me your name?"

No reply. But the shard warmed in his hand. And then… a whisper inside his mind.

"Thalen."

The moment the name surfaced, the room reacted. Projections accelerated—images of shattered playgrounds, outstretched hands, laughter turned to silence.

Zayn winced. "He's caught in it."

Althea lunged to stabilize the emotional wave. "The memories are colliding. We need to stop—"

"No," Zayn said, voice low. "They're remembering him back."

He placed the shard to Thalen's hand.

A hum, warm and resonant, filled the room.

And one by one, the projections blinked out.

Thalen blinked slowly, as if waking from a long sleep.

"I remember you."

His smile was faint. Sad. Real.

The green light solidified within the shard.

Back above, in the crumbling heart of the archive, the group exhaled together.

Patch broke the silence. "Okay, but if the next kid sings lullabies backwards, I'm out."

Fry chuckled. "We're neck-deep in memory constructs. Expect weird."

Zayn stared down at the shard. Four lights now. Four lost souls stitched into one purpose.

Althea met his gaze. "Two more."

He nodded. "And the next one… won't be waiting."