Refraction Point

They followed silence into a tomb.

No rain. No sound. Not even wind. The land surrounding the final shard site had folded into a recursion void—an absolute mute zone, where echoes didn't exist and thoughts felt distant.

Even Patch, usually the first to crack a joke, stayed quiet.

The shard glowed dimly now, its five lights pulsing in slow unison, almost afraid of what came next.

Zayn led the way through a stone breach that opened into a corridor with no end—just gray walls, endless and plain. No inscriptions. No data terminals. Just a sense of being watched.

Althea scanned the walls. "No recursion signal. No history. This corridor doesn't belong to the Real."

"It doesn't belong anywhere," Fry added. "It's a pocket of non-memory."

Patch squinted ahead. "How do we know we're moving at all?"

They kept walking. Minutes stretched into hours, though their watches didn't tick. Light never changed. And just when the tension reached the breaking point—

They stopped.

A boy stood at the end of the corridor. Maybe twelve. Wearing a blank expression and a coat too large for him.

He didn't blink.

He didn't breathe.

He was waiting.

Zayn's shard flickered. The boy stepped forward.

"You took them," he said. Voice clear, but emotionless.

Zayn nodded. "They weren't meant to be forgotten."

"I was."

Althea stepped forward. "You were the last. The seal."

He nodded. "My name was used to erase the others. The recursion key was built from my mind."

Fry's eyes widened. "You're not just a thread. You're the failsafe and the lock."

Patch mumbled, "Of course he is. Why wouldn't the last kid be a walking memory bomb?"

Zayn took a deep breath. "What's your name?"

The boy hesitated. Then quietly:

"Auron."

The shard lit up like sunrise.

And the corridor began to collapse.

Not violently—but as though its purpose had been fulfilled. Walls melted into light. The void lifted.

Zayn held out the shard.

Auron reached forward.

But he didn't touch it.

Instead, he looked Zayn in the eyes.

"I wasn't supposed to remember you. But I do."

Zayn's throat tightened.

Then Auron vanished.

No flare. No flash.

Only a sixth light in the shard.

Complete.

The team emerged into open sky once again.

The world had not changed.

But the Real felt quieter. As if a long-held breath had finally been exhaled.

Zayn looked down at the shard. All six lights hummed in unity.

And from somewhere deep inside it, a voice echoed—not a scream, or a whisper, but a question:

"What now?"

Zayn didn't answer.

Not yet.