Chapter 1: The City That Never Was
The world was a symphony of quiet hums. Isen Vrail stood atop the Memory Spire, feeling the vibration of the crystalline core thrumming beneath his feet. From here, the air looked clean, silvered by endless light refracting off the towering structure's glass-like walls. Below, a perpetual storm roared across the earth's dead surface — swirling clouds of gray and ash, as though the planet itself refused to forget its ancient wounds.
Isen barely registered the storm anymore. His focus was on the hollow tap-tap of his boots as he descended the Spire's stairs into the Archivist Chambers. These chambers were a labyrinth of white corridors, every curve and edge polished to sterility, every shadow devoured by the pale light leaking from unseen sources.
Here, souls lived. Here, they lingered.
Isen's office sat at the heart of the Archives. A single white desk, no ornamentation, a chair that molded to his spine, and on the wall, embedded in crystalline glass, a glowing display of swirling names. These were the people. Thousands of them. Millions. Names that carried lives, bundled in memories contained within the Arks. Some of them were corrupted. And some, like today, were catastrophically so.
A gentle chime echoed.
"Archivist Isen Vrail, the Council summons you to Record Seventeen."
The voice was the Spire itself, calm, mechanical, omnipresent.
Isen's jaw tightened as he grabbed his thin gray coat and strode down the hallway. Record Seventeen. High-level corruption. His mind moved like clockwork as he walked, analyzing the possibilities. Widespread anomalies were rare, almost impossible. Corruption was localized by nature, usually a product of trauma or poor curation. But if an entire record was destabilizing, that meant something more sinister.
Isen stepped through a set of doors that whispered open at his approach. Inside, the Archivist Council waited: six figures in their usual bone-white robes, faces obscured behind expressionless masks. Only their glowing eye-lenses betrayed any sense of life. They stood around a shimmering projection of a city — sprawling, beautiful, yet distinctly alien.
Isen frowned. "What am I looking at?"
The projection shimmered as a Councilor stepped forward. "Archivist Vrail. This city appeared within the memories of 16,342 individuals overnight."
"Appeared?" Isen repeated, his voice sharp.
"Yes. None of them have ever lived in it. None of them have ever seen it. Yet, every corrupted memory describes this city down to the smallest detail: its spiral towers, its golden bridges, its crystalline river." The Councilor's voice modulated low. "They call it Veridica."
Isen let the name sit in the air. It felt wrong, unreal.
"And there's more," the Councilor continued. "Those afflicted claim they have lived entire lives in Veridica. They speak of families who don't exist. Streets that were never built. Governments, wars, children…" The projection rippled, shifting into a street view of the impossible city. "We've cross-referenced every record in the Memory Arks. There is no evidence of Veridica anywhere in our archives."
Isen's stomach curled. "That's not possible."
"And yet it is happening," another Councilor intoned.
He looked back at the projection. The city was breathtaking — unlike the cold, angular geometry of the Spire, Veridica had curves and colors, its skyline softened by bridges that glowed like captured sunlight. And yet there was something… off. As though it had been dreamed rather than designed.
"Who was the first?" Isen asked.
"An Outlander. Her name is Kyria Aethen."
Isen flinched at the word Outlander. Those were the ones who had fallen — humans driven mad by corrupted, fragmented memories. They wandered the world's wastelands beyond the Spire, speaking nonsense, forgotten and uncurated. Kyria Aethen, like all Outlanders, shouldn't have had access to the Arks at all.
"And now," said the Councilor closest to him, "this corruption spreads like an infection. If you cannot isolate and resolve it, the afflicted may need to be purged."
The words struck like a slap. "Purged? Sixteen thousand lives?"
"Sixteen thousand minds," corrected the Councilor. "We cannot allow the Arks to destabilize. Humanity's survival depends on perfect curation."
Isen's pulse quickened. He was no stranger to corruption, but this was unprecedented. A collective false memory — a shared dream — spreading like a virus. His instincts whispered that something far darker was at play.
"Where is Kyria now?"
"Confined," replied the Councilor. "She refuses to speak with anyone but an Archivist."
Isen exhaled slowly. "Then I'll speak to her."
---
The detainment sector sat beneath the Spire, a place buried so deeply that not even the storms could touch it. Kyria Aethen was kept in a white chamber with no doors, only energy fields that shimmered like water. She sat on the floor, knees tucked to her chest, her face partially hidden by ragged black hair.
Isen deactivated the field and stepped inside. "Kyria Aethen."
The woman didn't look up. "You're the Archivist." Her voice was hoarse, like wind through gravel.
"I'm here to understand what's happening," Isen said calmly. "You're the first case. Start at the beginning."
Kyria laughed softly. It wasn't the laugh of a sane woman. "The beginning?" She looked up then, and Isen froze. Her eyes were wrong — sharp and too bright, like light reflecting off shattered glass. "I don't remember the beginning. I only remember Veridica."
Isen crouched in front of her. "Tell me about it."
Her gaze pinned him. "It's not just a place. It's a memory that doesn't want to die. It's alive, Archivist." Her lips trembled. "And it's waking up."
The air felt colder suddenly.
Isen's voice was even. "What is Veridica, Kyria?"
Her smile sent a ripple of unease down his spine. "The truth," she whispered.
And as she said it, Isen saw something in her eyes — a flicker of a cityscape reflected there. Glowing bridges. Spiral towers. A golden river. For the briefest moment, he felt it too, like the edges of a forgotten dream scratching at his mind.
He stood abruptly. "I'll return."
As Isen exited, the energy field flickering back into place, Kyria's voice echoed behind him:
"You'll see it too, Archivist. The city that never was. And once you see it, you'll never forget."
---
Back in his office, Isen stood in front of the glowing wall of names. 16,342 of them. Somewhere among those souls, the corruption was still spreading. But his mind kept circling back to Kyria. To her impossible words.
A memory that doesn't want to die.
He turned to his desk and activated his interface. He hesitated for only a moment before issuing the command.
"Open Memory Ark. Designation: Veridica."
The air in his office trembled as the crystalline walls darkened and began to hum. And then the floor beneath him dissolved into light, dragging him into the place that shouldn't exist.
Into Veridica.