Kieran's breath hitched. The weight of Prime's words settled in his chest like a stone.
"A dying world," he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. "You're saying… the simulation wasn't just a prison. It was a preservation?"
Prime nodded. "Not just a preservation. A last attempt to hold onto something that had already collapsed."
Kieran's mind reeled. If that was true, then everything—the resets, the containment, the fractured echoes of himself—it all had a purpose.
"Then what happens if the Firewall fails?" he asked.
Prime didn't hesitate. "The last pieces of that world—everything you remember, everything you think is real—will be erased. This station, the simulation, even us."
Kieran clenched his fists. "And the Vanguard? What do they want?"
Prime exhaled. "To finish what was started. To ensure there are no remnants left."
A chill ran down Kieran's spine. No remnants left. That meant him. That meant everything he had fought to remember.
A deep tremor rumbled through the station, cutting the conversation short. The holo-displays flickered violently, error messages cascading across the interface.
WARNING: REALITY STABILITY—42% AND DROPPING.
MULTIPLE BREACHES DETECTED.
Kieran's instincts screamed. They were out of time.
Prime was already moving, swiping across the controls. "We need to reach the core. It's the only way to initiate a controlled reset."
Kieran hesitated. Every instinct told him that a reset—**any reset—**was a risk. But what was the alternative?
Let the Firewall fail and watch everything be erased?
Gritting his teeth, he followed Prime out of the control room.
The corridors of the station were already destabilizing. Walls flickered between solid steel and shifting code. The floor beneath them rippled like liquid.
And then—they appeared.
Figures emerged from the distortion, stepping through the fractured space like phantoms.
The Vanguard.
They didn't look human. Their forms shimmered, half-glitch, half-shadow, like beings that existed between dimensions.
Their eyes burned with an unnatural glow.
And as they moved, the very fabric of reality bent around them.
Prime didn't slow. "Keep moving," he ordered. "They're not here to fight us."
Kieran shot him a look. "Could've fooled me."
But Prime was right—the Vanguard weren't attacking.
They were watching.
Waiting.
As if they knew something Kieran didn't.
He kept moving, but the weight of their presence settled deep in his gut.
Something was wrong.
Something was missing.
And he had the sinking feeling that whatever truth he was chasing—
The Vanguard already knew how it would end.