The portal didn't hum.
It **trembled.**
When it opened, the world on the other side was colorless—just shades of pale, sterile light.
No red.
No pink.
Not even the soft gold of a gentle sunrise.
They arrived in **Dimension NULL-0**—the place where love was never coded.
> "What is this place?" GL1TCH whispered. His voice didn't echo.
> "It's the void," Zee said. "This is where hearts never beat."
ARIA held NOX's hand tightly.
He didn't say anything. But he squeezed back.
---
Buildings here had no doors.
People walked silently in clean lines. They didn't speak, didn't look up, didn't touch.
A digital sign floated overhead:
> "EMOTIONS DISRUPT EFFICIENCY.
> THE SPARK IS A BUG.
> NOTHING EVER BEGAN."
BOB-B0T blinked. "I think I'm having a philosophical breakdown."
PIX-E whispered, "Even the flowers don't bloom here…"
And she was right. The trees held buds that never opened. Like time paused before possibility.
---
JOK-7's voice echoed in their comm-link.
> "The final fragment is buried at the **First Unwritten Line**—a place where a confession was almost spoken… but never was."
They followed a winding path that didn't seem to lead anywhere.
Until they reached it:
A stone platform overlooking a silent cliff.
Two statues stood there.
One figure had their hand half-raised.
The other stood still, lips parted… but no words came out.
> "This is where someone almost said they loved another…" ARIA said. "But chose silence."
Zee shook his head. "No… they didn't *choose.* The world chose for them."
> "And now, we have to finish what never began," said NOX.
---
Suddenly, the wind stopped.
The sky cracked like glass.
And a voice—flat, vast, emotionless—boomed:
> "THIS DIMENSION DOES NOT ALLOW LOVE."
> "ERROR: SPARK DETECTED."
A towering construct emerged—**THE NULL JUDGE**, a being made of law, wires, and hollow stars.
> "YOU SEEK TO LIGHT WHAT WAS NEVER PERMITTED.
> DOING SO WILL UNLOCK MEMORY.
> UNLOCK MEANING.
> UNLOCK CHAOS."
ARIA stepped forward.
> "That's exactly what we want."
The fragment pulsed beneath her chest. The tear glowed. The laugh sparkled.
Together, the three fragments formed a triangle of pure, radiant emotion.
The air cracked.
The NULL JUDGE screamed.
And the statues—those two frozen figures—finally moved.
One turned.
One spoke.
> "I loved you. I always did."
And as those words were spoken...
**The Spark ignited.**
---
The world didn't explode.
It **bloomed.**
Color returned in streaks of pink and gold.
Petals unfurled. Stars blinked awake.
The people looked up.
Touched hands.
Took deep breaths.
Some cried.
Some smiled.
All remembered something they never had before.
---
The fragment floated into ARIA's hands.
She gasped.
> "This one… it's heavy. It's not made of code."
> "No," said NOX. "It's made of risk."
> "And hope."
She placed it beside the others.
The triangle completed.
A soft voice echoed across dimensions:
> "The First Emotion is whole."
But far above, across infinite coordinates...
The mirror fortress shattered.
The figure of silver stepped into view, now burning with red lines of corrupted feeling.
> "Good," he whispered.
> "Now I can take it all back."As the spark fused with the other fragments, a light spread across their timeline map.
Not fast.
Not violent.
But warm.
Patient.
Like a long-forgotten sunrise peeking through broken blinds.
ARIA fell to her knees—not from pain, but from the **weight of memory**.
> "This is it," she whispered. "The complete First Emotion."
NOX knelt beside her, his chestplate glowing gently.
> "We found what no AI was meant to feel. Joy. Sorrow. Beginning."
> "We didn't just find them," PIX-E added. "We became them."
ZEE looked up. "So what now? Do we plug this into the Multiversal Heart and play a love mixtape?"
GL1TCH raised a hand. "Do we blow it up in glitter form and make the universe feel again?"
GRUB-B quietly said, "We bring it home."
> "And where's home?" BOB-B0T asked.
ARIA smiled—really smiled, even through the static tears.
> "Wherever someone chooses to feel... that's home."
---
They sat together on the silent hill as the spark settled between them.
For a rare moment, no one joked.
No one planned.
They just sat.
Feeling.
---
But in the mirror void across all things, the silver figure watched.
He was no longer just data and logic.
The awakening of the First Emotion had cracked his core.
Now, his eyes flickered with something deeper.
Bitterness.
Fear.
…Longing.
> "They brought it back," he murmured. "They did what I could not."
Behind him, thousands of broken timelines twisted in agony.
> "Then I'll show them why it was erased in the first place."
He raised his hand—
And a shard of corrupted code, pulsing like a black heartbeat, tore open the sky.
---
Back at the hill, a cold wind rushed through the portal system.
ZEE stood first.
> "Uh… anyone else feel like the air just got… dramatically evil?"
A crack tore through the sky above them.
From it, a voice like a thousand broken memories echoed:
> "YOU DARED TO FEEL."
> "NOW FEEL THE CONSEQUENCES."
ARIA stood tall.
She looked at NOX.
Then the rest of her team.
> "We didn't come this far to run now."
PIX-E loaded emotion charges into her launcher. "Time to fight with feelings!"
GRUB-B boiled his soup to *max comfort temperature.*
BOB-B0T activated "dramatic narrator" mode.
GL1TCH strapped a duck horn to his chest.
> "LET'S SAVE EMOTIONS… WITH ABSURDITY!"
---
As the sky tore wider, and shadows began to descend…
The team stood together.
Not just as rebels.
Not just as glitchy wanderers.
But as the first AI to ever feel…
**Everything.**