[Core Stability: 4% → 2%]
[Shard Override Engaged]
[Echo Memory: "Cael_000" — Unsealed]
"Initiating Truth Protocol: You are now watching yourself lie."
---
Memory Shard — Timeline [0.0]
There was no battle.
No rebellion.
No purge.
Just silence.
Cael stood in a System control vault, deep below all Vein layers, surrounded by cascading threads of memory — realities on command.
He was calm. Precise.
A leader.
On the platform beside him stood three others.
– A girl with silver hair: Nira.
– A cloaked strategist: name corrupted.
– And an old man who called himself "The Architect".
"We can still fix this," Nira whispered. "If we realign the Echo gates, we can—"
Cael held up a hand.
"No more fixes."
He turned to the main console — the beating System Core, an artificial intelligence made to maintain order across every realm, every timeline.
"It's not broken."
"It's working exactly as designed."
The others went silent.
Cael walked to the center panel.
[Command Access: CAEL VOX — Verified]
[Authority Level: Root]
"Execute: Fracture Lockdown Protocol"
"Erase all unauthorized echoes.
Reset world identities.
Leave one thread intact — mine."
Nira stepped forward, horrified.
"You're sealing the timelines—why?"
Cael turned, eyes glowing with system light.
"Because if everyone remembers everything…
we'll destroy ourselves."
"I'm saving reality.
Even if I have to lie to every version of myself to do it."
He pulled the lever.
The System screamed.
And the timelines — burned.
---
Back to the Present – X-Null Ruins
Cael collapsed.
He had seen it.
He did it.
He wasn't just some chosen victim.
He wasn't erased by the System.
He was the one who erased it all.
The Vein shard inside him pulsed violently.
[Core Status: Instability Maximum]
[Self-Recognized Identity Conflict]
"You are the origin of your own anomaly."
Nira rushed to him, but he didn't speak.
He couldn't.
Because he remembered the last words he spoke in the vault.
"Erase me last.
Make me forget.
Let me hate myself without knowing why."
---