CHAPTER 79: FLICKER OF NAMES FORGOTTEN

Location: Simulation Residue – Echo Stream

The simulation didn’t shut down. It fractured.

Somewhere along the edges of unreality, a fragment of Rei— untethered from time and anchored only by instinct— stood upon a pathway of flickering code and glass-like memories.

"I remember this sunset. But... I never lived it."

He reached out to touch it. His fingers phased through the light, scattering data motes like fireflies in reverse. Behind him, an Observer Fragment, now corrupted beyond its original purpose, hovered— no longer watching, only feeling.

"He is rewriting the outcome," it whispered. "And yet, nothing resets. There is no return.

Rei turned, not startled, but accepting.

"Good. Because I’m not the same either."

Somewhere, the echoes of Alicia’s heartbeat in the code rippled toward them —warm, defiant, and real.

_____

The world was still.

Not in the poetic sense of serenity or the haunting quiet before a storm, but still in the way a frozen system might be. Time had not stopped— it simply was not being processed.

Jay floated in a fragment of corrupted dream, the simulation’s laws rewriting themselves so rapidly that he couldn’t even trust gravity to remain loyal. A sliver of stone platform beneath his shoes hung suspended in a sea of starry static. Beyond that— unrendered space.

He sat cross-legged, arms resting on his knees, eyes not entirely awake, not entirely closed either. Somewhere, far beneath the layers of simulations and memories, Jay Arkwell was still the lazy genius who skipped school and yawned during entrance exams.

But this version of him— the one seated in corrupted space— was the one with access. To systems. To truths. To what should have remained forgotten.

"Fragment scan: residual consciousness detected."

A cold voice. Not human. Not Observer either. Something older. More primal.

Jay tilted his head. "I was hoping I’d be alone. I Can not even nap in a dead world."

The void rippled. From the mist-like digital static, a figure emerged— not humanoid, not monstrous, just presence. A swirl of glyphs with a vaguely regal aura.

"Jay Arkwell! You triggered the Anamnesis Protocol."

Jay smirked. "Accidentally."

"Impossible. Anamnesis cannot be triggered by error."

He leaned back lazily, resting against a floating data shard. "What can I say? I specialize in impossible."

The presence lingered. It seemed to measure him— his body, his soul, the flickering system code imprinted into his aura. Then it spoke again.

"Jay Arkwell. Real name: [REDACTED]. Designation: System Breaker. Flagged anomaly. Unresolvable node."

Jay’s smirk slowly faded.

"You have never used your real name," the voice whispered. "Even the system forgot it. But someone remembered."

A ripple. A wave. And then a scream echoed through the void.

It was not human.

It was not even alive.

It was Rei’s voice. No. His echo.

Somewhere in the distance, Jay could feel it. Rei was not whole. He was not even safe. The Dream Collapse had severed him into multiple echoes, like someone had taken a memory and shuffled it between dimensions.

But something else pulsed beneath the scream. A signal. A beacon.

Jay narrowed his eyes. "He is calling me."

"Warning: approaching echo space beyond tolerable threshold. This will overwrite fragments of your false self."

Jay stood. The system crackled, warning him with red glyphs and glitching terrain. He did not care.

"Then overwrite me. Maybe it’s time I stopped pretending I’m still asleep."

—

Observer Fragment – Simulation Voidspace

He watched.

He always watched.

Even when reality crumbled, even when the chain of dreams shattered and cascaded into entropy, the Observer remained.

But now... now he was split. Not just in presence, but in purpose.

There had once been clarity. Monitoring the anomaly, stabilizing the subjects, logging deviations.

But the anomaly— Jay — had evolved beyond the system’s framework. And Rei... Rei had become something dangerous.

The Observer hovered between a thousand mirrored memories, each showing variations of Alicia, Jay, and Rei— some joyful, some broken, some so corrupted they had to be quarantined.

Alicia stood on a balcony in one. Wearing her uniform, wind brushing her hair as she looked up at the twin moons. In another, she wept beside Jay’s unconscious form.

And in one particular memory... Rei stood in front of the Core Archive, hands trembling, whispering to something the Observer could not see.

"You remember too much," the Observer whispered to no one.

"And remembering... breaks us."

One fragment pulsed brighter than the rest. The moment Jay rejected all three endings.

A choice not written. A will not programmed.

"Rewriting has begun," the Observer said aloud, its tone mixed with awe and sorrow.

"...And we are no longer the ones controlling the story."

—

Reality Layer: Alicia’s Dorm – System Echo Flare

Alicia Renvale sat upright, gasping. Her hands were glowing.

Not with flame or light magic, but with something different- foreign. Her reflection in the mirror was overlaid with system runes she could not read.

But her heart knew what they were.

"Jay... Rei..."

She could feel both of them slipping. Not just dying— unmaking.

But she was still here. Still real.

No... that was not quite true.

Because she remembered standing in a cathedral.

One that did not exist.

Kneeling in front of a console.

That should not have existed.

And yet, she had touched it. Whispered something into the Core.

"Bring them back."

That memory had no place in her timeline.

But it was there.

And her hands, now pulsing like a glitch, were the result.

She stood, voice shaking but steady.

"I do not care what part of me you tried to erase, System. I am done being the princess in someone else’s story."

—

Fragment Zone – Near Core Convergence

Jay stood at the edge.

Across from him, another platform emerged from the void. A single figure stood upon it — shrouded in glitching shadows, voice broken into static.

"You were never supposed to wake up."

It was Rei Kazuma.

Or what was left of him.

But Jay smiled, despite the void screaming all around them.

"I always wake up when someone says that."