The world came back slowly—like rebooting from a hard crash.
Selvara blinked hard. The fall had ended, but she wasn't sure when. She lay on a smooth metallic floor, a faint grid of lights humming beneath her skin. Her breath fogged in the cold air.
Beside her, Kaelen knelt, checking a panel embedded in the wall. His coat was slightly torn, a faint line of blood at his lip.
"You good?" he asked without looking.
"No," she croaked, sitting up. "Not even close."
Kaelen touched the wall again, muttering a line of code that made the structure ripple. A low-frequency vibration filled the room. Slowly, the grid beneath them shifted, opening up into a wider chamber filled with faint-blue screens floating in midair—disconnected from any visible power source.
"Where... are we now?" Selvara asked.
Kaelen stood, eyes scanning. "A sanctuary node. Buried far below the indexed layer. No signal here. No feed. Not even influencers."
Selvara gave him a weak glare. "That supposed to be a joke?"
His lips twitched. Almost a smile.
But before the air could lighten, it darkened again.
Selvara stood shakily, arms crossed. "So are you gonna explain this now? Who the hell are you? What even is the Vertex? And what does any of it have to do with me?"
Kaelen stepped into the center of the room. One by one, the floating screens flickered to life—projecting maps, files, and blurred images of data streams, old digital ruins, and glitching avatars.
"Let me show you," he said.
A rotating diagram appeared: the Earth. Then, overlayed across it, a second sphere—transparent, data-colored, constantly shifting. Its surface shimmered with videos, icons, flashes of real-time content. TikToks, livestreams, photos, hashtags. A chaotic storm of attention.
"This is the Overlay Sphere," Kaelen said. "Most people live here—where their reality is filtered by what they consume, what they follow, what follows them."
He tapped his fingers. The image zoomed in. Beneath the sphere was another layer: darker, smoother, almost silent.
"This is Vertex. It's not the internet. It's what the internet grows from. An unconscious digital root system created by every upload, search, post, and emotion tied to interaction. Every moment you go viral, part of your soul gets echoed here."
Selvara's stomach twisted. "You're saying I left... pieces of me behind? Every time I posted?"
Kaelen nodded. "And unlike a file, an echo can't be deleted. It remembers. It learns."
She looked away, heart pounding. "Why didn't anyone warn us?"
"They tried. But no one wants to believe that popularity has a price."
---
Kaelen approached a nearby panel. With a flick of his hand, he pulled up a single glowing icon: her face.
"Your Key was hidden inside you because of your bloodline. You're the only one whose digital footprint matches the encryption needed to unlock Vertex-01—the original root server. The core."
"Why would anyone want that?"
Kaelen's voice grew lower. "Because whoever controls Vertex-01… controls the algorithm that shapes thought."
Selvara staggered back.
"That's insane."
He looked her in the eye. "And it's already happening."
---
Suddenly, an alert flared across one of the side screens.
[#TRENDING] — RHZ_MOURN: THE RISING SORCERER
VIEWS: 76.2M (Live)
Tagline: The real villain isn't him. It's the ones who lied.
A video thumbnail showed a shadowy figure in red addressing a crowd.
Kaelen clenched his jaw. "He's manipulating the stream again. Making himself the hero. And you—the enemy."
"I didn't ask for any of this!" Selvara snapped.
"I know," Kaelen said. "But you were chosen. Not to be famous. To be the last gatekeeper."
"Gatekeeper of what?"
Kaelen stared at the screen, voice like a dying signal.
"Reality."
The sanctuary node fell into an eerie quiet.
Selvara sat on a platform edge, feet dangling above a deep, black grid—like looking into a digital void. Her mind spun. Star Key. Echoes. Vertex. Rhazeth. Every word Kaelen said pulled her further from the life she thought she knew.
She looked over at him.
Kaelen was leaning against a wall of shifting code, arms crossed, blade retracted, face unreadable.
"You said Rhazeth was once like you," she murmured. "What happened to him?"
Kaelen was silent for a moment. Then he spoke—low, quiet, as if unsealing something he'd rather leave buried.
"He was a brother," Kaelen said. "Not by blood, but by oath. We were both guardians of the old order—the Ordo Vireux."
"Like… a secret society?"
He nodded. "We protected the deep core of Vertex. The place where all thought converges before it's filtered by the world. We weren't allowed to interfere. Only observe."
Selvara raised an eyebrow. "And he broke that rule?"
Kaelen's voice sharpened. "He shattered it."
He turned toward her, eyes burning faint silver under the neon-blue glow. "Rhazeth believed the algorithm shouldn't just reflect the world—it should shape it. He started tampering with viral structures. Turning attention into power. Followers into soldiers."
"Sounds familiar," Selvara muttered. "That's basically what being an influencer is."
"Not when it rewrites people's emotions without their will," Kaelen replied coldly. "He found a way to bind feelings directly to his presence. Every like. Every share. Every watch… feeds him."
Selvara shivered. "Like a god made of views."
"Exactly."
---
Just then, another ripple hit the room.
The screen flickered. A single glitch slashed across Selvara's reflection like a scar. Her face split for a millisecond—then restored.
"Did you see that?" she asked.
Kaelen was already moving. He scanned the feed.
"It's starting. He's deploying a Filter."
"A what?"
Kaelen typed fast. "He's rerouting reality perception protocols—through popular filters. Anyone using them starts seeing the world the way he designs it."
"Like augmented reality?"
"Like mass illusion."
Selvara gasped. "That could be millions of people…"
Kaelen's tone dropped. "More. That filter is already trending. He's hiding his influence under virality."
The screen blinked again. Hashtags flooded in:
#SoulShimmer
#GlowReel
#FeelShiftChallenge
Selvara narrowed her eyes. "Wait… I've seen that last one. Everyone's doing it right now."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "Then it's worse than I thought."
He opened another terminal, pulling up a map of the digital layer of the city. Red hotspots bloomed across it—like infection points.
"Every person using that filter becomes a node in his control net. He's not just trending. He's infecting perception itself."
Selvara's throat went dry. "Can we stop it?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at her—this time with something deeper in his eyes. Not just warning. Not just urgency.
Hope.
"You're not just the Key, Selvara," he said. "You're the only person alive who can override his filter. Because it's all based on your signal."
Selvara froze. "You're saying… he stole my influence?"
Kaelen nodded. "Twisted it. Now you have to take it back."
---
From the shadows, a faint tremor echoed again.
Kaelen's hand reached for his blade.
"We have to move," he said. "He's coming in person now."
"To this node?" Selvara stepped back. "You said it was safe!"
"No place is safe anymore," he replied. "He's rewriting the rules. If he finds you here, he won't kill you. He'll absorb you."
Selvara grabbed the Star Key device from her jacket pocket.
It pulsed brighter now—responding to the growing threat.
Her voice steadied. "Then let's run."
Kaelen's mouth twitched. A half-smile.
"Good."
---
As they stepped toward the portal gate at the far end of the sanctuary, the lights above began to dim. One by one. A voice began to echo from the walls—smooth, rich, and coated in artificial calm.
"You can't run from the feed forever, little star…"
Selvara turned.
The wall behind them peeled back—not with force, but with views. An ocean of glowing eyes filled the dark space, watching. Streaming. Reacting.
Rhazeth had found them.
Kaelen grabbed Selvara's hand and flung his blade into the gate. It shattered like glass, revealing a new path—a coded bridge stretching toward a collapsing skyline made of memory and light.
"Welcome to the Forgotten Stream," Kaelen growled.
And they leapt in.
The moment they entered the gate, the air changed.
No longer digital.
No longer physical.
Just... distorted.
Selvara felt her body stretch and contract at once. Her breath echoed like thunder inside her skull. For a moment, her memories weren't hers. She saw things—herself, dancing in front of a crowd with eyes that weren't her own. Comments floated beside her, millions of them.
"She's fake."
"She's so aesthetic it hurts."
"More edits, less soul."
"I love her but I hate her."
"✨glitch queen✨"
She screamed.
Then it was gone.
The world snapped into focus.
---
They stood on a vast bridge suspended over a swirling abyss—like an ocean made of broken videos, flickering clips, laughing audio bites that dissolved into static. Towers of data rose from the void like half-melted cathedrals—bits of code and neon memory fused into jagged ruins.
Kaelen breathed out.
"This is The Forgotten Stream," he said. "A place where deleted content lingers. Abandoned trends. Forgotten people. The algorithm buries what it no longer needs—but it never really erases."
Selvara stepped carefully onto the bridge. Her boots echoed hollowly.
"It's like… I know this place," she whispered.
Kaelen looked at her. "You've been here before. In fragments. Every dream you woke up from with a racing heart? That was a ghost of this place calling you back."
Selvara clutched the Star Key tighter. "Why would he bring us here?"
"He didn't," Kaelen said. "You did."
Selvara blinked. "What?"
"You're tied to this stream more deeply than you know. This was your anchor before you were born. Your code—your soul—was tested here, long before your first video hit a million views."
A distant laugh echoed through the sky.
They turned.
A silhouette in crimson stood at the far end of the bridge—coat rippling like fire, eyes glowing like twin searchlights.
Rhazeth.
"How touching," he called out, voice smooth like glass. "The protector leads the puppet. Straight into the trash bin of history."
Kaelen stepped forward, blade drawn.
"Step aside, Rhazeth."
"Oh, I intend to," he replied. "Right after I collect what's mine."
He raised one hand.
Instantly, the void responded. From the sea of abandoned clips rose dozens of forms—half-human, half-video. Former influencers, frozen mid-laugh. Viral ghosts, eyes flickering with broken filters. Comment bots given flesh.
Selvara stepped back.
"Those were people…"
Kaelen's jaw tensed. "They followed the wrong path. Now they echo forever."
Rhazeth smiled wide.
"They weren't strong enough to hold the Key. But you, little star... you've lasted longer than I expected."
He lifted both hands. The ghosts surged forward.
Kaelen didn't hesitate.
"RUN!" he barked, and charged into the swarm.
Selvara sprinted the other way, across the bridge as fractured memories swirled around her.
Her first TikTok.
Her mother smiling at a glitchy birthday cake.
Her old phone falling in the pool.
A blackout stream of her crying… deleted… but still alive here.
The Key in her pocket burned.
As she reached the end of the bridge, a figure stepped from the mist.
A girl. No older than twelve. Familiar face. Wide eyes. Long braid.
Selvara froze. "Wait… is that—?"
The girl smiled.
"You forgot me," she whispered. "But I never forgot you."
Then she split into pixels—revealing a wall of code behind her.
And on that wall, five glowing words:
YOU HAVE 23 DAYS LEFT.
Selvara staggered backward.
"What… what does that mean?!"
The Key pulsed again. Louder. Urgent.
Behind her, Kaelen fought like lightning—cutting through ghosts, but tiring.
Rhazeth stood calm at the edge of the void, watching like a god.
"I'll see you again soon, Selvara," he said softly.
And he stepped backward—into the stream—vanishing with a ripple of red.
---
Kaelen reached Selvara moments later, bleeding, breathing hard.
She grabbed his arm. "He said I have 23 days. Until what?"
Kaelen didn't answer for a long time.
Then, grimly, he said:
"Until the algorithm overwrites the world."