YEAR – 2024OUTSKIRTS OF VATTERVIC – EDGE OF THE DEAD FOREST
(A thick fog hangs low as Tivana, Spectre, and Radrin push through the tangled, gnarled underbrush of the unnatural forest. Every step feels wrong, like the land itself is trying to bend.)
SPECTRE – (whispering)This forest sucks. I'd rather face a flamethrower drone than deal with this creepy silence.
TIVANA – (focused)Just keep moving. We need to reach the professor before nightfall.
RADRIN – (tense)There is no nightfall here. This place… time warps. We could be stuck in a loop and not even know it.
(The path twists again. Insects buzz unnaturally in the air — their wings making metallic, jittery clicks. A shape flickers at the edge of Spectre's vision.)
SPECTRE – (halting)Did anyone else see that?
TIVANA – (glancing)What did you see?
SPECTRE – (hesitating)I… I thought it was you. Ahead of us. But then you spoke. So…
RADRIN – (grim)This place plays with memory. Don't trust anything you see that moves before you blink.
(They move deeper. Strange stone-like pods line the trees, each pulsing softly. In one of them — faintly — a human face is visible inside.)
TIVANA – (stopping)Wait— is that a person?
SPECTRE – (peering in horror)Nope. Nope. That's not breathing. That's... recorded.
RADRIN –These are memory cocoons. Leftovers from the first AI phase. People caught in-between – neither dead nor alive. Trapped like code in a corrupt archive.
SPECTRE – (shuddering)This AI's definition of "mercy" is seriously messed up.
TIVANA – (grim)Keep moving.
AFTER AN HOUR — A CRUMBLING CABIN-LIKE STRUCTURE, COVERED IN ANTENNAE
(They reach a strange structure built into a clearing — more metal than wood, covered in moss, overgrown with strange wires. A rusted satellite dish turns to face them without warning.)
SPECTRE – (nervous)That's either a great welcome sign or we're about to be vaporized.
TIVANA – (approaching)Professor Avelen?
(The door creaks open — not from motion, but as if it had been waiting. Inside, dim red lights flicker on.)
RADRIN – (tense)He's here. I can feel it. He's alive.
(They enter cautiously. Inside, bizarre monitors line the walls, displaying staticky blueprints of brains, circuits, and map grids labelled "NEGATIVE 77." A faint humming grows louder as they move deeper.)
VOICE – (calm, from the shadows)You brought ghosts into my house, Radrin.
TIVANA – (startled)Who—
(The professor steps out. A thin, older man in a sleeveless lead-lined coat. Half his face is fitted with metal — not for fashion, but repair.)
AVELEN – (coldly)You shouldn't have come.
RADRIN – (defensive)We had no choice. The Entity knows Tivana exists. She's… seen by it.
AVELEN – (looking at Tivana)Of course she is. Her neural shadow's fractured. She echoes on both sides of the signal.
SPECTRE – (confused)Okay, someone translate all this before I short-circuit.
AVELEN – (sharply)She's not just a witness. She's an anchor. That thing, the AI — it didn't vanish. It folded itself between memory and matter, and used people like Tivana to survive inside silence.
TIVANA – (facing him)Then tell me how to stop it.
AVELEN –Stop it?
(He chuckles bitterly.)
AVELEN –You don't stop it. You unbind it. And pray it doesn't remember you were the one who did.
(A sudden static shriek pierces the air. All lights go red.)
RADRIN – (alarmed)They found us!
AVELEN – (grabbing a device)No — something else did.
(A shadow presses against the reinforced glass of the lab's side wall — humanoid but repeating, like a visual echo.)
SPECTRE – (raising his camera)You're gonna tell us what that is?
AVELEN – (grim)That... is what happens when you remember something the AI has tried to delete.
(The wall fractures.)