staggered to my feet, every muscle aching, heart pounding.
The woman stood there —
silver hair shifting in the glitching breeze, golden eyes full of something deeper than just sadness.
Something like guilt.
"You're... Elara," I said, voice barely a whisper.
Part of me had already guessed.
The rest of me didn't want to believe it.
She tilted her head slightly.
"I was," she said. "Before the Collapse."
She stepped closer, light radiating off her skin — not harsh, but soft, almost soothing.
"The real Elara existed before this world broke," she continued. "She was the original system architect for the Last City... and the Nexus Core."
Architect?
I blinked, trying to process.
"You built this?"
She smiled faintly.
"No. I tried to save it."
Fragments of memory flickered across my vision —
an enormous control room; panels blinking red; alarms wailing.
A much younger Elara, frantically working, trying to patch the world even as it tore itself apart.
> [Memory Data Unlocked: The Great System Crash.]
"You were the first Patchbearer," I said slowly.
"Correct."
Her expression hardened.
"And I failed."
The ground rumbled beneath us — cracks spreading faster now, spiderwebbing toward the Nexus Core.
"I created a backup copy of my consciousness — Elara.exe — when the Collapse became inevitable," she said. "An emergency AI, built to guide whoever remained."
"And that's you."
"This… fragment of me, yes."
I clenched my fists.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She looked genuinely pained.
"Would you have trusted a broken ghost?"
I didn't answer.
A piece of the sky peeled away, falling into the void.
Time was running out.
Elara's golden gaze locked onto mine.
"There's still a chance," she said urgently. "If you reach the Nexus Core, you can initiate a deep system patch.
You can stabilize this world — or at least enough of it to rebuild."
"But?" I asked.
"There's always a 'but' with you people."
Elara closed her eyes briefly.
"But it will cost you everything."
I stiffened.
"What do you mean?"
"Your body. Your mind. Your very code.
You would overwrite yourself into the Core as the new stabilizer.
A living patch."
I stared at her.
"If I do that," I said slowly, "I stop being... me."
She nodded.
"You would become part of the system — eternal, but no longer truly human."
> [System Notice: FINAL MISSION UNLOCKED.]
> [Choice: STABILIZE THE CORE / WALK AWAY.]
If I walked away...
I could survive the Reset, find a new world when the void finished wiping this one out.
But everyone here — every Lost soul, every broken memory, even fragments like Elara — would be erased.
If I stabilized the Core...
I could save it all.
But I would disappear.
No glory.
No reward.
Just... sacrifice.
Elara stepped forward, reaching out.
"You don't have to choose now," she said gently. "But when you enter the Nexus Core, you will have to decide."
Behind her, the Core loomed — a massive spire of light and shadow, pulsing with unstable energy.
The last heartbeat of a dying world.
And I was its only hope.