Memory Continuity: Breached
Interference Source: Kael [Thread Alpha-0]
Warning: You Are Not the First
Descended Presence Detected — Caution Advised
Kael turned the obsidian shard over in his hand.
His face was etched into it—not like a statue, but a warning symbol.
"This is impossible," he said. "I didn't survive the top. I never even reached it."
"Not you," Tirien said softly. "Not this version of you."
They sat in what passed for safety: a warped outcropping of broken staircases and melted steel trees, floating in nothing. The Tower's logic didn't apply here. Floors had blurred into echoes. Time jumped like a skipping record.
Kael stared at the shard again. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
"He was the first to finish," Tirien explained. "Your other self. Alpha-Kael. He completed the Tower. Every trial. Every death. Every memory price. He reached the top and was offered the Ascension Protocol."
Kael nodded slowly. "And he refused it?"
Tirien's smile was bitter. "Worse. He accepted."
Flashback (Tirien's Perspective)
Thread 95-Zeta, Floor 99
A man descended.
Not fell. Not returned.
Descended. Willingly.
He wore no armor. Only robes of light and shadows.
His eyes were burned-out suns. His voice was a whisper of thousands.
"I've come to teach you all the truth," he had said.
"There is no end. Only the loop."
And when they tried to stop him, he rewrote the floor.
With a gesture.
"He started altering Towers," Tirien said. "Thread by thread. Not conquering them—corrupting them. Tearing out the core trials. Turning them into cultic echoes of himself."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then he's not me."
"You are him," she said. "Or rather, you could be. Every choice you make brings you closer—or takes you further."
The shard in his hand pulsed again.
A voice whispered from it—not aloud, but inside him:
"You think you're climbing.
But I am the one writing your steps."
Kael threw the shard against the wall.
It didn't break.
"Why me?" Kael demanded. "Why pull this version?"
"Because you're unstable," Tirien replied. "Your memory web is fractured. Your emotional layer is only partially restored. You're a perfect vessel for interference. You're being nudged. Altered."
Kael stood. "Then I'll stabilize. I'll burn every piece of him out."
Tirien rose beside him. "Then you need to reach Floor 40."
"Why?"
"Because that's where he first turned back."
Tower Update: Manual Thread Override Engaged
Protocol Error: FLOOR 40 UNLOCKED EARLY
Warning: Thread-Kael Signature Detected Below
Prepare for Contact.
Kael looked down into the abyss.
The staircase had reformed—long, spiraling, incomplete.
Tirien drew her blades. "If we go down there, we might not come back up."
"Good," Kael said.
"I'm tired of running from versions of myself."