It happened while he was sketching irrigation paths in the dirt.
Riku crouched at the forest's edge, dragging his finger through the moss as he designed a crude water flow system—simple trenches to collect rain from the canopy and reroute it to the Lorian rootfarms. It wasn't much, but it meant they wouldn't have to rely on dew-soaked bark and fungal filters.
He'd solved half of it in his head when something inside him clicked.
Not an idea. Not a feeling.
A resonance.
As if his thoughts had folded inward—meeting themselves halfway through the solution—and then stretched outward like echoing logic.
The shimmer hit his vision like heat off metal.
[FOLD DETECTED]
[Cognitive Path: Innovation / Problem-Solving]
[Result: Local Trait Synergy Engaged – Lorian Inventive Spark +2]
[New Trait: Rootline Comprehension (Passive)]
He stared at the screen in stunned silence.
And then—
[Fold Sequence Multiplying]
[Warning: Unregulated Trait Cascade]
[System Containment Protocol: Engaged]
[Classification Shift: Unauthorized Sovereign Function]
The screen pulsed—and crashed.
Not vanished. Crashed—static across his thoughts, a jarring mental glitch. Riku fell backward, gasping, like a spike had been driven through the center of his forehead. He hit the moss with a dull thump and lay there, shaking.
The air around him didn't change.
No Lorian screamed. No roots trembled.
He lay still, alone, with the Fold receding into silence.
Only one person noticed.
Nilo found him nearly an hour later, sprawled under a still-root tree, head tilted back, eyes open.
"You alive?" the boy inventor asked, nudging him with the end of a soft-wood staff.
Riku blinked slowly. "Yeah," he croaked. "Headache."
"Must be the sap gas. Some trees dump hallucinogens on command. Grove's got moods sometimes."
Riku nodded weakly. "Sure. The trees."
Nilo offered a drink made from fermented moss. It tasted like lime and old coins.
"Maybe you're not dead," Nilo said thoughtfully. "But something around here's changing. Feels like... new patterns. The rootbeat's a little off."
Riku glanced at him sharply. "You feel that?"
"Feel something," Nilo muttered. "Doesn't mean it's you."
And then he wandered off again, muttering about dream-thread instruments.
That night, Riku didn't dream.
He woke into a place that wasn't the grove. A pseudo-forest. Too perfect. The trees were symmetrical. The air hung like it had been painted in place.
A sun glowed overhead—but it didn't rise. It didn't move.
The system UI hung in the sky like a silent god.
And then came the figure.
Drifting. No footsteps. No face. A mirrored mask, reflecting Riku's face—warped into a thousand mouths, each whispering backward.
"You are not supposed to be here," it said.
He tried to speak. No sound came.
"You are folding reality. You are not approved."
Its fingers twitched. Backwards. Inside-out.
"The Fold will grow. The Fold will notice. The Fold is not loyal."
Then Riku blinked—and woke.
This time for real.
No one stood over him. The grove was quiet. The fire-bowls glowed softly. Lorian moved in slow circles near the dreampools.
And his system interface flickered into being.
[FOLD CLUSTER ENGAGED – REALITY LAYER FLUCTUATION]
[Trait Acquired: Fold Contagion (Dormant)]
[New Tab: Cluster Weave Management – Access Level: 1]
[Observer Status: Elevated]
One final message lingered longer than the others.
[You are now classified as: System Hazard]
Riku stared at it, his breath quiet.
No one else knew.
No one else saw.
But the system wasn't neutral. It had started to fear him.
And that meant it could respond.