He didn’t wake up. f .r e\ewebnov(e)(l).c om
Where Jay might’ve yawned and muttered something sarcastic, Null-Jay rose like a command line processing input. His eyes opened—not with curiosity, but calculation.
This was not the New Path.
A realm of raw logic stitched together with forgotten memories and corrupted fragments. Where meaning twisted and time refused to flow straight.
He stood in a grayscale forest where trees bled binary, and the sky was a looping memory of a bluebird Jay once saw on a windowsill in childhood... played infinitely.
"Subject located," a low, echoing voice said.
"Mission: Eliminate Divergence."
Null-Jay looked ahead.
A ripple cut through the dreamspace like static tearing fabric. On the other side—
He was walking along the border of the New Path, alone, brushing a hand through phantom grass that didn’t belong to any real world.
Null-Jay tilted his head. His voice was flat.
"You were not part of the original sequence."
Rei paused. He turned his head slowly—eyes narrowing.
Null-Jay stepped through the boundary. The forest behind him screamed briefly and collapsed into static.
"I am the correction," Null-Jay answered.
Rei’s eyes flicked to the feather in Null-Jay’s hand. It was black. Cracked. And pulsing.
"Jay?" Rei asked, hesitant.
"I am not him," Null-Jay said without blinking. "I am what remains of the System’s purpose. The final protocol. You are an anomaly, Rei."
Rei’s expression hardened. "I’ve been called worse."
They stood facing each other. One shaped by chaos, the other built from failed order.
Rei tried to step back into the New Path—
—but the edge didn’t let him.
It was being overwritten.
"You’re rewriting this place," Rei realized. "You’re bleeding in."
Null-Jay raised a hand. The air around his fingers distorted. Fragments of Jay’s past flickered in his palm—memories of solitude, expectations, failures.
He threw them at Rei.
"Return to code," Null-Jay said.
Rei blocked it with sheer will. His arm trembled. The memory shards hit like glass shards soaked in sorrow.
Rei fell to one knee.
Null-Jay approached slowly, each footstep erasing pieces of the dream.
"The User’s freedom must be revoked," he said. "Free will is the final bug."
"You’re wrong," Rei whispered.
"Am I?" Null-Jay crouched, face inches from his. "Then why do you still carry corruption in your heart?"
From far away, Jay gasped.
He looked at the sky.
Something was happening.
Something he wasn’t ready for.
But ready or not, it was coming.