🌙 That Night – Somewhere Between Sleep and Code
Grim slept like falling through water—slow, heavy, cold.\
But something pulled him deeper.
He didn't dream.
He remembered.
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🖤 \[Memory Begins]
He's younger.
Not fifteen. Maybe eight or nine.
Strapped to a glass table in a white room. Machines hum all around him—soothing voices lie through speakers. Glyphs spin overhead. A lullaby in a language Sparks doesn't recognize loops softly.
A woman stands nearby, wearing a silver mask. Not Blank Court—but something before.
> "The hybrid is stabilizing," she says to someone out of view.
> "His mind's adapting faster than expected."
> "Of course it is," a man replies, voice like ice. "He's the last of the Veridan Protocol."
The boy opens his eyes—Grim's eyes, only brighter. More alive.
The woman leans over him, voice almost kind.
> "You won't remember this, sweet one. But your true name is—"
Static explodes.
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💡 Sparks POV (First Time Seeing the Memory)
> "Whoa. WHOA. I shouldn't be here. I've never been able to see in your dreams before. This isn't sleep—this is a buried memory dump. I'm being… pulled in."
He flickers like a ghost, watching the same scene Grim sees.
> "Veridan Protocol? That's deep-court stuff. Even I wasn't cleared for that level. And they called you a hybrid."
> "…What were you made from?"
The memory flickers.
Glitches.
The woman's mouth moves again, almost in slow motion.
> "Your true name is—"
A soundless explosion.
Pain.
Darkness.
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💀 \[Memory Ends]
Grim sits bolt upright in bed, sweat dripping down his neck. The room is dark—but he can feel Sparks still processing.
> "They tried to erase it," Grim says out loud.
> "Not just my memories. My identity."
Sparks replies, stunned:
> "They didn't just erase you. They built you. Named you. Hid you. That Echo didn't recognize the name 'Grim.' It recognized the real one."
A beat of silence.
Then:
> "And I think… part of me already knew."
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