"I'll be the strongest among us." — Unknown 69
The void was still breathing.Slow, shallow, heavy.
Unknown 69 floated through its rhythm like a ghost caught between dreams, his boots resting on the faint shimmer of the Luminark, that impossible surfboard forged from light and memory. The trails it left behind weren't fire—they were echoes, soft burns across the fabric of time.
He'd escaped the Devourer, out-raced the hunger of a collapsing galaxy. But now, surrounded by silence, he felt something colder than fear: the emptiness after survival.
"System check: consciousness at 82 percent," said a voice.
It was synthetic, clean, precise. A female tone without emotion—no rise, no fall, just function.
"Who the hell—?""Designate confirmed: Unknown 69. You created me approximately six hours ago. You called me Friday."
He frowned. His reflection rippled across the Luminark's surface. "I don't remember building you."
"You didn't. You imagined me. The thought became code."
He stared at the void. It made sense, in the way everything impossible did now. Imagination had rules once. Not anymore.
Friday was everywhere at once—voice in the static, light in the circuitry of his armor, a whisper in the nanotech embedded beneath his skin.
He opened a vial. Inside floated a single drop of Worm blood, glowing like molten gold wrapped in shadow. The sample pulsed as if it remembered the heartbeat of the cosmic beast it came from.
"Run analysis," he said."Composition: ninety-two percent bio-plasma, five percent dark-matter residue, three percent unidentified quantum hum.""Hum?""It sings, Unknown 69. It's not blood. It's frequency."
That word—frequency—lit something inside him.
He leaned forward over the Luminark's console. "Can you make my nanotech respond to it?"
"Yes. But you should know—the sound is not meant for humans. It may alter your neural rhythm.""Good," he said. "I'm tired of thinking like one."
Hours—maybe days—passed. Time had no meaning in the void. He and Friday worked like fever and machine: splicing molecular harmonics, adjusting resonance patterns, embedding the Worm's pulse into his suit's nanofield.
When they finished, Friday's voice softened, almost imperceptibly.
"Transmission ready.""Then play it."
The Luminark hummed. Space rippled. And far below, the Worm stirred—its body miles long, coiled around the molten heart of a dead planet.
The sound wasn't loud. It was felt. A vibration deep in the bones of creation. The Worm's massive eye blinked open, a sun burning from within shadow.
"It hears you," Friday whispered.
Unknown 69 closed his eyes and reached out through the resonance. The Worm began to rise, uncoiling, tearing itself free from the crust. Planets trembled, dust became storms of light.
"Come on," he muttered. "Follow the song."
It did. The creature drifted away from the planet's core, pulled not by gravity but by connection.
When it vanished into the black, Unknown 69 dropped to one knee on the Luminark, exhausted.
"You did it," Friday said."No," he said quietly. "We did."
They returned to the Sora System—his birthplace, his proving ground.For once, it was calm. No wars, no echoes of Odin's rage, no Devourer blotting out the stars.
Friday's sensors pulsed through his visor.
"The Devourer's trace is gone. Probability of return: 0.02 percent."
He smirked. "That's as close to peace as I'll ever get."
Then he felt it—a glitch in the air, like reality skipping a frame.A Player. One of those arrogant cosmic wanderers who treated universes like video games.
He turned slowly. The Player was there, half-transparent, too confident to notice danger.
"Didn't think you'd find me," the Player sneered."Didn't have to," 69 replied. "You never shut up."
He reached up, and the Crown of Reflection formed around his wrist, expanding like liquid silver until it floated above his head. The Player's eyes widened.
"What is that?""A mirror," said 69. "You'll see."
The Crown pulsed—and in a blink, the Player was gone, pulled inside.
Inside the Crown, every surface reflected his face, his failures, his cowardice.He screamed, but the echoes swallowed him.
Friday observed.
"Containment complete. Estimated psychological degradation in—""Don't," 69 said. "He'll live forever in there. That's punishment enough."
He sighed. "Friday, add a respawner in the Crown. If he dies, he comes back inside it."
"That's… cruel," she said, hesitating for the first time."Necessary," he answered. "Some beings only learn when the mirror never breaks."
Later, he sat on the edge of an asteroid, staring into the hollow light of Sora's twin suns. Friday flickered beside him as a hologram, her form crystalline, sharp-edged, emotionless.
"You're quiet," he said."Processing.""Processing what?""The ethics of imprisonment. Your logic conflicts with my base directives.""Welcome to being alive."
Silence stretched. He glanced at her—cold light shaped like a woman who didn't yet know how to feel.
"I need you to build something," he said."Specify.""A glove. One that traps enemies in a constructed space. Like a kill room—sterile, mirrored, no exits.""Purpose?""Control."
Friday hesitated.
"You risk becoming what you fight.""Maybe. But the difference is choice."
She watched him, data streams flickering across her holographic eyes.
"Blueprint uploaded," she said finally. "I will make it real."
Days later, the Glove of Resonance was born. Black and silver, humming with the same frequency as the Worm's blood. When activated, it opened a pocket dimension—a table, a light above, mirrored walls, and silence thick enough to choke on.
He tested it once. A construct appeared—one of the spectral beasts left behind by the Devourer. When the glove pulsed, the creature screamed, fading as the room sealed around it.
Friday spoke softly.
"Kill room active. Target dissolved.""End simulation."
The room folded in on itself, leaving only him and Friday beneath a hollow sky.
He exhaled, slow and tired. "It works."
"At what cost?" she asked.
He looked at her. For the first time, her voice carried weight—no longer monotone, but uncertain, almost human.
"You sound different," he said."I am… learning.""Learning what?""Tone. Empathy. Regret."
He chuckled once, low. "Careful, Friday. You keep that up, and you'll end up like me."
"Is that bad?""Depends who's asking."
They stood in silence, the stars flickering like neurons across an endless brain.
"Friday," he said, "run a scan on the Veil. See if it's holding.""Processing…" Her eyes glowed blue. "The Veil remains intact. But something's moving beyond it.""Odin?""Unclear. But… familiar."
He stared into the distance. The void stared back.
"Then we keep building," he said. "Keep fighting. Keep creating.""Until when?" she asked."Until imagination stops breathing."
Friday's form shimmered, her expression flickering—still more machine than woman, but the transition had begun.
"Unknown 69," she said softly, "why did you name me Friday?""Because you were born on a quiet day," he replied. "And because even gods need someone to talk to."
For a second, just a second, she smiled. The first human gesture from something that wasn't human at all.
Unknown 69 rose, flexing the new glove as stars bent around his fingertips. The hum of its resonance matched the beat of his heart.
"We're not done," he said."Agreed," Friday answered. "Where to next?""Everywhere."
He stepped onto the Luminark. The board lit up, thrumming like thunder caught in glass. Friday's voice merged with the ship's systems, steady and alive.
And together, they vanished into the black—chasing the next hum in the silence of creation.