Light no longer shone—it wrote.
Strings of code flowed past Elaine and Ian, bending into sentences, taking shape as: mountains, rivers, the edges of a sunrise. With every beating heart that emerged from them, spun a new thread of existence.
Ian's voice was faint, filled with awe.
"It's listening to us."
"We talk, then," Elaine said.
She opened her hand. Raw data was swirling there instead of the scythe, waiting. She thought of rain—and rain came, clean and hot. She thought of home— and a skyline rose, imperfect, vibrant.
The Architect's last whisper wafted through the shaping sky:
"Creation begins when fear is behind us."
Elaine glanced over her shoulder. Ian's silhouette was already becoming hazy, his form dissolving into strands of light that merged with the code that enveloped them.
"Don't you fade on me," she urged.
"I'm not fading," he replied, smiling. "Just…becoming part of the pattern. Keep going."
She longed to hold him, but she could not grasp; whenever she tried, her fingers met with nothing but light. So, she closed her eyes and wrote.
She wrote laughter into the air, wrote the smell of rain, wrote every tiny, human flaw that made the world feel tangible. When she opened her eyes once more, the earth was under her feet.
A wind moved through the grass.
The horizon curved like it always used to.
But Ian was gone.
A tiny spark of code flickered on her palm— the last piece of his signature. She held it against her chest, and the world around her closed up, flawless and fresh.