The burning sensation in my chest felt like someone laying lines beneath my skin.
A reboot sensation—as if a low-level program had been forcibly awakened.
Patch stayed close.
This time he didn't bristle or growl.He positioned himself slightly to my left, as if blocking me from an unseen direction.
I took a breath and noticed something wrong.
My shadow lagged behind.
I raised my hand.The shadow followed about 0.7 seconds later.
Its edges trembled faintly, like it had been pinged once by the lake's center.
Alden saw it. His brow sank."…This isn't natural residue."
Emilia's expression was frozen cold."Don't move too fast. The faster you move, the deeper the overwrite."
I was about to ask something when text suddenly appeared in my vision.
WRITE IN PROGRESS – 73%
It was as if the words were written directly onto my visual cortex.
I blinked.They stayed.
Emilia stared at the text, her voice low."It's still filling in…"
Alden checked his terminal."The progress is jumping. It's not linear. This speed is wrong."
The next second, a voice surfaced from a corner of my mind.
Older.Like my own frequency shifted three seconds backward.
"…Don't turn back."
The voice was cut off instantly.
Patch's ears flattened.He was hearing more than I was.
The rune on my chest lit up briefly, like a light tap.
The glow lasted less than a second, but in Patch's pupils I saw the outline of another "me"—
A low-resolution image, layered over the lake's reflection.
Alden's breathing paused."It wants you to go back and complete the write."
I didn't even have time to respond—
My shadow moved.
Not from wind.Not from distortion.
From its own will.
It stepped half a pace toward the lake.
My body locked up.
Patch lunged forward and bit down on where the shadow's ankle should have been.
A faint, fragment-like glow slid between his teeth.
The shadow was pinned. It couldn't move.
"…He can bite a shadow?" My voice barely sounded like mine.
Emilia answered quietly."That's not a shadow. That's your unfinished instance."
The air went silent.
From deep within the lake came a slow, deep sigh.
Not disappointment.More like a system reclaim sound after confirmation.
Cold flooded my chest.
The 73% on my vision was replaced by new text.
FORMAT TAG APPLIED
Alden stared at it."…This is bad. It wasn't stopped. It finished tagging you."
Tagged.
Which meant—
The next write would resume from here.
Emilia's phone vibrated.
She looked at the system page that popped up, her fingers trembling.
B-39: SOVEREIGNTY SPLIT DETECTEDMATCH TARGET: CONFIRMEDSTATUS: OBSERVATION UPGRADED TO "CRITICAL"
She looked up at me.
"…Jeff.You're two existences now."
[ARC Black File｜Page 12 – Excerpt]
Event Code: LAKE NODE BREACH – PARTIAL WRITEObserved Subject: B-39 (Jeff)
Summary:The writing process was interrupted, but subject sovereignty has split.
Shadow delay of 0.7 seconds confirms that the write instance remains active in the background.
FORMAT TAG applied.
Upon next contact with the lake core, writing will resume under elevated authority.
Remote monitoring has detected future-origin voice feedback, indicating localized temporal overwrite.
ARC Advisory Level:CRITICAL – Maintain extreme discretion.
Note (73% Redacted):… [REDACTED] …
Partial-write state is irreversible.
Once B-39 enters an unobservable zone, the next write cycle is expected to initiate.
The gate remains open.