What they couldn't kill with fire, they now try to erase. Not with weapons—but with a name, a presence, and a program in human form: Fall.
Part 1: Cracks in the Resistance
The Archive hall no longer felt like a sanctuary. The walls flickered with damaged logs. Faces on screens looped names they no longer remembered.
Rook stood in the center of it, watching two groups split further apart.
To his left: Kael Marr's faction — white armbands, eyes sharp with fear. They called themselves Glassfire.
"We cut it out," Kael shouted to the others. "We cleanse the nodes. Clean memory is better than corrupted truth."
To his right: Echo, standing tall and quiet beside Aya, arms folded, eyes hard. Threadline was forming behind her, dozens of survivors in gray coats who'd rather remember pain than forget what made them human.
Aya turned to Rook. "They're not just debating now. They're mobilizing. If we don't hold the middle, this becomes a civil collapse."
Rook stared at the display screen behind her.
Another name blinking red.
Subject: Halek Torres – Memory Integrity 22%Last phrase spoken before collapse: "Who's Ava?"
Rook turned. "Where is she?"
Part 2: Ava's Unraveling
Ava sat alone in her quarters, lights dim, hands shaking slightly over her datapad.
She had written the word "TESSA" twenty-seven times.
Each time, it looked more alien.
She whispered it aloud. Once. Twice. Then stopped.
She couldn't see her face anymore—not in her mind. Not in her memory.
She picked up a mirror. Stared.
"Stay," she whispered."Stay. Stay. Stay."
And then her breath hitched.
Because she couldn't remember what Tessa's laugh sounded like.
Not fully.
Just the shape of it.
Part 3: The Scythe Awakens
Concord's final weapon activated beneath a bunker no Resistance hand had ever reached.
Not a drone.
Not a clone.
A person.
Or what used to be one.
Codenamed: Fall.
No blood type. No citizenship. No original body.Just neural mirrors, viral code, and a voice that changed based on who it hunted.
A Concord tech whispered: "What's the directive?"
Fall tilted their head.
"Delete her."
"Delete who?"
The tech didn't answer.
Fall did.
"The one who thinks remembering makes her real."
Fall stepped into the corridor.
And everything behind them began to go dark.
Part 4: First Contact
The attack came silently.
No drones. No warning.
Just the lights blinking out at Outpost 9.One by one.Followed by a whisper over the comm lines:
"Forget."
When Echo arrived, there were no bodies.
Just blank people, sitting quietly.
Breathing.
Blinking.
But when she said their names?
Nothing.
Fall stood among them.
Not armed. Not armored.
Just smiling.
"You built yourself out of scraps," Fall said softly to Echo.
"So I'll unbuild you the same way."
Echo pulled her blade.
Fall didn't flinch.
Part 5: Rook's Decision
Back at Archive Base, Rook got the report.
Echo barely escaped. No one else made it back… not as themselves.
He walked into Ava's room.
She didn't look up.
He knelt, gently placed a blank data crystal in her hand.
"We're not going to outrun this."
"So we archive everything—everyone—before Fall gets here."
"Even if you forget…"
"We won't let them erase what made you."
Ava's hand tightened around the crystal.
Her voice cracked.
"If I forget everyone… will they still remember me?"
Rook met her eyes.
"I will."