One year.
The word felt impossible.
But it had passed. Not in battle. Not in loops. In days. Weeks. Months that didn't vanish.
Signal stood on the edge of the rebuilt Dendura Gate, watching the new city breathe.
Behind her, Maya walked up, holding two cups of synth-tea. She offered one without a word.
Signal took it.
Below them, streets thrived—people rebuilt without recursion, memory theft, or encoded control.
Juno ran logistics for the Memory Archive. Trey trained border security squads. Ellian vanished months ago on a self-assigned mission beyond the border. Lyra worked with Frost in a lab that now mapped anomaly events in real-time.
Cain was gone.
But not forgotten.
They called this day Origin Day.
The world's first untethered year. Not perfect. But theirs.
There were speeches. Ceremonies. Memorials to versions of people who never technically lived—but mattered anyway.
Maya said during one, "We're built from decisions we made, and those we never had the chance to."
Children listened.
People cried.
Signal didn't speak that day. She stood by a quiet glass marker with a single name etched into it: Null Thread.
Juno placed a single white feather on it.
That night, the stars shifted.
Lyra called an emergency.
The sky over Sector West 9 fractured.
Not visually—but to instruments, gravity, and spatial geometry.
Frost said, "This isn't a glitch."
It was a door.
An Origin Echo.
Signal and Maya reached the perimeter fast.
Beyond the rift stood a girl. Thin. Dark robes. Eyes bright red.
She didn't speak.
She dropped something onto the ground.
It was a map. Not physical. A projection shaped like a cube inside a sphere, constantly rotating, symbols shifting in and out of legibility.
On it: a blinking point marked THREAD 0.
Below that, three words:
"COME FIND ME."
Trey stared at it later, arms crossed.
"We reset the recursion. Thought that was it."
Signal studied the symbols. "This isn't recursion."
Frost nodded. "This is pre-origin code."
Juno whistled. "The thing before choice?"
Maya closed her eyes.
"Or the thing that never had one."
They convened in the old tower.
Seven chairs. All filled but one.
Signal turned to them. "We have peace now. But if this Thread Zero is what I think it is… it could rewrite everything we did."
Trey asked, "So we ignore it?"
"No," she said. "We investigate it before someone else does."
Frost brought up the girl's projection. He enhanced her shape.
None of them knew her.
Except Juno.
She leaned closer, breath caught.
"I've seen her."
Signal looked up. "Where?"
"In a memory I never had… until Cain died."
They prepped in silence.
No loops. No resets.
No saves.
This was new territory.
Lyra sealed the access point. "If we go through, it won't let us return the same way."
Maya turned to Signal. "You sure?"
"No," Signal said. "But I'm ready."
Trey grinned. "Finally."
They stepped through.
Light bent.
Time stopped.