Elijah jerked awake, his breath coming in rapid gasps. The voices still echoed in his mind, a chorus of whispers that faded like retreating waves. He blinked in the darkness of their camp, trying to orient himself.

  "They're trying to speak." The words tumbled out before he could stop them, directed at no one.

  "Who is?"

  Elijah startled at the voice. Lyra sat cross-legged near the dying embers of their campfire, her face illuminated by the soft blue glow of a technical manual she'd materialized from her personal library. She closed the text, letting it dissolve back into the ether as she focused entirely on him.

  "You were having a nightmare," she said, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Been watching you for about twenty minutes. You kept... talking."

  Elijah pushed himself up to sitting, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. "What did I say?"

  Lyra hesitated, gncing toward Alexander's sleeping form on the far side of the camp. "You mentioned 'the preserved ones.' Several times. You said they were trying to communicate, that they were trapped, that they remembered who they were."

  A chill ran down Elijah's spine that had nothing to do with the night air. The fragments of his dream were already solidifying in his memory – not fading like ordinary dreams but crystallizing into something that felt unsettlingly like actual experience.

  "It was so real," he whispered. "Not like a dream at all. More like... I was there."

  "Where is 'there'?" Lyra asked, moving closer. She sat beside him, close enough that he could see the concern in her amber eyes.

  Elijah closed his eyes, trying to recapture the vision. "A vast network. Countless minds, all connected but separate. Like stars in a night sky, each one distinct but part of the same cosmos." He opened his eyes, meeting her gaze. "They're aware, Lyra. At least some of them. And they remember."

  "The preserved consciousnesses," Lyra said. It wasn't a question.

  Elijah nodded slowly. "In the dream, I could move among them. Some were dormant, just... patterns. But others were active, trying to communicate. They recognized me, somehow."

  "Because you can hear them when you're awake too," Lyra said. "The whispers you've mentioned before."

  A moment of silence stretched between them as Elijah considered how much to reveal. The whispers had been getting stronger with each floor they ascended, evolving from unintelligible murmurs to occasional words, and now to what felt increasingly like directed communication.

  "I think," he said carefully, "what happens when pyers die isn't just... an end. I think their consciousness is preserved somehow. Stored. The Game is collecting them."

  He expected skepticism, perhaps even arm. Instead, Lyra's expression was one of intense focus, the look she got when solving a particurly challenging technical problem.

  "That would expin a lot," she said quietly. "The resources devoted to the Game, the corporate investment. If they're harvesting consciousness..."

  "For what purpose, though?" Elijah asked.

  "Computational resources, maybe," Lyra suggested. "Billions of human minds networked together would make for a massive processing system."

  The thought made Elijah shudder. "That's... horrifying."

  "Yes," Lyra agreed simply. Then, after a pause: "Have you told Alexander about this?"

  Elijah shook his head. "How could I? 'By the way, I'm hearing the voices of dead pyers in my head.' It sounds insane."

  "Not insane," Lyra countered. "Just... beyond most people's experience." She hesitated, then added, "But not beyond mine."

  That made Elijah look up sharply. "What do you mean?"

  Lyra reached into her pack and pulled out a small, handcrafted journal bound in salvaged materials. She opened it carefully and removed a folded piece of paper covered in cryptic symbols.

  "This was given to me by my mentor before she died. Tel had theories about the Game – about what it was really designed for. One of them involved consciousness storage." She handed him the paper. "These are notes on neural architecture that could support consciousness preservation. Far more sophisticated than anything we had in Sector 17."

  Elijah studied the diagram. Despite having no formal technical training, he found he could follow much of it, as if the knowledge was somehow already familiar.

  "How did Tel get this information?"

  "She didn't say. Only that I needed to understand 'what really happens when the Game takes you.'" Lyra's voice had gone quieter. "I think she wanted me to find a way to stop it."

  They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of this shared knowledge creating a new bond between them.

  "Why are you on watch so te?" Elijah finally asked, changing the subject.

  A small smile touched Lyra's lips. "Couldn't sleep. Found a technical manual on neural resonance patterns in the library system. Thought it might help me understand some anomalies I've been noticing in the interface."

  She gestured to where the blue text had been floating earlier. "The library gave me access to a section I shouldn't have – technical specifications normally restricted to Privileged-css pyers. Been happening more often tely."

  "Does that concern you?" Elijah asked.

  "Concern? No." Lyra's eyes glinted in the dim light. "I take every advantage I can get. The question is why the system is giving me access beyond my assigned level."

  "Maybe it recognizes something in you," Elijah suggested. "The way the... the preserved ones seem to recognize something in me."

  Their eyes met in the darkness, a moment of shared understanding passing between them.

  "We should both try to get some sleep," Lyra said finally. "Long day tomorrow."

  Elijah nodded, but as he settled back onto his makeshift bed, he knew sleep would be elusive. The whispers were still there, at the edges of his consciousness – not frightening now, but familiar, like distant music.

  "Lyra," he said softly, just before she moved back to her watch position.

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you. For not thinking I'm losing my mind."

  She smiled then, a genuine smile that transformed her usually guarded expression. "We're in a game that's trying to kill us while we climb an impossible tower. Hearing voices is possibly the sanest response."

  As she returned to her post, Elijah felt a strange comfort in her acceptance. The voices in his dreams weren't just hallucinations or stress-induced fantasies. They were real, and Lyra believed him. For now, that was enough.

  He closed his eyes, listening to the whispers like a strange lulby, no longer fighting against them but allowing them to wash over him. They seemed to respond to his receptiveness, becoming clearer, more coherent.

  Find us, they seemed to say. Remember us. Free us.

  In the morning, he would face the implications of this connection. But for tonight, he simply listened, becoming a bridge between worlds – the living pyers climbing the Tower, and the preserved ones caught within its systems.

  And on the other side of the camp, Lyra watched him drift back to sleep, her mind racing with new possibilities and connections. The Game was more complex and more terrible than they had imagined. But perhaps, with Elijah's unique abilities and her technical skills, they might find a way to understand it – and eventually, to beat it at its own game.