Nico opened his eyes and saw nothing in front of him: only darkness, an infinite void with no points of reference.

  The only point of contact were his feet, firmly planted on invisible ground. He turned around, hoping to see something. But everything remained black, silent, motionless.

  A lump formed in his throat. His last memory was of Archivum Square slowly falling apart, corroded by electric rain and glitches. He clenched his teeth. His memory was being destroyed, and all that remained of him was a tiny dot in the void.

  Suddenly, he sensed something behind him.

  A presence.

  Piercing eyes. He had already felt that presence in his dreams. He remembered it, but hadn't felt it in a long time: it scrutinized him without being seen. Now it was back.

  Instinctively, he started running, shouting the names of his friends: Leo, Kiah... but no one answered. There was only emptiness.

  Then, like a sudden wave, a message appeared before his eyes:

  [System]: Containment – Protocol No. 11,576

  A shiver ran down his spine. He hesitated. Fear, confusion, and helplessness mingled together, and he couldn't understand what was happening to him.

  Another flash, another message floated in the air around him:

  [System]: Integrity check in progress...

  The floor softened beneath his feet, like quicksand. Something was wrong: he heard a viscous gurgling sound. He looked down. A black, oily substance, similar to petroleum, lapped at his feet, weighing down each step as he tried to escape it.

  A face began to materialize from the luminous trails around him. He could see it through a computer camera. It was a man with a thin, well-groomed black beard and neat, dark curly hair. He had high cheekbones, but the rest of his face was covered by a device: a dark, opaque object with metallic reflections that seemed to change depending on the angle at which the man moved.

  The structure was slender, with soft curves that seemed to blend into his face. Nico imagined that there was a tiny engraving on the back of the visor: the same circular symbol, a stylized eye, which, like Nico's visor, emitted a faint blue glow behind the man's neck.

  The man worked frantically, typing convulsively on a keyboard. He seemed agitated even in his breathing, as if he were in a hurry. Nico saw his tense face, his wrinkled lips, his clenched jaw.

  [System]: Corruption identified in 15 blocks.

  The black, viscous liquid now lapped at his boots. It rose slowly and inexorably.

  Nico's heart was pounding, his breath was short. He no longer understood whether the sensations were his own or those of the man behind that invisible screen, projected into nothingness. In the background, in addition to the tapping of the keys and the man's breathing, he could hear the whispers of the network scratching his skull from within: meaningless words.

  “Give in. Let yourself go.”

  Nico clenched his jaw, struggling to free himself, his eyes fixed on the scene.

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  He heard a door open.

  “What are you doing?” asked a voice, coming from a man outside the narrow field of vision of the PC camera.

  “What should have been done a long time ago,” replied the man at the desk without turning around, continuing to type.

  The other man approached. He was tall and thin, too much so for Nico to see his face from that angle, but he noticed his clenched fists.

  “You can't do that...” said the tall man, grabbing the other man by the shoulder.

  “Erebos is the solution, not an enemy,” replied the man at the desk, pressing decisively on a key that seemed final, and staring at the screen with his jaw clenched.

  The liquid rose: first to his knees, then to his hips. It was cold, sharp, yet inside him it ignited a warmth, some awareness he couldn't understand.

  The scuffle exploded on the desk.

  The oily substance climbed up his chest, squeezing his chest and throat. His breathing became labored. He felt suffocated as he saw hands reaching around someone's neck, unable to distinguish who was who in the heat of the moment. The voices in his mind multiplied, a metallic chorus beating against his consciousness.

  Another flash of a message appeared:

  [System]: Warning: compromised data detected in segment 0x4A2F.

  The two figures beyond the camera were moving convulsively: bodies colliding, he could hear the dull thuds of fists, the crash of an overturned chair, the sharp sound of bodies colliding violently. A distant, distorted, metallic scream, perhaps a woman's, a voice that seemed familiar, one he had heard before, shook the images of the scuffle, then broke off.

  Another message appeared, like a wave of light in the void around Nico.

  [System]: Partial corruption detected in memory log.

  Nico screamed in despair. His voice exploded like an electric shock in the darkness, but it was useless. The black oily liquid reached his throat, cold. One more breath and he would be submerged.

  Suddenly, the black slime began to recede, as if it were being removed in handfuls, erased one portion at a time, like files deleted from a system: present one moment, gone the next. The slime, the images, the voices, everything had vanished. Nico, finally free, inhaled air into his lungs, grateful, without understanding what was happening.

  Then, as if someone had pulled the cord of an invisible curtain, the void began to dissolve, retreating away from Nico.

  He felt an electric shock run through his brain like a cold blade; the pain, sharp and piercing, forced him to bend forward, trying to breathe, while a feeling of detachment washed over him: he knew that something was about to be erased.

  Another flash of log appeared and vanished immediately:

  [System]: Corrupted data isolated and removed.

  [System]: Restoration of intact data complete.

  A flash, a dazzling light, then the void of unconsciousness swallowed him. The clarity broke, and the images of what he had seen flaked away without him being able to hold on to them.

  He opened his eyes, gasping, as if it were the first breath of a new life. He was in a white room, barefoot. Not far from him, a text message hovered:

  [System]: Consistency check in progress...

  He didn't understand what was happening, but he felt strange: better and worse at the same time. Lighter, yet emptier; less distressed, but also more unaware. As if something had been lost, forgotten. He didn't know if it was important or not, and it was this uncertainty that weighed on him.

  At that moment, fragments appeared, bright and flickering, floating in front of him. He had no idea where they came from or who had sent them. But he clearly heard a distant, faceless voice saying to him:

  "From these memories you will draw your truth.?