Chapter 2: Memory Fruit and Static Rain

Zero didn't click either option.

He stared at the screen until the cursor stopped blinking. The entire system seemed to be holding its breath—waiting. Then, the screen dimmed slowly, as if disappointed, and returned to the desktop. The strange window vanished without a trace.

But the feeling remained.

He could still hear the soft static behind his thoughts, like an unseen frequency only he was tuned into.

The number 07:14 was burned behind his eyes. He tried not to look at any clocks.

At the campus orchard, where fruit trees were grown for ecological research, Zero walked in aimless circles. The morning sun filtered through the high boughs, casting mottled light on the pathway. A fine drizzle began to fall—not rain exactly, but a strange mist, almost like condensation leaking from the sky. It clung to his skin like memory.

No one else was out. That alone was odd.

The orchard was never empty this time of day, especially not during research season. But the gates had been unlocked. The sensors still scanned his ID.

And the fruit...

He stopped beneath a tree he didn't recognize. It bore dark, translucent fruit, round and heavy, hanging like bulbs. The orchard had no such tree catalogued. He would've remembered it.

He reached for one. As his fingers brushed the skin of the fruit, an image flashed across his vision:

A man—his face blurred—screaming in a mirror that refused to reflect him.

Zero jerked back.

The fruit pulsed faintly.

Back in his dorm, he Googled the fruit. No hits. Not on botany sites, not in rare databases. He even tried uploading a picture.

"No matches found."

He didn't remember taking a picture. But it was on his phone—labeled "IMG_0714."

A knock came at the door.

Alden leaned in. "Hey, someone left this for you. Found it taped to the wall. No idea when."

He handed Zero a manila envelope.

Inside: a single page.

"Do not eat the fruit. It anchors your version." "Stay away from mirrors during recursion." "Don't let the number stabilize."

No signature.

Just a postscript:

"They're watching now. You may already be triggering echoes."

Zero looked around. He didn't feel watched, but something deeper twisted in his stomach—a sense of being catalogued.

That night, Alden was already asleep when Zero wandered to the common room. The rain outside had become a constant whisper. The window glass trembled as if remembering a storm that hadn't happened yet.

On the coffee table, someone had left a chessboard mid-game. The pieces didn't seem arranged correctly. Too many bishops. Three black kings.

One of them was lying on its side, facing him.

He picked it up.

It was warm.

In his dream, Zero was sitting on a train that didn't move. The sky outside the window flickered—gray to red to static. Across from him sat the same reflection from before.

Only this time, it spoke.

"We're bleeding into each other."

"What are you?" Zero asked.

"I'm what's left when you forget. A backup that never got restored. We're overlapping now."

Zero gritted his teeth. "Are you real?"

"Real enough to warn you. Stop looking for answers in the wrong timeline."

"And where do I look instead?"

The reflection smiled. Its teeth were too perfect.

"At what doesn't change. That's your anchor. Everything else... is recursion noise."

The train window cracked like ice.

He woke up with a word in his mouth.

"Karnyx."

He didn't know what it meant.

But his phone was already open to a web search for it. And on the screen was a tab titled:

"Cycle 7: Karnyx Protocol (Obsolete)"

The battery was dead.