Freedom isn't unity.
We learned that quickly.
With the Ministry gone and Freeframe rising, most thought the danger was behind us. But the truth is: when you remove the central authority of a world rewritten for decades, something fills the vacuum.
Sometimes that something is good.
Sometimes it's Splinter Zones.
The first one emerged in what used to be Northern Europa. A city once called Vindex now flickered between timelines—each street governed by a different collective memory.
In one corner, they lived in 2095.
In another, it was 1821.
And in others? Eras that had never even existed. Dream-born years.
"Generated realities," Hope called them. "Part memory, part fabrication. Collapsed zones where consensus was rejected entirely."
Ash and I stood on a bluff overlooking the edge of the Vindex Perimeter. The entire skyline warped in and out like a stuttering film reel.
"Any attempt to stabilize it?" he asked.
"Unwritten's tried," I said. "But they're not listening. They don't want a stable world. They want a custom one."
Ash spit over the edge. "Hell of a time to be nostalgic."
We moved in with a three-person scout team. Masks sealed. Anchors prepped.
The air was breathable, but the memories weren't.
In the first ten blocks, we passed a Revolutionary-era ball, a chrome-tech market, and a school where the children spoke a language that had never evolved on Earth.
Every group believed their version was real. And to them—it was.
"You can't negotiate with someone who believes you're a ghost," our scout, Mira, said.
"They don't want consensus," Ash muttered. "They want sovereignty over imagination."
Hope wasn't with us physically anymore. But through the Freeframe link, her voice guided us.
"You'll find the signal emitter near the Heartline Spire," she said. "It's not traditional tech. It's a mnemonic pulse anchor. They're embedding false logic into shared belief."
The closer we got, the less the world made sense.
Signs flickered through languages. Buildings rebuilt themselves when we weren't looking. People—entire communities—looped conversations like broken simulations.
And at the center: The Paraclast Core.
A structure built of dreams, encoded lies, and anti-consensus fragments.
Mira whispered, "If we shut it down, what happens to them?"
"They lose the world they think is real," I said.
"Some of them were born here."
I didn't answer.
Ash stepped forward. "We're not here to erase them. Just stop them from overwriting everything else."
We entered the Core.
Inside: silence.
And then a voice.
Not the Ministry's.
Not Hope's.
> "We are the Echoborn. We remember what never was."
A figure emerged.
Shimmering. Ever-changing. Thousands of faces cycling in and out.
"We were forged from fragments. Born of falsehood. But in lie, we found liberation."
Ash aimed his weapon. "You're destabilizing entire sectors. Collapsing memories. Killing continuity."
The Echoborn smiled.
"Continuity is tyranny. Why should one truth rule all?"
I stepped forward.
"Because truth is the only thing we can share. Everything else keeps us alone."
The figure paused.
Then—quietly—"Then let us be alone."
They triggered the collapse.
Reality fractured in a burst of mnemonic discharge.
Ash pulled me back just in time as Mira activated the anchor field. A pulse of Freeframe logic erupted from our stabilizer, catching the Core in its radius.
The Echoborn screamed—not in pain, but in freedom lost.
Then—quiet.
The flickering ended.
The city stilled.
No more random eras. No more imagined nations.
Just silence.
Mira looked around. "What happens to them?"
"They wake up," I said. "In the real world. With memories that don't fit anymore."
Ash exhaled. "That's going to be a problem."
And it was.
In the weeks that followed, four more Splinter Zones declared autonomy from Freeframe entirely. Some weaponized belief to fight. Others dissolved into philosophical cults.
The world hadn't stabilized.
It had fragmented.
But Hope's final message came back to me:
> When memory becomes freedom, what do we do with forgetting?
We were starting to learn.
And some memories…
Would have to be let go.