The deletion felt like being torn apart by a thousand invisible hands. Every memory Leo held the dust of the wastes, the smell of Nala’s hair, the weight of his pulse blade started to fragment into raw binary. He was no longer a man; he was a failing script, a string of errors falling through a digital abyss.
Above him, Elisha stood over the terminal, his obsidian teeth glinting in the harsh light of the screen. He looked less like a monk and more like a high priest of a dead religion, his hands moving over the keys with a terrifying, rhythmic precision.
"You were never meant to be part of the final render, Leo," Elisha’s voice echoed, vibrating through Leo’s very soul. "A scavenger is a bug. And bugs are squashed."
But as Leo’s consciousness began to flicker out, a sudden, sharp spike
