Page 64 of GlitchBorn Heart

I smile, slow and dangerous, as the grid hums around me. “Okay,” I shout into the system, to Kael himself, wherever he is. “Let’s see what happens when your anomaly learns to fight back!”

I make the decision to become a weapon, a tool that will unravel Kael’s corporate system like it’s cloth under my fingers.

Threads begin to wrap around my hands and stitch together. “I can weave it.” I say softly. This feels like fulfilling my destiny. I can reshape code, rewrite it...or destroy it.

EchoWeaver.

I remember my mother calling it that when she would have to explain the strange bursts of light and power that flickered over the computer screens in our house. I never really knew what it meant, until now. The name blooms in me, feels ancient and inevitable. My gift is more than sabotage, it’s design. I’m not just breaking Kael’s cage. I’m stitching the world into something new, something mine.

I ready myself for battle. The circle under my feet strobes brighter. Tears sting my eyes and my chest heaves. My magic wants me to move, to fight.

I close my eyes and refocus. The circle cracks. Neon shards scatter like glass, and the black void splits wide open into a thousand doors, a thousand possible worlds waiting for me to step inside. I run for the nearest door and push myself in, the sense of falling, grabbing my stomach, like flying off a cliff and dropping to a sea below.

Alarms echo in the distant edges of the grid now. Another booming mechanical threat from LINK:

CONTAINMENT BREACH

PURGE CODE NEEDED

DR. RYUDON PLEASE ADVISE

Let it shout.

DreamNet breathes like a living world, but not my world. Another U21 who must be in DreamNet at this very moment is creating mountains that pulse with faint neon veins, waterfalls, and glowing butterflies. The air tastes like spun sugar and peppermint candy, and a feeling of joy fills me.

I sigh, for this is someone else’s dream. I just need to find mine.

I drag my memories to the surface, willing myself into the dream I replay each night, my beach, the sunset, our cozy cottage. The images around me flicker and eventually light up like fireworks in the summer sky.

I’m back. My corner of DreamNet.

A laugh bubbles out like champagne being poured. I have a second of pure, ridiculous happiness where I imagine making a whole life out of this place because it feels like home.

Perhaps it could be while I’m here. Anything is better than the cold electronic prison I’ve been in.

I’m not stupid. In our world, freedom comes with risk. Somewhere under the beauty of DreamNet, there is a log or file constantly tracking me, revealing my every move and reporting it to Dr. Kael Ryudon. The AI system alarms are still echoing in my ears, faint but there, a reminder that the door I slid through was not meant to be left open.

I test the edges of the world like a curious child. I let the memory of Eli’s laugh, the summer’s warmth, and my parents’ voices fill it. I’m careful to take only what I need here, to move silently, to hide my memories. The rule I’m learning is delicate: Don’t announce yourself. DreamNet is indulgent, but it’s also a place of attention. Attention calls the Corporation.

I tense because I know LINK’s purge protocol is patient and relentless. I hear nothing. If I’m not thorough, the system will call back to the servers; someone will notice, and someone in a suit will trace it. It will ping Kael or some CIC monitor until they find the digital footprint.

Still, the temptation to test more is a live wire under my skin. I close my eyes and pull, lightly, just a tiny thread, and I’m inside our cottage. I make a sudden decision. I need time.

Time to learn this world, to master my magic in it, to get strong enough to bend it to my will. I plant a tiny anchor here, this is where I’ll hide. If LINK scans here, she’ll see a dream echo, not an anomaly. Just harmless noise.

I can go where I want, I tell myself. I can stay.

I know this...

And now that I do, the work begins.

I settle into my bed and find my sketchbook waiting for me. I write the word out without thinking, letting the syllables taste the air.

EchoWeaver

My chest opens with an ache I’ve tried to muffle for so long. The rage of being here, the grief, the stubborn refusal to be erased turns into leverage. I’m not just a glitch in his system, I’m a powder keg of magic.

My fuse is threaded through the core of Kael’s architecture, and when I light it, I’m going to blow his whole goddamn cathedral of code to ash.