The mountains were burning, or maybe it was just the sky pretending again, glitching like a cracked screen, pixelated lies flickering across some doomed backend. The figure—hooded, no face, no past—stood dead center, clutching a triangle of digital fire like it meant something, like it was something, a pulsing shard of the chain that was supposed to save us or ruin us, no one could tell anymore. Everything smelled like static and melted circuits. You could almost hear the code screaming under the flames, and maybe the wraith was listening, or maybe he’d set it all on fire just to feel something real.
