The pulse of the cosmos had changed.
Aiden felt it deep within the marrow of his bones, as if reality itself were tuning to a new frequency. In the quiet aftermath of his defiance, the Shattercore retreated into a spectral afterimage, leaving behind an ache that throbbed in his fingertips and spine. The glyphwheel had stopped spinning, but its echo remained—a hum beneath his skin, like forgotten music resurfacing.
He walked slowly, his boots crunching on ash-laced soil, toward the edge of a cliff that hadn't been there before. Below, dream-terrain stretched in folds of impossible architecture—floating staircases, forests suspended upside-down in twilight, rivers of memory-light cascading through gravityless space. He was still in the dream, but now it listened to him.
And he wasn't alone.
A surge of presence moved through him. Familiar.
A projection flickered into existence beside him, not of flesh but of mnemonic imprint. It was his younger self. Eleven-year-old Aiden, eyes wide with the unspoken terror of abduction, wearing the same hoodie he'd vanished in.
The boy looked up at him.
"You left me," he said softly.
"No," Aiden whispered. "I was taken. We both were."
"But you forgot," the younger Aiden accused. "I remembered every night. Every scream. Every door that didn't open."
Guilt twisted in Aiden's chest. "I know. And I'm sorry. I couldn't face it. But I'm here now. And I remember you. All of you."
The younger Aiden blinked, and then smiled. It was haunting and pure. "Then we can finish this."
From the rivers below rose a symphony of whispers—distinct voices, human and inhuman, old and newly born. They were memories, tethered to him. The chorus of the Dreambound.
Aiden turned from the cliff. The terrain had shifted again.
A coliseum now stood behind him—massive, gleaming with mirrored stone, built on the ruins of every place he'd ever dreamed. Thousands of spectators filled its silent stands. Not people. Not even souls. Presences. Watchers. Judgers. Silent arbiters of what would come next.
And in the center of the coliseum stood the Architect.
Again.
But this time, it was different.
It had taken on his shape.
"You cannot win," it said with Aiden's own voice. "You are shaped by the tools we placed in you. Your defiance is still within parameters."
"Then I'll reshape the parameters," Aiden said, stepping forward.
He raised his hand, and the memory-thread ignited. Around him, ghosts appeared—fragments of past abductees, long lost, their echoes coalescing into radiant forms. Isaiah materialized in a storm of fractal light. Lira stood at his side, her body wreathed in golden fire.
"You're not alone," she said.
The Architect-Aiden tilted its head. "This unity is meaningless. Your fate has been pre-recorded."
"No," Aiden said firmly. "This isn't fate. It's choice. My choice."
And as he stepped into the arena, the chorus of whispers rose to a crescendo. Every voice he had absorbed, every dream he had carried, sang through him.
He wasn't just a boy taken by aliens.
He was the first Dreamborne to walk back into the dark willingly.
To reclaim what they stole.
To close the gate.
Forever.