The fall ended not with impact, but with immersion.

Evelyn felt herself drift into the living core as if descending through warm light, her sense of weight replaced by the rhythm of pulse and flow. There was no ground here—only waves of memory, each one shimmering like liquid glass, rippling with fragments of color and sound.

When she reached out, the surface beneath her hand reshaped itself into a familiar texture—smooth metal, scratched edges. A memory. Her memory. The first console ...