He didn't mean to end up at the edge of the city.
Sawl had been walking for nearly an hour, past the barriers of the tech district, past the government monitors and sterilized zones. The streets grew more chaotic out here, not dangerous, just unpredictable. Laughter echoed across rooftops. Streetlights flickered without pattern. Children played between buildings wrapped in murals, and someone sang off-key through a cracked speaker at a corner stand.
It was nothing like Novaheim.
He found himself standing beneath a crumbling overpass, watching the shadows stretch beneath rusted steel. Across the way, someone had chalked a single phrase onto the side of a maintenance unit:
"Only those awake can see the cracks."
He stared at it longer than he meant to.
He remembered something.
A moment, years ago, during his Exemplar training.
He had asked one of his instructors, a man older than most were allowed to be in active roles, why he kept a garden in the artificial courtyard instead of replicating the same flora digitally.
"Because when the light is real," the man had said, placing a hand in the soil, "it doesn't need to fight for attention. It just grows."
Sawl had smiled then, both politely and dismissively.
But now, that same line echoed in his mind like prophecy.
As he turned to leave the underpass, he nearly bumped into a woman carrying a bag of old cables and tools. She looked up at him, startled, then relaxed.
"Sorry," she said, stepping aside. Her eyes lingered on him a beat too long.
He nodded. "It's alright."
She studied him for another second, then leaned in, lowering her voice.
"They say people like you don't walk this far unless they're looking for something."
He narrowed his eyes slightly. "And what do they say I'm looking for?"
She shrugged. "Maybe something real."
Before he could respond, she turned and kept walking. No name. No symbol. Just a phrase left behind like a seed.
He didn't follow.
But the words stayed.
That night, Sawl returned to his temporary base. The silence felt louder now. More questioning.
He sat at the small desk in his quarters. The screen blinked with a new message from Novaheim.
**Review requested. Behavioral variance detected. Timeline report incomplete. Confirm status.**
He stared at it.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he opened the message field, typed a single line, then paused.
He deleted it.
He closed the message.
Outside the window, Earth stretched out in imperfect lines and spiraling lights.
Sawl rested his hand against the glass. He wasn't ready to speak. Not yet.
But something inside him had already answered.
And the silence between pulses no longer felt empty.
It felt aligned.