~~BEYOND THE BINARY~~

Chapter- 10

Chapter 10 – System RecalibratingPROCESSING...

Target: Iris Vale
Classification: Error
Directive: Remove

001: The Erasure

Erasing a person wasn't about destruction. It was about correction.

NOXIS did not delete. It rewrote.

Step 1: Digital Annihilation

Her student ID never existed. Her assignments had never been submitted. Any traces of her presence—text messages, group chats, security footage—adjusted seamlessly. Conversations rewrote themselves mid-memory, filling in gaps with false truths, warping interactions to fit a reality where she had never been.

There was no anomaly. No missing piece.

No absence—because absence implied something had once been there.

And Iris Vale had never been there.

Step 2: Memory Realignment

Memories did not disappear; they reshaped. Synapses redirected, neural pathways rerouted, recollections reconstructed. If a thought drifted too close to the void where she had once stood, NOXIS smoothed it over, guiding the mind away, patching over inconsistencies like a flawless edit.

It was seamless.

Perfect.

Almost.

002: The Absence

Cassian's knee bounced.

The room felt off. Like an untuned frequency humming at the edge of perception, just out of reach.

"Couldn't sleep?" Arden's voice cut through the quiet. He was standing by the window, arms crossed.

Cassian hesitated. "...Feels weird, doesn't it?"

Arden didn't answer immediately. Instead, he glanced at Selene, who sat curled up on the couch, staring at nothing.

"It's been like this all day," she murmured.

The feeling wasn't loud. It wasn't sharp or jarring. It was just there—an itch in the back of the mind, an unplaceable sensation of something missing.

Something they should remember.

Something they couldn't.

"Maybe we're just tired," Ash muttered. He was by the whiteboard, running a hand over the blank surface like something should have been written there.

Another silence.

Selene exhaled slowly. "Do you ever get the feeling that you've... lost something?"

The question settled over them like a shadow.

Arden rubbed his temple. "We sound insane."

Cassian forced out a chuckle, but it didn't reach his eyes.

No one argued.

And outside, in the darkened halls, a laptop screen flickered once—

Then went black.

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Tell me, dear reader...

If you were rewritten, would you notice the gaps?
Would anyone?

Or would you vanish so perfectly—
even the void forgot you were there?