It begins with thunder —
but not in the sky.
Inside him.
Micah screams awake.
Not from pain.
Not from fear.
From pressure — like the universe has wrapped itself around his chest and is waiting for permission to breathe.
He is in a room made of dark mirrors.
Except the reflections don't move with him.
They act on their own.
In one, he's laughing.
In another, he's drowning.
In the last, he's staring straight at him — bleeding light from the eyes.
The mirrors flicker.
Crack.
Shatter.
And behind the broken glass: a void pulsing with gold static.
—
The voice returns.
Not Wren. Not Rae.
Not the Archivists or the boy who stayed.
This one is lower. Older. Electric.
"You made it further than any of them."
Micah turns slowly.
There's no one there. Only a spiral of floating architecture — like a cathedral caught in mid-collapse.
He walks.
The air is thick with forgotten words. Time blinks. Gravity folds.
He hears footsteps. His own... and not.
Then:
**He sees it.**
The Static Core.
A sphere of pulsing static light — suspended in nothing, rotating without orbit, weeping sparks like falling stars.
And inside it —
himself.
Or something that used to be him.
The first Micah.
The version that was struck by lightning.
Still suspended.
Still burning.
Still remembering.
—
He falls to his knees.
Not because he's afraid —
but because the gravity of *truth* has weight.
The Core speaks again.
"You were never meant to survive the drift."
Micah breathes, shallow. "Then why did I?"
The light intensifies.
The Core hums like thunder wrapped in memory.
"Because you were the only one who asked what came next."
—
The mirrors behind him repair themselves.
The reflections return — all of them kneeling now.
Micah stands.
A thread of light pierces his chest.
Not pain.
A key.
A memory begins to unlock — one he never lived, one that never existed — and yet it's more real than anything that's come before.
A version of himself *building* the Core.
Not discovering it.
*Creating it.*
His eyes widen.
"Oh my god... I made this."
—
And the Core answers without hesitation:
"Yes. And now it's time to unmake it."
YOU ARE READING
Static Drift - IV - Before the Static Core
Science FictionStatic Drift - Part 4 - Before the Static Core What if you weren't meant to survive the drift - but complete it? Micah has walked through memory, identity, and time itself. Now, he descends into the heart of everything that broke him. The Static Cor...
