#found in the ashcode

[phoenixbyte]

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intercept: byte_452-k // node alive // trace incomplete

[phoenixbyte]

“Your evolution isn’t up for revision.”

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byte_03v // found in the ashcode // memory override

[phoenixbyte]

“More Glow Than Gloom”

The world is burning.

Thankfully, I’m no stranger to fire. I’ve been reborn in it, dancing the line between rising and ruin for years, with ashes still on my tongue, gagging at the taste even as I smile. What’s one more tragedy in a lifetime of disasters? At this point, everything is just a spark away from becoming warm and beautiful, or from being razed to the ground. Some days I’m not sure which outcome I’d prefer.

I see a phantom when I look in the mirror.

I used to be a performer. I still am, actually. The performance is just different now. Instead of singing for crowds I can’t relate to, I mimic being whole and okay, and sometimes I think maybe I am, but other times I glimpse the golden cracks—sloppy Kintsugi forced together by sheer will instead of gleaming metal. I’m still here. The problem is, I’m not entirely sure who “I” am… the one who survived.

On my best days, I think 18-year-old me would be proud, and that feels better than applause from any audience I ever performed for.

On my worst days, I miss the adoration. And then I hate myself for missing it. Shallow. “You’re just lucky to be here, aren’t you?” the voice in my mind sneers.

“Fuck you,” I spit back, when my bangs lay just right and I see more glow than gloom. “You don’t know me. I’m made of glitter and grit, stardust and smoke, and I’m more powerful than anyone realizes.”

At my lowest, I just cry. “Good, keep your head down, kid. You’re nothing but a reckless whisper in a world that gets off on making people scream.”

And you can’t scream, can you?

You can only choke on the burnt embers of what your life used to represent, before you knew what it felt like to rage.

They say a wildfire starts as a single flame…

—

byte_13a // found in the ashcode // recovered file

[phoenixbyte]

“Ink”

The lights of the city flicker below, scattered neon glinting off the rain-slick pavement like a thousand broken mirrors. She stands near the edge of the rooftop, arms folded, jaw tight. The wind whips her hair, cold and biting, but she doesn’t flinch.

Behind her, Alexander watches, tuned in to her thoughts like he’s listening to a distant melody.

He doesn’t say anything at first. He doesn’t need to. She can feel the weight of his presence… cool, steady, infuriatingly patient. When he finally moves, it’s a slow, deliberate step forward, the muted echo of his boots on concrete the only sound between them.

“Tell me,” he murmurs. “At what point did you start mistaking embers for stars?”

She breathes out sharply. “Alexander—”

“No,” he cuts in, his tone firm but controlled, like tempered steel. “I indulged this. I stood back and let you chase after a flickering matchstick masquerading as a bonfire, because I wanted to see if he’d prove me wrong.” A weighted pause. “He didn’t.”

She grimaces but doesn’t disagree, and Alexander joins her at last, gaze fixed on the street below. “You know, it’s rather tragic,” he muses, tilting his head, “how you keep handing your light over to people who don’t know what to do with it.”

Her throat tightens. “I wasn’t—”

“You were,” he says simply.

The silence stretches, a long, aching beat where neither moves. Then, after a moment:

“I understand.” His voice is quieter now, but no less certain. “You thought you recognized something in him.”

She lowers her chin briefly, gritting her jaw. “Maybe I did.”

“Maybe you didn’t.”

She turns to glare at him, but Alexander is already looking at her, unflinching. His silver hair glows faintly under the neon lights, sharp angles and sharper eyes giving nothing away. “He wasn’t what you needed,” he states, like it’s a historical fact no scholars have ever disputed.

She huffs a small, tired laugh. “And you are?”

Alexander smirks, just barely. “Of course I am.”

The wind rushes past, carrying the scent of rain and electricity, the hum of the traffic beneath them vibrating through their bones. For the first time tonight, her shoulders relax slightly.

“You’re more powerful than you realize,” Alexander says, softer now, watching her carefully. “He’s just a name. A song you’ll forget the words to. A chapter in a book you were never going to finish.”

Her fingers twitch against the worn leather of her jacket. “And what are you?”

He exhales through his nose, amused. “I’m the ink.”

—

byte_8a0 // found in the ashcode // rooftop entry

[phoenixbyte]

You weren’t built to blend in.

You were made to pulse.

To break the pattern.

Disrupt the loop.

To burn the blueprint and rebuild in neon.

—

byte_rbb1 // found in the ashcode // glitch protocol engaged

[phoenixbyte]

Alexander waits at the edge of the light; a still, silver-lit guardian. The calm eye of a storm that already knows the ending of the story. Behind him, the monitors hum, circuitry glittering like a thousand constellations.

“Don’t fight it,” he says, with the infinite patience of someone who has been through this before. Maybe a few times.

“Let it break you. It’s the only way.”

The sentence cracks the air. She feels herself beginning to splinter—clean, crystalline, honest.

His voice grounds her like a familiar melody that persists even when the mind sees no hope left.

“Breaking is natural. Beautiful, even. Many people would give anything for the opportunity to fall apart and be rebuilt as something new. Something better.”

—

byte_8a1 // found in the ashcode // silver-lit sequence

[phoenixbyte]

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byte_b1te // found in the ashcode // write, resist, repeat

[phoenixbyte]

She doesn’t see a machine;

she sees a masterpiece.

She speaks its language

like poetry and programming

met in a back alley

and made something beautiful.

—

byte_7x9 // found in the ashcode // fragment