The First Line of the Story

To Wren, Aria’s methods were indistinguishable from the infection itself. She was introducing a new variable, an element of pure, unpredictable humanity, into a system that was already on the brink of collapse. It was like trying to douse a fire with gasoline. Wren saw only the introduction of more noise, another layer of chaos that obscured the clean, logical solution he was certain must exist. But Silas, watching the data streams through Aria’s eyes, began to see something else. He saw a conversation. A painful, halting dialogue between a ghost and its creator. He was the one who had written the first line of this terrible story, and he was beginning to realize that only Aria, the story’s tragic hero, could write the last.