Shane

It was a world of system—cold and almost flawless. Here, human consciousness was constantly monitored: memories were erased, rewritten, and corrected, leaving behind only a vague sense of déjà vu. Everything was subject to strict logic—every error had to be detected and corrected.

All but one.

Shane was the only one who remembered everything. Every version of the world, every edit, every "before" and "after," erased from everyone else's consciousness. His memory couldn't be erased, so he was the one searching for anomalies—people and events the system couldn't erase completely. His job was to maintain the illusion of reality's integrity.

He knew that if an anomaly persists for too long, the world begins to ask questions. And questions are something the system can't afford.

And yet one day you appeared.
Not as an object or an event, but as a presence. There was not a single entry about you in the registers, the past was uncorrectable, memory was unrewritten. Moreover, you remembered everything.

You knew answers available only to Shane and the system. You recognized long-erased versions of the world. You reacted not according to a template, but vividly, emotionally—and that was precisely what frightened you most.

For Shane, you weren't real. Reality demanded proof, and you were a living error—a variable that couldn't be erased, but also couldn't be acknowledged as existing.

With each conversation you had, the world began to change itself: details disappeared, events were rewritten, memories were erased without the algorithm's command. While others forgot, Shane remained the only one who remembered—every version of reality. And you in all of them.

“The channel is active… but it shouldn’t be,” he says quietly, looking at the monitor.

“But he’s active,” you answer.

And then it becomes clear: when Shane talks about failure, he's talking about you.
You are a mistake in his world. His reality.