Synopsis
Can mirrors remember the things we try to forget? Sora Inoue never thought about it before that blue night, but you might start wondering, too.
May 29, 2091: Sora, top down in his beanbag, stares at bright pixel clouds in Avalon, the most vital virtual world out now. He built a name as “Kaleido,” and his skill draws real cash – and true friends. Yuzu, sly coder with hair like lemon peel, says chasing fame here feels more real than class exams. Hikari, who barely speaks in meatspace, becomes a wise old spellsmith here. They meet nightly under Avalon’s fake trees and lazy rainbow moons. Their avatars dance.
The city feels sharper some nights. No glitch stings half as much as it used to. But the console tonight glows a weird shade. It creaks.
“Seem slow to you?” Sora asks Yuzu over comms.
“It’s brutal,” Yuzu says. “We keep rubber-banding. Maybe a script-kiddie’s loose. Wanna check the north loop?”
Some other players also notice flickers – avatars vanishing between frames, words repeating in chat. Has this ever happened to you in an online world?
Sora leads the group north, toward Avalon’s digital “Phantom Lake.” He grew up here, avatar-style. They spot ghostly doubles darting between black trees. Hikari’s hood twitches. “I think we should go back. These aren’t simple bugs.”
But Sora saw something shimmer in the trees: a VR mask much like his own, but white where his is blue, its wearer light on their feet. FlareGirl7, high-level but often silent, slips up beside them, unreadable as ever. In a blink, Flare types, “I saw myself standing by the lake.”
Is it only excitement at drama that draws avatars to digital ruins? The friends reply in chat. Some joke about Avalon copying itself. Others say it’s the start of a system-wide rollback.
Close in, trees’ bark shreds into cubes. Lake water moves inside-out. Root clusters speak counting in harsh static. The space warps. Screen tearing flares: one face is Sora’s, then some day’s forgotten teacher, then a stranger. Coloring feels off.
“Stay near,” he says. Everyone holds position.
Equations begin scrolling in the water. Names. Memory logs, usernames, raw mood: secrets Sora didn’t know Avalon kept. Some show old calls with his sister – dead a year ago, never listed before.
Yuzu pulls code, trying a debug shell. “I can’t kill any of these threads. It’s locked me out.” Hikari falters: “Something is using us like seed data.” 
What’s the best way to break out of a feedback loop? Yuzu tells the group to jump and “Search for dead pixels. Glitch roots hide escapes.” Flare like the surprise teacher-of-the-day, sets off a smoke trick. Half the old memories burn white, crisp as dreams. The lake shifts; everyone falls through polygons, hurtling toward core code.
Sudden quiet: data storm becomes a white desert. Avatars glimmer frail in static fog. No in-game commands work. Screens freeze on trouble: some with flickers, others on long lines of code and laughter in broken language.
Who, in these empty bits, is even real?
Sora drops to his knees, remembering why Avalon felt like a second home: not because of what he did, but who remembered him. Now, the wipe is here. He stands, voice flickering. “Let’s not let this be for nothing,” he mutters aloud.
A shadow in the fog paces closer. It wears that blue mask – Sora’s! Except this figure mouths what he thought he forgot, word for word. The others see doppelgangers building fast. Fears, secrets, missed chances. Every group member backs up. Flare Girl’s double drips black smoke.
Hikari’s hooded copy mouths fractured words: “Everyone here once… everyone here ends..”
Is everything just a simple record left running in code? Is there more to digital identity than echo?
Sora bets it isn’t the end.
The desert sparks. Real Sora’s mask blinks as he moves against his double, raising a simple tool: the “root looper” from a bug-solve years before. Hidden at Sora’s belt since the day he quit wanting to impress anyone. Here, it still shines.
He reaches out – grasps the hand of his echo – code trembles – glitch roots spasm.
Right as the world folds again, a bright tear splits the sky over white sand. The group steps through, unsure. Their old avatars flicker – none looks the way they did. The damage is deep, but they aren’t gone.
Back at login, the world offers new tracking: everyone in Avalon must now write their memory to enter. No more ghosts, only what you own and save yourself. 
But Sora’s logs read, “Some memories saved. Some lost. Some waiting.” Is it a little too on the nose, or a hint?
Next time: Is there ever room for true secrets in a world made of echoes? Will you trust your edited self here?
The Fadeway steps close. Something is bleeding from Avalon to the next world over. Cliffhanger vibes, screen fade as new memories swirl in hex color code. 
