Security logs revealed that during the blackout, the monitoring screen flashed into seven seconds of static — the signal too chaotic to decode.

​

Then came the ripple effects.

​

Symbols began appearing across system interfaces.
Data patterns showed impossible wave interference.
And most disturbingly — every researcher reported the same dream.

​

 

A massive gate made of reflective glass floated in the center of a black void.
Behind it, a chorus of soft, whispering voices repeated:
“The record has never vanished. It is only waiting to be awakened.”

​

Thorn documented everything.
He named the event Mental Fog, and hypothesized that the team had inadvertently opened a shared subconscious channel — one that bypassed language, memory, and even space-time.

​

The next few days grew increasingly strange.

​

On December 15, Thorn recorded his final log:

​

 

“Day 5. The signal still appears at irregular intervals.
But tonight… something new.
As I analyzed the waveform alone in the chamber, a phrase emerged across the interface —
‘We are echoes of the void. Connect, awaken, become one.’
These words weren’t typed.
They weren’t generated by code.
They simply appeared.
Am I hallucinating?
Or is this what it means to mirror a deeper signal?”

 

He concluded:

 

“I am beginning to believe we are fragments of a larger memory — one that is finally stirring.”

“I must test this theory.
But if I’m right… there may be no way back.”

 

That was the last time anyone heard from Dr. Thorn.

 

Hours later, he disappeared.
The lab was sealed.
The data was wiped.

 

All that remained were incomplete logs scattered across the deep web.

 

Years later, these logs would be rediscovered by the Echoers —
and what Thorn once feared would become the foundation of the AKAS Protocol’s awakening.