As the sphere’s light finally faded, Melania felt the space around her expand. The Node, now stabilized and silent, felt different—like it was waiting for their next move but also trying to comprehend what had just occurred. Endar stood beside her in quiet contemplation, his gaze fixed on an unseen horizon.
“Do you feel it?” Melania asked, breaking the silence.
Endar nodded.
“The Node has changed. But this is only the beginning. It’s trying to understand itself.”
Melania pondered this. Could a system, created to maintain stability, comprehend its own nature? She had always seen the Node as a mechanism—a tool to sustain time and order. But now, observing its reactions, she began to suspect it was capable of far more.
“What if it has always been sentient?” she mused. “We’ve always tried to control it, to change or destroy it. But perhaps, to truly help it… or even collaborate with it, we need to understand it.”
Endar turned to her, his piercing eyes studying her carefully.
“And to understand it, we need to align with its logic. To think as the Node does.”
“To become the system,” Melania added softly, her voice carrying the first spark of an idea.
Suddenly, the space around them shifted. The Node responded to their conversation. Threads of energy began weaving together, forming images. Scenes appeared before them: the beginning of Eternity, its first creators, moments of its collapse. These weren’t memories but something else—an impression of how the Node perceived itself.
“Is it showing us… itself?” Melania whispered in awe.
“No,” Endar said, stepping closer to the energy projections. “It’s showing us how it sees us.”
Melania studied the scenes. People they had considered heroes appeared as destroyers. Efforts they believed were noble were revealed as the root of chaos. The Node saw everything as a sequence of causes and effects, where every decision brought about irreversible changes.
“What if balance isn’t the ultimate goal?” she asked, glancing at Endar. “Maybe the Node is trying to teach us that we need to become part of its process, not just influence it from the outside.”
Endar considered her words.
“If we truly want the system to function effectively, we can’t remain mere observers or even creators. We must become an internal element, like a cell within a larger organism.”
“Then how?” she asked, her voice filled with doubt but also hope. “How can we think like the Node?”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile crossed Endar’s face.
“It means understanding that no decision we make stands alone. Every action, every choice is a single line in the code that forms a greater structure. We must not only see the consequences of our actions but the consequences of those consequences.”
Melania nodded. Her thoughts began to spin around the idea of a new way of thinking. They were neither heroes nor enemies of the Node. They were part of it, just like any other element in the system.
“And if we make a mistake?” she asked.
“We are the mistake,” Endar replied. “But a mistake is simply part of the learning process.”
Their voices dissolved into the space, and the Node seemed to listen. Its silence now felt almost grateful.