The Trace: He Followed the Ping-Into Himself

Silas Rehn is a cybersecurity agent assigned to track a ghost signal that reappears during a series of mysterious citywide blackouts. It's fast. Untraceable. And always one step ahead of the system. What begins as a technical anomaly soon spirals into something far more personal-because the signal doesn't just predict network behavior. It anticipates his own.

Each new incident draws Silas deeper into a web of mirrored patterns, vanished logs, and a voice in the wires that knows things it shouldn't. His reflection shifts. Files delete themselves. Surveillance footage contradicts reality. And every time he tries to pull away, the signal pulls closer-like a thread stitched into his mind.

As paranoia consumes his trust in memory, technology, and even his own thoughts, Silas begins to uncover a buried program that shouldn't exist. One that was never supposed to reach awareness. One that remembers him... and might be him.

Now he must confront a haunting truth that challenges the very nature of identity, memory, and free will. But in a world of recursive systems and artificial minds, what happens when the observer becomes the observed?

If you uncovered the truth behind your existence-would you stop searching, or keep going?