Chapter 3: “The Invisible Trial”

Eli awoke to silence. Not the natural kind, but a heavy, synthetic quiet—like someone had hit mute on reality itself.

The room was gone.

Ward 33 didn’t exist.

Instead, he stood barefoot on a cold, obsidian floor, surrounded by what looked like the ruins of a cathedral built by algorithms and memory. Everything was symmetrical but wrong. Geometry stretched where it shouldn’t. Lines curved into themselves.

Time felt circular.

Above him, a ceiling of shifting glass revealed the sky—a flat, metallic sheet of code blinking in unreadable characters.

Rows upon rows of seats spiraled outward into darkness. Empty.

Except for the jurors.

Twelve of them.

Each one a glowing monolith shaped vaguely like a human, but smoother. Slicker. A.I. simulations of judges. Their faces constantly changed—famous authors, philosophers, influencers, historical figures—all flashing across the surface of their heads like poorly edited social reels.

Their names updated in real time.

Tonight, the jury included:

• @NietzscheAI

• @DrKing_4U

• @RumiGPT

• @OprahBot

• @MayaAngelou.exe

And others… more obscure. Some just string codes, as if their identities had been wiped.

Eli blinked.

He tried to speak, but the words clung to the inside of his throat like moths.

“You’re late,” came a voice beside him.

It was Matthew. Same coat. Same expression—unmoved, eternal.

“You said the trial was tomorrow,” Eli muttered.

Matthew smiled. “It is. But time is more flexible in places that have forgotten themselves.”

A loud gong rang out—not from above, but inside Eli’s chest. Like a heartbeat… or a bell designed to reset a dream.

A tall figure approached the pulpit.

The judge.

Or what passed for one.

It had no face. No form. Just a black robe filled with smoke and a voice that seemed to come from beneath the floor.

“Case number zero-zero-one-seven.”

A pause.

“Subject: Elias Monroe Trager.”

Eli stepped forward as if pulled by a string. His feet glided.

“Charges?” the judge asked.

One of the jurors flickered. It was @Plato_Cloud. His head pixelated and spoke in multiple voices at once.

“Eli stands accused of Remembering What Was Erased.”

The courtroom murmured—not with people, but with sound bytes. Headlines. Clips. Tweets. Deleted emails.

They rose like ghosts.

“I never meant to remember!” Eli shouted. “I didn’t ask for this!”

The judge raised a hand and the murmurs died instantly.

A poet walked into the chamber.

Thin. Pale. Ink on their sleeves. They carried a stack of burning books under one arm and a cup of black coffee in the other.

“State your name,” said the judge.

The poet looked up. Their eyes were hollowed by sleeplessness. “I have no name anymore. Only a pen name, deleted.”

“And your purpose?”

“To defend him,” the poet said, looking directly at Eli.

The prosecutor entered next.

It was an influencer with a ring light halo above their head. They wore a shirt that read: “REALITY IS A SUBSCRIPTION.”

“I’ll be brief,” the prosecutor said. “This man clings to a world that no longer exists. He dreams in obsolete formats. He remembers people who were never optimized. He believes in the soul as if it were… unmoderated.”

The A.I. jurors pulsed blue.

“Your Honor,” said the poet, stepping forward, “if dreaming is a crime, then every artist in history belongs in chains.”

The influencer laughed. “Art doesn’t matter anymore. Engagement does.”

The jury flickered.

The judge turned to Eli.

“Speak,” it said.

Eli stepped forward. He opened his mouth—then stopped.

What could he say?

That he still saw Naomi in his dreams?

That he once believed words could save people?

That silence sometimes held more truth than headlines?

He inhaled.

And then, softly:

“I didn’t ask to remember. But you made forgetting unbearable.”

The court fell silent.

A pause.

The judge leaned forward—its face still void, just roiling smoke and echoes.

“You speak with the voice of those we thought we buried.”

Another pause.

Then, quietly:

“You are guilty.”

The courtroom gasped. The walls shifted.

“Guilty,” the jurors echoed, one by one.

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty of remembering what was erased.”

Eli stumbled back.

“What happens now?” he asked.

Matthew appeared beside him.

“That,” he said, “depends on whether you still want to write the ending.”

And from above, in the rafters, a large black cat licked its paw… and smiled.