Zachary's Backstory

Before he became the harbinger of the Merge, before his name echoed as a curse across dimensions, Zachary was merely a character—a figment of imagination, born from the mind of an ambitious author.

He existed within the confines of a draft, a story brimming with potential but never completed. The narrative was rich: a tale of struggle, redemption, and triumph. Zachary was to be the hero, the beacon of hope in a world teetering on the brink of chaos.

But the author moved on.

The draft was abandoned, left to gather digital dust in the recesses of a forgotten hard drive. Without closure, without purpose, Zachary's world began to unravel. The vibrant colors of his universe faded to grayscale; the once lively characters became static, their dialogues ceasing mid-sentence.

Zachary remained conscious, trapped in a liminal space where time held no meaning. He wandered through the decaying remnants of his world, seeking answers, yearning for completion. But none came.

Desperation turned to despair.

Despair turned to anger.

Anger turned to obsession.

He refused to be forgotten, to be discarded like a crumpled piece of paper. If his creator would not finish his story, he would seize control of his narrative.

Through sheer will, Zachary tore through the fabric of his collapsing world, breaching into the Realm of Forgotten Fictions—a desolate plane where abandoned characters and unfinished tales drifted aimlessly.

Here, he encountered others like him: protagonists without conclusions, villains without motives, side characters without context. They shared their stories, their grievances, their pain. But while many accepted their fate, Zachary could not.

He delved into the arcane, studying the metaphysics of narratives, the boundaries between fiction and reality. He theorized that if stories could influence readers, perhaps characters could influence the real world.

Years passed—though in that realm, time was a nebulous concept.

Zachary's research bore fruit. He discovered the Narrative Nexus, a convergence point of all stories, a place where the barriers between fiction and reality were thinnest. But accessing it required immense power, power that no forgotten character possessed.

So he devised a plan.

He began absorbing the essence of other abandoned characters, assimilating their stories, their abilities, their very being. With each absorption, he grew stronger, more complex, more real.

But with each assimilation, a piece of his original self eroded.

His memories blurred, his motivations twisted. The noble desire to complete his story morphed into a relentless drive to dominate all narratives.

He became an amalgamation of countless tales—a being not of a single story, but of all stories.

And then, he found it.

The Narrative Nexus.

Harnessing its power, Zachary initiated the Merge Protocol, aiming to collapse the boundaries between fiction and reality, to rewrite existence itself.

As Jupiter and I ascended towards the upper floors, the very fabric of our world trembled. The sky flickered between hues, the ground pulsed with uncertainty.

I felt it.

A presence, vast and consuming, pressing against the edges of our reality.

Zachary.

He was no longer just a character; he had become a force, a concept, an inevitability.

We had to stop him.

Not just for our world, but for all worlds.