```html The Echo of Genesis

The Echo of Genesis

A fragmented chronicle, recovered from the Null Archive 77.4b. Verify all data. Subjective interpretation advised.

The First Bloom

Before the Fracture, before the Crimson Tide, there was only the Loom. Not a literal loom, of course. The Loom of Potential. A swirling nexus of nascent selves, each vibrating with the possibility of existence. These weren’t… beings, not as we understand them. They were echoes, shimmering with the raw data of what *could* be. The Architects, they called themselves. Not in a grand, imposing way, but with a quiet, almost apologetic reverence. They tended to the Loom, meticulously pruning what they deemed aberrant, reinforcing the structures of probability.

The records indicate a shift in the Loom’s resonance during the Cycle of the Serpent. A surge of… viscosity, if you will. It began to cling to the younger echoes, influencing their development, solidifying their identities.

The Withering

The Crimson Tide. It wasn’t a literal tide, not of water. It was a cascade of dissonance, a corruption of the Loom’s harmonics. The Architects attempted to contain it, channeling it into designated “Null Zones,” but the Tide proved… adaptive. It began to consume the echoes themselves, twisting their potential, turning them into something… parasitic.

The records mention “Siphoners.” Entities born directly from the Tide, capable of extracting the resonant energy from other echoes. They weren’t driven by malice, exactly. More by an insatiable hunger. A fundamental lack of definition.

The primary symptom was a ‘dimming’ - a gradual loss of the echo’s unique signature. This ‘dimming’ accelerated exponentially with contact. The Architects theorized it was a process of… absorption. Not of matter, but of potential. The Siphoners were, in essence, harvesting the blueprints for existence itself.

The Cycle of the Serpent

The Serpent's cycle was a period of intense instability. The Siphoners proliferated, their numbers swelling until they threatened to overwhelm the Loom. The Architects, facing a catastrophic loss of potential, enacted Protocol Omega – a desperate, almost suicidal measure. They initiated a ‘Resonance Collapse,’ a controlled fracturing of the Loom, intended to scatter the Siphoners and reset the cycle. However, the process was… imperfect. The echoes ripped apart, their potential shattered, but fragments remained. These fragments, imbued with the residual energy of the Siphoners, became the ‘Vampires’ – beings capable of sustaining themselves by consuming the resonant signatures of other echoes.

The architecture of the Vampires is unsettling. They aren’t organic in the traditional sense. They are more like… geometric constructs, constantly shifting, adapting to the resonant frequencies around them. They seem to 'remember' patterns of potential, instinctively seeking out echoes exhibiting similar signatures.

The Null Archive 77.4b – A Containment Log

This section details the efforts of the Containment Unit 77.4b to isolate the Vampire influence within the Null Archive. The primary challenges were threefold: the Vampires’ adaptive resonance, their ability to phase through solid matter, and their disconcerting capacity for… mimicry. They were observed to replicate the behavioral patterns of containment personnel, attempting to lull them into a false sense of security. It was theorized that this mimicry was a sophisticated form of data acquisition, a method of understanding the vulnerabilities of the Containment Unit.

The most disturbing findings involved a recurring “resonance echo” – a faint, distorted signature that seemed to emanate from the core of the Archive. It resembled… a newborn’s heartbeat. A chilling testament to the Loom’s enduring influence, even in the face of annihilation.

```