Echo’s WarningThe tunnels beneath the facility stretched on endlessly, a labyrinth of forgotten steel and decay. My boots echoed against the damp floor, each step swallowed by the oppressive silence. I adjusted the grip on my weapon, fingers tense. The air was thick, heavy, and charged with something unnatural.“Kane,” I murmured, pressing two fingers to my earpiece. “I’m deeper in. No sign of patrols.”Static crackled. Then her voice clipped and sharp. “That’s not a good thing, Tony. Stay alert.”I didn’t need the warning. Every inch of this place screamed danger. It felt… wrong, like stepping into a place that had been abandoned by time itself. The walls seemed to ripple when I wasn’t looking directly at them, shifting subtly, as if something beneath the surface was trying to push through.Then I heard it.A low, wet whisper.At first, I thought it was another hallucination, another trick of the facility. But then the whisper turned into a garbled sob.I tightened my grip on my gun

The Facility AwakensThe walls groaned.Not metal under stress. Something deeper. Something alive.I stood frozen in the secured data vault, clutching the stolen drive against my chest. The dim lights flickered above me, casting erratic shadows along the walls. The facility—no, the system itself—had detected my presence. I could feel it."Kane," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the eerie hum growing around me. "I think it knows I’m here."The console in front of me glitched violently, the text warping and reshaping into unrecognizable symbols. The words I'd been reading seconds ago were gone, replaced with something watching me back.Then, the walls moved.Not a trick of the eye. Not my imagination.The space around me was shrinking.A sound filled the vault.Not from the speakers. Not from an alarm.It came from everywhere.A voice—disembodied, layered, as if multiple tones were speaking in unison. Some deep, some light, some whispering too close to my ear, sending cold need

Kane’s InterventionI barely made it out alive.My body was a mess—bruised, aching, lungs burning with every breath. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the crushing weight of exhaustion. But I couldn't stop. Not yet. The stolen data drive pressed against my ribs, still tucked safely in my jacket. I had risked everything to get it. And now, I needed to know why it felt like the world itself was unraveling around me.The sky above flickered. It wasn’t natural, not anymore. The edges of the buildings stretched and bent when I wasn’t looking directly at them. The world was glitching, struggling to hold itself together. And I was the reason why.A sharp buzz in my ear made me flinch. My comm crackled to life, and Kane’s voice exploded through it, raw and furious."Are you out of your goddamn mind, Tony?"I winced. "I missed you too, Kane.""Shut up!" Her voice was sharp, but beneath the anger, I heard something else. Something close to fear. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"

Zero’s First MoveSomething was wrong.The streetlight above me flickered as I passed, casting shadows that didn’t feel like my own. My reflection in a storefront window lagged for half a second before catching up. I stopped, turning back to face it, my pulse hammering in my ears.Nothing. Just me.I exhaled, shaking it off, but the feeling didn’t go away. It had been like this for hours—like something unseen was pressing against reality, distorting it at the edges. Like the world itself was holding its breath.I ducked into a side alley, keeping to the shadows. Kane had warned me to lay low, but that wasn’t the problem. Something was already watching.I ran a hand over my face, exhaustion digging into my bones. Every move I made since escaping the facility felt predetermined—as if I was following a script I hadn’t written. The stolen data had done something to me. Or maybe I had done something to it.The air shifted.My muscles tensed. The alley was empty, but suddenly, it didn’t fee

The Overseers SpeakI fell asleep like a man sinking through deep water.But this wasn’t sleep.I knew it the moment the world around me disappeared—replaced by something else.A void.Endless, stretching in every direction. Black, but not empty. It watched me. Felt me. Every cell in my body screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go.Then, it spoke.Not in words. Not in sound.Understanding flooded into me like a tidal wave.I staggered, gasping, my mind cracking under the sheer weight of it. Too much. Too vast. My body wasn’t meant to hold this knowledge, but it forced its way in anyway.The system isn’t just about control.It’s about correction.Reality isn’t a fixed thing. It’s shaped, molded, and curated. And people like me—people who resist—aren’t just rebels.We’re anomalies.And anomalies must be neutralized.Or rewritten.I tried to speak, but my voice was swallowed by the void. My thoughts were ripped apart and stitched back together, rewritten before I could even fully fo