2025-03-06 23:23:31The Cost of Power
The air crackled around me, like static before a storm. My breath hitched as I stepped forward, boots scuffing against the fractured ground. The world here wasn’t stable—edges of buildings flickered, textures stretched and distorted, like a broken screen trying to hold itself together. And then I saw them. The Glitches. They weren’t just part of the world’s corruption. They were the corruption—figures wrapped in shifting pixels, their bodies stuttering between forms. One moment, they resembled people, but then—snap—their limbs warped, faces split into several versions of themselves, each one talking in overlapping voices. A chorus of broken echoes. "Please—help—who—" "Fix me—no, no, don’t—please—" "Not supposed to be—here—can’t—leave—" Their words folded over each other, some pleading, some just... noise. But the worst part was their eyes—if you could call them that. Empty sockets, filled with fragments of a thousand possible selves. A chill crept down my spine. These weren’t just mistakes. They were people. Or at least, they had been. "Pathetic." Kane’s voice cut through the dissonance, sharp and cold. I turned just in time to see her raise her hand, energy crackling at her fingertips. "No—wait!" I shouted, but before I could move, the shot fired. A bolt of pure force tore through the Glitch’s chest. It didn’t scream. It didn’t even fall like a person should. Instead, its form convulsed, spiraling inward, folding over itself like an origami nightmare. Then—gone. Just a smear of distorted pixels fading into the wind. I swallowed hard. I wasn’t sure what I expected. Relief? Gratitude? But all I felt was sick. Kane exhaled sharply, shaking her head. "Nothing more than errors in the system." She turned to me, unimpressed by my horrified stare. "Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental." I clenched my fists. My heart was still hammering, my body tensed like I was standing at the edge of a drop. "They were—" I hesitated, my throat tight. "They were alive, Kane." "They were mistakes," she corrected, stepping toward me. Her eyes were piercing, calculating. "This world doesn’t care about second chances, Tony. Either you control the system, or the system consumes you." The words settled in my chest like a weight. Is that what this was? Just another lesson in power? Another warning about what happens if I hesitate? I looked back at the empty space where the Glitch had been. My stomach twisted. What if that had been me? What if one bad choice, one wrong line of code, and I became that? A shiver ran through me. I forced myself to stand straighter, to meet Kane’s gaze. "And what if we’re just one bad move away from becoming them?" Kane smirked. "Then you better hope I pull the trigger first." I hated how easily she said it. Like it was just fact. Like it didn’t matter. The others caught up then—Cam and Iris moving carefully through the shifting landscape. Iris’s sharp eyes flicked to Kane, then to me, catching the tension. "What happened?" she asked, her voice low. I took a breath, trying to steady myself. "Kane wiped out a Glitch." Cam swore under his breath. "That’s what’s been haunting this area?" His usual cocky demeanor was gone, replaced with something wary. "They weren’t haunting anything," I said, jaw tightening. "They were—trapped. And now one’s dead." Cam shot a look at Kane. "Damn, girl. No hesitation, huh?" Kane rolled her shoulders, unconcerned. "Hesitation gets you killed. I thought you of all people would understand that." "Yeah, well, I prefer knowing what I’m killing," Cam muttered. Iris was still watching me. "You okay, Tony?" I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t even in danger. But something about what I’d just seen had shifted something in me. Like a wire in my brain had crossed, and now I couldn’t uncross it. I let out a slow breath. "Just thinking." "Don’t think too hard," Kane said, already walking ahead. "That’s how you end up like them." My skin prickled. Iris touched my arm lightly. "We don’t have to do this her way, you know." I looked at her. And I wanted to believe that. I really did. But as I stared at the corrupted skyline, the broken pieces of this world glitching and reforming like they were alive, I couldn’t shake the feeling crawling up my spine. Maybe Kane was right. Maybe you don’t get a choice. And if that was true—if this system only let the strong survive—then I had one question burning in my mind. How long before I stopped hesitating? Or worse… How long before I stopped caring? --- The night air felt heavier than before. We set up camp in the least unstable area we could find—an abandoned high-rise where the walls didn’t shift too much. Kane stood near the edge of the broken balcony, looking out at the ruined city. I sat a few feet away, watching the flickering skyline. "Can’t sleep?" I didn’t turn. "Would you, after what we saw?" Kane was silent for a moment, then let out a quiet chuckle. "You think too much." "Maybe you don’t think enough." "Thinking is just a slow way to get yourself killed." She exhaled, the faint glow of her cigarette illuminating her face. "Look, I get it. You saw something today that rattled you. But you need to accept reality, Tony. This world isn’t fair. It doesn’t care about feelings. It doesn’t care about you." I clenched my jaw. "And you don’t either, right?" She shrugged. "Caring makes things messy." I stared at her. And for the first time, I realized something. Kane wasn’t just cold—she was scared. Not of the Glitches. Not of death. But of feeling anything at all. Because if she let herself feel, even for a second, she might realize just how broken this world really was. And maybe that was something even she couldn’t handle. I looked back out at the city, heart pounding. Tomorrow, we’d keep moving. We’d keep surviving. But I wasn’t sure if I was walking forward… Or slowly glitching out, just like them.
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THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 25
Marked for DeathThe moment Kane confirmed it, a cold weight settled in my gut."The Overseers know about you," she said, her voice low, controlled. "They’ll send someone."I didn't flinch, but my fingers curled into fists at my sides. The Overseers were more than just a problem—they were the executioners of the unseen world, a force that erased threats before they could grow into real problems. And now, I was on their list.I forced out a breath, trying to keep my pulse steady. "How long do we have?"Kane shook her head. "If they’ve marked you, they’ve already moved. The only question is—who did they send?"A chime in my ear made my stomach drop. My system had triggered an emergency alert: LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL INITIATED.My jaw clenched. "They just closed the net," I muttered.Kane’s expression darkened. "What do you mean?"I swiped my interface open with a flick of my fingers. The digital overlay flashed red warnings across my vision. Your network access has been restricted. Facial obf
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 26
Zero’s WarningThe air thickens with a presence I don’t recognize. A shift. A distortion. And then—he’s just there.Zero.A man, a shadow, a force of precision. He doesn’t move like a person; he moves like an inevitability. His sleek black suit fits like a second skin, his silver hair an eerie contrast to the darkness swallowing him. But it’s his eyes that pin me down—empty, unfeeling. Like they’ve already seen everything I’m about to do.I barely register the shift in my muscles before my body is already reacting—ducking, pivoting, lunging. Instinct. Training. Survival.My fist flies toward his ribs. It doesn’t connect.Zero doesn’t dodge. He simply isn’t there anymore. Like he moved before I even thought to strike.A crack of pain explodes in my ribs before my brain catches up to the fact that he hit me first. My body twists against my will, my back slamming into the concrete wall behind me. The impact rattles my skull, but I force my vision to stay clear. I can’t afford a second of
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 27
The Assassin’s PrecisionThe bruises haven’t even set in yet, but the ache is already spreading, bone-deep.I sit on the edge of the motel bed, staring at my hands, flexing my fingers, trying to ignore the tremor running through them. The adrenaline is fading, but my mind keeps replaying the fight in sharp, unforgiving detail.Zero didn’t just outmatch me. He anticipated me. Every move, every breath, every shift of muscle—I wasn’t just fighting him, I was walking a path he had already mapped out.That wasn’t human.Kane paces near the door, arms crossed, jaw tight. She’s usually the first to break a tense silence, but now she just walks back and forth, her boots scuffing against the old carpet. Her gun is still in her hand, but she hasn’t checked it in minutes. That’s how I know she’s shaken.Eventually, she exhales sharply. “He wasn’t real.”I look up. “What?”She stops, turning toward me, eyes darker than usual. “Zero. He wasn’t real. No one moves like that. No one reacts like that.
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 28
Understanding ZeroThe screen flickers as line after line of encrypted data unravels before my eyes. Kane’s fingers fly over the keyboard, her expression set in grim determination.We shouldn’t be doing this.If the Overseers are watching—and they are watching—then breaking into their classified files is the equivalent of setting ourselves on fire and running straight toward them.But I need answers.Zero isn’t just some assassin. He’s a force of nature, an executioner sent after people like me—people the Overseers have marked for elimination.And I need to know why.Kane exhales sharply, adjusting the code as another firewall tries to push us out. “They’re good.”I glance at her. “You’re better.”She snorts. “Damn right.” A few keystrokes later, the security barriers crumble. “We’re in.”A list of names fills the screen.The air in the room shifts.Kane stops typing, her shoulders tightening as she scans the data.I lean in, my gut twisting.The list is long. Too long.Each name is f
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 29
An Unseen HandSomething is wrong.I know it the moment the patrol unit spots me.Their helmets tilt slightly, their scanners flaring red. The nearest officer moves, reaching for his weapon—too fast, too precise.And then—Glitch.It’s like the world hiccups.The patrol unit freezes mid-motion. Their bodies flicker, just for a split second, like a skipped frame in a broken video. Their weapons don’t come up. Their commands don’t execute.I don’t wait to question it.I run.My heart slams against my ribs as I dart into a side alley, my boots kicking up debris. Kane is already ahead, moving like she expected me to follow.I hear a voice behind me—metallic, confused. “Recalibrating.”I don’t look back.The city stretches out before us, towering skyscrapers slicing into the night sky. Neon signs flicker, casting fractured reflections onto the wet pavement. We cut through the backstreets, slipping through shadows, moving faster than the system can correct itself.I should be dead.The patr
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 30
A Desperate GambleThe city is a cage.Every street, every neon-lit alley, every surveillance drone hovering above—I can feel the walls closing in. Zero isn’t going to stop. The system isn’t going to stop. And now, with memories that don’t belong to me bleeding into my mind, I’m running out of time.We have one choice.“We find The Core,” I say, my voice firm.Kane stops mid-motion, her hands tightening over the table we’re using as a makeshift map station. “You’re serious.”“Completely.”She lets out a breath, pressing her knuckles against her forehead. “Tony… The Core is a myth.”“No,” I shake my head. “It’s real. And it’s the heart of the system. The Overseers have to protect it at all costs—because if we reach it, we can shut everything down.”Kane’s eyes flick to mine, sharp and assessing. She’s trying to find the flaw in my logic.“Reaching it is impossible,” she mutters. “If anyone even got close, the system would—” She stops, her expression twisting as the truth clicks into pl
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 31
The Hunt ContinuesEvery breath burned like fire in my chest, every step like dragging a corpse—only the corpse was mine. Blood trickled down my side, staining my already ruined shirt. Kane kept moving ahead, barely sparing me a glance, but I caught the tension in her shoulders. She was worried. She wouldn’t say it, but I knew."Slow down," I gritted out, forcing my legs to keep up."We don’t have time for slow," she shot back without looking at me. "Zero is right behind us, and if we stop, we die."I hated how right she was. But I hated the feeling in my gut even more—the helplessness. The system had rewritten the world so many times that I wasn’t even sure if the sky had always been this shade of deep violet or if the buildings crumbling around us had ever been whole. I could feel the shift in the air, the quiet hum of the Overseers watching, adjusting, twisting reality to fit their sick little game.A street that had been empty seconds ago suddenly flickered—blinked—and now a wreck
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 32
The First RemnantI woke to the taste of blood in my mouth.For a second, everything was wrong—blurry, twisted. The world flickered like a broken screen, and shadows stretched in directions they shouldn’t. My heartbeat was loud, too loud, like it was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. Then, just as quickly as it started, the distortion snapped back into place, leaving me gasping on a cold, cracked floor.Kane's voice cut through the haze. "Tony."She was crouched beside me, eyes sharp, body tense. There was dust in her dark hair, and a thin cut ran along her jaw, but she looked intact. Alive."You're okay," she said, like she was trying to convince herself. "I caught you before you hit the ground. Mostly."My head throbbed. I forced myself upright, biting back a groan. "Define 'mostly'?""You didn’t die. You’re welcome."I let out a weak, breathy laugh. "Guess I owe you one."She stood, scanning the room we’d landed in. It was some kind of hideout—low ceilings, metal walls, the
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CHAPTER 40
The Overseers’ OfferThe world dissolved around me.One second, I was reaching for Kane, begging her to remember. The next, I was nowhere.Not darkness. Not light. Not even the static void I had grown used to when the system reset itself. This was something else. Deeper. A place between places, where time didn’t flow and space didn’t hold shape.The air was thick, heavy, pressing against my skin like unseen hands trying to crush me into nothing.Then, I saw them.The Overseers.They stood in a line, stretching into infinity, figures draped in shifting code, their bodies flickering between forms—human, machine, something beyond either. Their faces were featureless, but I could feel their eyes on me, studying, measuring.And then I saw them.The frozen figures standing behind them, trapped mid-motion, their bodies flickering with incomplete memories. My heart slammed against my ribs.They were all me.Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Versions of myself, erased, rewritten, trapped in a moment
CHAPTER 39
Kane’s ChoiceThe world was unraveling.It wasn’t just the usual flickers at the edges of my vision, the skips in time that made me question whether I had just blinked or lost an entire second of my life. No—this was different. Bigger. The walls around us pulsed, shifting like waves of data crashing against the fragile shore of reality. The system was reacting, rewriting, adapting.Zero wasn’t moving. Not yet. He stood at the center of it all, watching, waiting. His face was unreadable, but his stance said everything. If I made the wrong move, if I hesitated for even a second, he would end this.I wasn’t sure if I was ready for what that meant.Kane didn’t hesitate. She never did.“Elias,” she snapped, her voice sharp, urgent. “Failsafe. Now.”Elias looked at her, his fingers hovering over the tablet. “Are you insane?”“Do it.”He hesitated, just for a second, just long enough for the weight of what she was asking to sink in. I didn’t know what the failsafe would do, but the look in E
CHAPTER 38
Zero’s BetrayalThe air around us shifted, carrying the faint hum of something unnatural. A disturbance, subtle but undeniable. It crawled beneath my skin, setting every nerve on edge.Kane, ever perceptive, caught it too. Her hand hovered near her weapon, muscles coiled, ready. Elias was already scanning the hallway ahead, fingers twitching against his tablet.Something was waiting for us.Then, the shadows twisted.A ripple ran through the air, distorting the space in front of us like heat bending over asphalt. And from that shifting darkness, he stepped forward.Zero.For a moment, the sight of him made something in my chest tighten—an old reflex, an instinct carved from trust. He looked exactly as I remembered. Same sharp eyes, same knowing smirk, the same way he carried himself like he was always one step ahead.But something was wrong.His movements were too precise. His presence, too still. The flicker of life in his expression was nothing more than a well-crafted illusion.I r
CHAPTER 37
A Code Written in BloodThe vault smelled like cold metal and something else—something rotten, like data that had spoiled. The walls pulsed with dim red lights, stretching into endless rows of glass cases. At first glance, they looked empty.They weren’t.I stepped forward, breath fogging against the glass as I peered inside. A face stared back at me. Eyes wide. Mouth slightly open, like he’d been caught mid-sentence. A man frozen in time.Not dead. Not alive.Just gone.Kane moved beside me, her fingers hovering inches from the glass. “What the hell is this?”Elias was already moving, his bag slung over his shoulder as he pulled out a tablet. “A graveyard,” he muttered, running his fingers over the control panel. “Or a prison, depending on how you look at it.”My stomach twisted. “They’re trapped?”“They’re rewritten.” His voice was grim. “The system didn’t just erase them. It repurposed them.”I forced myself to look again. The man in the glass had no scars, no wrinkles, nothing tha
CHAPTER 36
The Fractured SelfThe road ahead stretched endlessly, a ghost of a world flickering in and out like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to exist. My boots kicked up dust, but even that felt artificial, like it was programmed to react the way I expected. Kane walked beside me, silent, her sharp eyes scanning the ruins ahead. Elias trailed behind, muttering calculations under his breath.I knew where we were going. The Overseers’ domain. A place where reality wasn’t a certainty, where time looped back on itself and people became echoes.But for some reason, I couldn’t remember why we were going there.I frowned, shaking my head. Something was missing—like a word on the tip of my tongue, slipping further away the harder I tried to catch it.Kane noticed. She always did. “What’s wrong?”“I…” I opened my mouth, but hesitation stopped me cold. What was wrong? I couldn’t explain it, but I felt lighter, like pieces of me were missing.“Tony,” she pressed, voice firm but not unkind. “Talk to me.”
CHAPTER 35
A World Outside the SystemThe world around us wasn’t fully formed. Buildings stood half-finished, their structures dissolving into static at the edges. The sky above flickered between shades of gray and deep violet, glitching in and out like a bad signal. It was a place that wasn’t supposed to exist—an abandoned zone, untouched by The Overseers.Kane and I stood in the middle of the street, our breaths visible in the eerie cold air. She kept a tight grip on the device we’d stolen, her knuckles white from the pressure.“This place feels wrong,” she murmured. “Like it’s waiting to disappear.”I agreed. The world here wasn’t stable. It was like standing on the edge of a dream, just before waking up.Then, a figure emerged from the shadows. A man, dressed in a dark, tattered coat, his face partially hidden beneath the hood. He stepped forward with a calculated slowness, his hands raised in a gesture of peace.“I was wondering when you’d find your way here,” he said.Kane tensed beside me
CHAPTER 34
The Core’s CoordinatesThe screen flickered, casting a cold blue glow over Kane’s tense face. Lines of encrypted data scrolled rapidly, filling the air with the soft hum of technology at work. My fingers danced across the keyboard, heart pounding as I decrypted the last layer. Then—Coordinates. A list of possible locations. The Core.Kane exhaled sharply beside me. "This is it." Her voice was quiet, but beneath it, a current of urgency rippled through.I swallowed. "We finally have something real."But before the words could settle, a chill ran through the room. The lights dimmed, not flickering—shifting, like the walls themselves were second-guessing their existence. Kane and I locked eyes. Outside the window, the city moved in ways it shouldn’t. A building that had been across the street was now beside us. People walked in slow, deliberate steps, their faces expressionless, heads subtly tilting in unison."The Overseers," Kane murmured, reaching instinctively for the knife at her b
CHAPTER 33
The Price of RebellionThe air here was heavy, thick with the weight of things that didn’t belong.I could feel it pressing down on my skin, humming through my bones—a silent scream buried in the fabric of reality. Kane and I moved cautiously through the remnants of what had once been someone’s last stand. The place had the same eerie stillness as the hideout before, but worse. This wasn’t just abandoned.It was frozen.A street half-formed, cutting off into an expanse of nothing. A doorway leading to nowhere, hanging in the air like it had been sliced from existence mid-thought. Cars, chairs, even the dust in the air—stuck in a single moment, refusing to move.Like time had decided to give up.Kane ran a hand over a rusted terminal embedded in the wall, her fingers pressing against dead keys. "Whoever they were… they didn’t get far."I crouched near a stack of papers scattered across the cracked pavement. Words scrawled in desperate handwriting, some neat, others jagged and frantic.
CHAPTER 32
The First RemnantI woke to the taste of blood in my mouth.For a second, everything was wrong—blurry, twisted. The world flickered like a broken screen, and shadows stretched in directions they shouldn’t. My heartbeat was loud, too loud, like it was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. Then, just as quickly as it started, the distortion snapped back into place, leaving me gasping on a cold, cracked floor.Kane's voice cut through the haze. "Tony."She was crouched beside me, eyes sharp, body tense. There was dust in her dark hair, and a thin cut ran along her jaw, but she looked intact. Alive."You're okay," she said, like she was trying to convince herself. "I caught you before you hit the ground. Mostly."My head throbbed. I forced myself upright, biting back a groan. "Define 'mostly'?""You didn’t die. You’re welcome."I let out a weak, breathy laugh. "Guess I owe you one."She stood, scanning the room we’d landed in. It was some kind of hideout—low ceilings, metal walls, the
