2025-03-06 23:41:36The Price of Rebellion
The 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. Warnings. Notes. Fragments of last thoughts before reality swallowed them whole. "The system always resets." "We weren’t fast enough. Don’t trust the variables." "One of us made it further. Find her path." I turned over the last page, and my breath hitched. A name. "Sera." The ink was smeared, but the message was clear. Someone had come closer than the rest. Someone had left breadcrumbs. I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening around the paper. "Kane," I said quietly, holding it up. She stepped closer, her eyes scanning the name. "Sera?" "She might’ve found something. A way to The Core." Kane didn’t answer right away. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, listening. I felt it at the same time. A shift. The unnatural silence of the place wavered, like a breath held too long finally released. My pulse spiked. "We need to move," Kane muttered. I shoved the notes into my pocket. "Yeah. Now." We wove through the half-formed structures, past echoes of people who had left their marks in the data but not in time. The further we went, the worse it got—stretches of road that led nowhere, buildings melting into static, the occasional pulse of something unseen shifting just beyond the edges of my vision. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I could feel them. The others. The ones who had tried before us. Remnants of consciousness lingering in the cracks of the system, unable to move on, unable to warn us. And then— A voice. Not spoken. Not heard. Felt. "They never make it." I froze mid-step. My head snapped up, and for a moment, I saw something—someone—standing at the far end of the distorted street. A woman. Her figure flickered, blurred at the edges like she wasn’t fully here. But her eyes—her eyes locked onto mine, and I knew. Sera. Kane must have sensed my hesitation. "Tony?" But before I could speak, Sera lifted a hand and pointed. Not at me. Behind me. A chill slid down my spine. Every instinct I had screamed at me not to turn around. But I did. Zero. A figure standing at the far edge of the shifting ruins, untouched by the distortion, unmoving. The long coat. The unreadable expression. Those hollow, piercing eyes. Chasing. Always chasing. The world felt like it cracked beneath my feet. A pulse, a surge of raw system energy tearing through the frozen reality like it was nothing. Zero took a step forward, and the very ground twisted to accommodate him. The walls bent, doors reformed, time unfroze in his wake. The system was rewriting itself for him, making sure nothing stood in his way. Kane grabbed my arm. "Move!" We ran. The world screamed around us as the system reacted—time snapping, spaces folding, trying to trap us in its loops. The ground shifted mid-step, sending me stumbling forward, but I forced myself to keep going. The air thickened, like running through invisible currents trying to pull me back. I risked a glance behind me. Zero was walking. Just walking. But the distance between us was vanishing. Panic surged through my chest, white-hot and unforgiving. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but I didn’t dare stop. Up ahead, the world flickered—an exit forming, a gap in the shifting madness. Kane was already reaching for it, her movements sharp, desperate. I pushed harder. A rush of static filled the space around us, a low hum vibrating through my skull. The system was fighting back. Trying to hold us here. "They never make it." Sera’s words echoed again, but I shoved them aside. We are not them. We are not stopping here. Kane was the first to break through the exit. The second her body passed the threshold, she vanished. No hesitation. No warning. I didn’t have a choice. Zero was only a few steps away now, the weight of his gaze crushing against my spine. I lunged forward, diving straight into the unknown— And everything went dark.
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THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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.”
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM 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
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 1
: System ActivatedThe world spun. My vision blurred as I stumbled against the cold, damp alley wall, gasping for breath. Blood dripped from the cut above my eye, mixing with the rain pooling beneath me. Every muscle ached, and every nerve felt like it was on fire. The debt collectors hadn't gone easy on me.Not that I expected them to."You had your chance, Cross," one of them had sneered before driving his boot into my ribs. Another punch. Another kick. And now, here I was—left to rot in the shadows of the same city I once fought to protect. The sharp, metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as I tried to move. I failed.A broken ex-soldier, drowning in debt, haunted by war, and discarded by the country I once bled for.Poetic. In the sickest way possible.My pulse slowed. The cold crept deeper into my bones.So this is how it ends.A shaky breath escaped my lips as my body surrendered. My eyes fluttered shut. The distant hum of the city faded into nothingness.And then—A soft ding
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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
