2025-03-06 23:50:46Zero’s Betrayal
The 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 realized the truth before he even opened his mouth. Zero wasn’t my ally anymore. “Tony,” he greeted, his voice smooth, almost amused. “Took you long enough.” My hands curled into fists. “You knew we were coming.” “I knew you wouldn’t stop.” His eyes flickered toward Kane and Elias. “But them? I thought they’d have enough sense to let a dead man go.” Kane’s stance didn’t shift. “We don’t have time for this.” Zero sighed, shaking his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. Time is the only thing you don’t have.” Elias narrowed his eyes. “You’re working for them now.” Zero smirked. “Working with them, actually. But that’s semantics.” He tilted his head. “You’re here to stop something you don’t even understand.” I took a step forward. “Then help us understand.” Zero held my gaze, and for a second—just a second—I thought I saw something flicker behind his eyes. Something almost human. Then it was gone. “You can’t win, Tony.” His voice was quieter now. “You’re glitching, aren’t you? The gaps in your memory, the things you know should be there but aren’t?” He gestured vaguely. “That’s not the system attacking you. That’s you unraveling.” A cold chill ran through me. Zero exhaled, almost regretful. “They don’t even have to erase you. You’re doing it to yourself.” A flicker at the edge of my vision. A moment where my own perspective skipped. I clenched my jaw. Zero saw it. His smirk was tinged with something else now—something like sympathy. “I don’t want to fight you,” he admitted. Kane took a step forward, her gun still holstered, but her voice sharp. “Then step aside.” Zero turned his gaze to her, and something about his expression shifted. “I always liked you, Kane.” His voice was almost wistful. “You were the one who asked the right questions. The one who never just accepted things as they were.” His smirk faded. “Then tell me—why are you following a ghost?” Kane’s fingers flexed. “Because I don’t take orders from The Overseers.” Zero chuckled. “Then maybe you should.” The air rippled. The walls, the floor, the entire corridor—bent, just for a moment. Like the entire space had been rewritten in real-time. Kane moved first, fast, her instincts sharper than mine. Her gun was halfway out when Zero flicked his wrist— And the floor beneath her feet vanished. For just a second. Just long enough for her to stumble. I lunged toward her, but my body glitched. One moment I was moving—the next, I was somewhere else, as if my own actions had been rewritten before they could happen. Elias cursed. His tablet lit up, fingers flying over the interface, but Zero raised a hand. “Don’t.” Elias hesitated. That hesitation was enough. Zero turned back to me. “This isn’t about winning, Tony. It never was.” His voice was softer now. “It’s about surviving.” I exhaled. “I am surviving.” Zero studied me. “No. You’re delaying the inevitable.” His gaze darkened. “I know because I’ve been here before.” The words sent ice through my veins. Zero stepped closer. “You think this is the first time we’ve had this conversation?” I went still. His expression didn’t change. “I’ve been you, Tony. Over and over again. They make me, they rewrite me, and when I start to break—” He exhaled. “They replace me.” A sick feeling twisted in my gut. Kane’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying—” “I’ve killed myself more times than I can count,” Zero admitted. “Each version of me erasing the last, because that’s what the system needs.” He looked at me, and for the first time, his smirk was completely gone. “And now it’s your turn.” The walls pulsed. The air flickered. I forced myself to breathe. “I don’t believe you.” Zero didn’t blink. “Then why do you feel it?” My breath came faster. The glitches. The gaps. The way I felt like I was unraveling. I clenched my fists. “Then how are you still here?” Zero hesitated. Then, quietly— “Because I surrendered.” The words hit like a gunshot. Zero’s expression didn’t change. “They won’t erase you completely, Tony. They’ll rewrite you into something... sustainable.” His voice softened. “You could exist. You wouldn’t have to fade.” I stared at him. At the way he looked like Zero but felt like something else. Because he was. This wasn’t the Zero I knew. This was what came after. And if I surrendered—if I let them rewrite me—there’d be another version of me standing here, saying these words to someone else. No. No. I wasn’t going to be another failed version. I exhaled slowly. “If that’s true...” I stepped forward. “Then tell me, Zero—if you surrendered, if you let them rewrite you, why do you still remember?” Zero flinched. It was quick. Barely there. But it was enough. I stepped closer, my heartbeat steady. “If they erased the last version of you, then why do you know?” Zero’s jaw tightened. “You’re still fighting, aren’t you?” Zero’s hands curled into fists. Somewhere, deep beneath whatever programming they’d forced onto him, the real Zero was still there. And that terrified them. I exhaled. “I don’t think it’s my turn, Zero.” I squared my shoulders. “I think it’s yours.” The silence stretched. For a moment, I thought—hoped—I saw something crack. Then the world lurched. The shadows lashed out, the system shuddering, and Zero’s expression hardened. His body tensed, like a trigger being pulled. He wasn’t going to stop. And neither was I. I braced myself. If Zero wanted to erase me, he was going to have to fight for it. But I wasn’t going to make it easy.
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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.”
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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
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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
