Novels by HeemaZee

"Raihan, don't—""Get away from me," he snapped. He closed his eyes and reached deep into the recesses of his own mind. The System—the real System, the one Elena had unlocked—responded to his call. To break a world of perfect vibes, he didn't need strength. He needed the one thing the A.R.C. algorithm couldn't process.He needed pure, unadulterated, soul-crushing shame.He didn't just recall the memory of his failed proposal; he summoned it. He forced himself to relive the exact second the ring box had slipped from his sweaty palms. He felt the cold splash of the fountain water as he fell in. He heard the roar of five hundred students laughing in unison. He felt the heat in his cheeks, the stinging tears of a man who had become a national joke in a single afternoon.Cringe Spike Initializing... a cold, digital voice echoed in his head."More," Raihan hissed. He pulled up the memory of

The violet light didn't just glow; it hummed with a predatory frequency that set Raihan’s teeth on edge. Around them, the Quad had transformed from a scene of eerie tranquility into a tactical pincer movement. Dozens of students, their eyes burning with that artificial purple fire, were closing the distance. Their movements were no longer fluid—they were calculated, jerky, like marionettes being yanked by a master who was losing his patience."Maya, the bridge! Now!" Raihan roared over the rising digital thrum that seemed to be vibrating the very marrow of his bones."I’m trying, damn it! The firewall is literally eating my packets!" Maya’s fingers were a blur against the holographic interface projected from her tablet. Her face was drenched in sweat, the blue light of her screen clashing with the violet oppressive glow from the surrounding mob. "If I sync you now, I can’t guarantee a clean disconnect. You’ll be diving into a live hive-mind, Raihan. It’s like jumping into a blender ma

Northwood University didn't smell like old books and wet pavement anymore. It smelled like lavender, expensive vanilla, and something disturbingly sterile—like a hospital room disguised as a high-end spa. Raihan stepped through the main gates, his boots crunching on the gravel with a rhythm that felt out of place. Beside him, Maya was already hunched over her tablet, her fingers dancing across the screen with a frantic energy that suggested she was trying to outrun an invisible predator. Liana walked on his other side, her hand gripping the strap of her messenger bag so hard her knuckles were white."Do you see it?" Liana whispered, her voice barely audible over the low-frequency hum that seemed to vibrate in the very air. "Nobody is... nobody is angry. There’s a guy over there who just got splashed by a delivery bike, and he’s just smiling."Raihan turned his gaze toward the Quad. It was exactly as she said. The campus was alive, more vibrant than he had ever seen it, but the energy

The girl didn't move her head, but the air in the room suddenly shifted. A wave of profound, agonizing sadness hit Raihan like a physical blow, followed instantly by a surge of manic, terrifying joy. It was a rollercoaster of emotions that wasn't his own—a tidal wave of a thousand lives being funneled into a single point. "Subject Zero," she said. Her voice wasn't synthetic. it was a soft, melodic whisper that sounded like it was coming from inside his own chest. "The boy who refused to be mapped." She turned her head. Raihan’s heart stopped. Her eyes weren't just silver; they were liquid mercury. They didn't have pupils; they were two shimmering, metallic voids that seemed to reflect every version of Raihan that had ever existed. As he looked into them, he saw his childhood, his father’s accident, the proposal at the Quad—all of it playing out in the silver depths of her gaze. "You're the Template," Raihan breathed, falling to his knees as the psychic weight of her presence becam

The Seattle skyline was a jagged teeth-row of steel and glass, partially swallowed by a bruised, indigo mist that tasted of saltwater and ozone. Inside the Jeep, the air was a suffocating cocktail of unwashed denim, old copper, and the coppery tang of Amanda’s dried blood. Raihan gripped the steering wheel so hard the cheap leather groaned. His knuckles were white, his jaw locked in a rhythmic grind. Every time the wipers cleared the windshield—thwack-thump, thwack-thump—he expected to see a sapphire-eyed Cleaner standing in the middle of the road, waiting to delete him from the master script. "You're driving like a maniac, Zero. Chill out before you wrap us around a utility pole," Maya muttered from the passenger seat. She was hunched over her glowing tablet, her face a mask of frantic, violet-tinted focus. Her fingers danced across the screen, shedding lines of code like digital sparks. "We’re in the Capitol Hill dead-zone. If we get pulled over by a cop now, we’re done. I can’t sp

His father was standing in the center of the void, but he looked young again. He was dressed in his old lab coat, but his eyes... his eyes were the silver of Subject One. He was holding the tin lunchbox, the Captain Midnight lunchbox, but it was glowing with a terminal radiance."Dad?" Raihan called out. His voice echoed, sounding like a digital recording.The figure turned. It wasn't just Henry. It was a composite—a ghost of the man and the machine. "The Board... they forgot the human element, Raihan," the figure said, the voice a perfect, clear resonance. "They thought shame was a weakness. But shame is just the skin of the truth. Look past the skin, Nak. Look at the girl."The void shifted. The museum of memories collapsed, replaced by a singular, high-definition image of the girl from the charcoal drawing. She was standing in a field of tall, silver grass under a Seattle sky that was bruised purple and gold. She looked to be about twenty

The ceiling of the clocktower didn’t just fall; it shattered like the memory of an empire. Gravity reclaimed the tower with a bone-jarring thud, dragging Vann down. His last act as a sovereign was to shield Freya with his body, and when he hit the stone, the impact felt terminal. He heard the sickening snap of something—maybe ribs, maybe his resolve—before the black tide of unconsciousness rushed in to claim him.When he drifted back into the realm of the living, reality was a harsh, stinging blur. The transition was agonizing. Every cell in his body was screaming, a high-frequency whine of protest that made his eyes ache as he blinked them open. He felt cold—so cold it was a physical weight on his chest. He was in the Academy’s restricted infirmary, propped up on a bed that felt too soft, too clinical. The scent of ozone was gone, replaced by the mundane, biting odor of medicinal alcohol and bruised herbs."Don't move, you arrogant ass." The vo

The clocktower groaned, a dying giant losing its mechanical heart. Above them, the swirling abyss—the literal Eye of The Outer One—began to collapse, hemorrhaging starlight and static onto the ravaged rooftops of Aethelgard. Aris was a crumpled husk at their feet, his grip on reality dissolving alongside the shadow-constructs he had unleashed.Vann wiped a smear of blood from his jaw with the back of his hand, his breathing heavy and erratic. His lungs burned, his muscles were shredded, and he felt every agonizing vibration of his mortal existence. Yet, standing beside Freya—her uniform torn, her silver hair matted with grime—he felt something he hadn't experienced in millennia: true, unchecked, exhilarating autonomy."The seal is broken," Freya whispered, her voice a sharp rasp as she kicked a fragment of dark quartz away from her boot. She grabbed Vann’s chin, her gaze locking onto his with an intensity that seemed to burn away the remaining debris of the battle.

The air inside the Aethelgard clocktower wasn’t oxygen; it was a pressurized mixture of ozone, resentment, and ancient, suffocating dread. Aris—the professor they’d known for years as a harmless, brooding scholar—now hovered in the center of the gearworks. He wasn’t a man anymore. The dark energy crackling around his limbs had the oily, corrupted texture of The Outer One’s discarded husk. He had bypassed the transition; he had claimed the debt."You really thought you could hide?" Aris sneered, his voice vibrating with the dissonance of a machine forcing itself into a mortal throat. He swiped his hand through the air, and time literally shuddered. The giant gears, which were spinning at a frantic pace, ground to a sudden, absolute halt. Outside the window, the students, the faculty, and the wind itself froze mid-motion.Vann, Freya, and the traumatized Selene were the only things moving in the absolute silence of the suspended world. Vann didn’t wait for Aris to continue his manifesto

The ground beneath Aethelgard screamed, the ancient stone floor shuddering as if the Academy itself was caught in a spasm of rejection. Selene hovered inches above the tiles, her back arching unnaturally, jagged wings of blinding white light sprouting from her shoulder blades like fractured crystal shards. Every time they pulsated, a wave of scorched ozone swept through the basement, blistering the paint on the walls.She was losing it. The artificial divinity was burning through her central nervous system, and she wasn’t the controller; she was the fuel."Stabilize her!" Vann roared, grabbing the edge of the collapsing tank. His human heart was drumming so fast he could feel it pulsing in his throat, but his focus was as sharp as a razor. "Freya, if she goes supercritical, this whole wing is vapor. She’s turned into a walking nuke!"Freya didn't hesitate. She lunged through the torrent of blinding energy, the Empathic Light she summoned glowing in hues of

The containment breach was instantaneous. As the guards tore through the velvet, Vann and Freya weren’t there. They were dragged, forcibly pulled by a sickening magnetic snap of spatial geometry, into the Under-Library—a pocket dimension woven from stolen time. It wasn’t a room; it was an infinite labyrinth of mirrored hallways where logic functioned on a whim and their bodies felt twice as heavy as they should.Before they could find their footing, a voice rippled through the architecture, distorted and cold. It lacked a heart; it lacked a pulse."Deficient entities detected. Logic loop active. Initiate erasure protocol."From the glass floors, a silhouette began to crystallize—The Surrogate. It took on a vague, shimmering humanoid shape, reflecting a perverted caricature of Vann. It had his stance, his height, and the cruel smirk that belonged only to the Primordial King he had once been."Look at you," the shadow sneered, drawing a sword forged of frozen code. "A pale imitation, wa

The Affinity Hall was a cathedral of manufactured radiance. Above the dais, the giant crystalline Orb pulsed with a soft, predatory blue, its internal gears rotating with a mechanical whine that only someone as intimately familiar with the System as Vann could hear. The entire Academy sat in suffocating silence, awaiting the results of the "Selection."Selene floated toward the Orb. She was dressed in shimmering, weave-silk white, her hair practically emitting light. She pressed a hand against the sphere, and for a moment, the entire chamber exploded in a blinding white. The display read: 99. The applause was thunderous, a roar of fabricated adoration. Selene looked down at the crowd, her gaze landing briefly on the shadows where Vann and Freya stood. Her lip curled in a smile that wasn't for the crowd, but for them. It was a sneer."Reya," the Proctor droned, his voice echoing through the damp stone walls. "Forward."Freya stepped into the light. She look