Novels by Musinat Rasak

If I have to burn the world down to find a spark of truth, then hand me the matches.Aris lunged for the console, his fingers flying across the touch-sensitive glass. His heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a drumbeat of pure, unfiltered panic. Behind him, the heavy blast doors shuddered under the force of a battering ram.Elias laughed, a sound that was jagged and cruel. It is too late, Aris. You cannot rewrite the architecture of the signal. If you kill the connection, you kill the world. You are just a child playing with fire in a room full of gasoline.Aris didn't look at him. He didn't care about the taunts. He cared about the stream of data scrolling past his eyes. He wasn't trying to shut it down. He wasn't trying to destroy the foundation. He was looking for the bypass.You are wrong, Aris shouted, his voice cracking. You think you are the only one who understands the code? I built the foundation. I know where the cracks are.The doors groaned, metal shrieki

You were never my father, Elias; you were just a parasite wearing the skin of the only man I ever trusted.Aris pulled himself up from the floor, his head pounding in rhythm with the colossal machine. The room was shaking. Bolts were shearing off the wall plates, and the air smelled of ozone and scorched copper. Elias stood by the primary monitor, his face illuminated by a cold, clinical blue light, looking completely unbothered by the impending structural collapse.You call this a parasite, Elias said, his voice quiet but slicing through the mechanical roar. I call it a cure. Look at the numbers, Aris. Look at the feed.He tapped the screen, and a wall of data appeared. It was a live feed of the world. Wars were stopping. Crime rates in the major cities were bottoming out. Protests were fading into silence. People were just standing in the streets, looking into the sky, their faces calm.Do you see it? Elias asked, his eyes wide with a frantic, religious fervor. There is no blood. Th

I used to believe the world was built on the solid ground of truth, but staring at the steel and concrete of this desert nightmare, I realized everything I loved was built on a lie I was perfectly willing to burn down.Aris crouched behind a ridge of jagged rock, his breath coming in sharp, shallow bursts. The facility sat in the middle of the basin like a festering wound in the earth. It was surrounded by a double perimeter fence, and every hundred feet, a guard stood perfectly still, their eyes scanning the horizon.He pulled the stolen binoculars to his eyes. He watched a guard turn his head, his hand reaching up to adjust a bulky, high-tech headset clamped over his ears.Wait, Aris whispered to the empty air. That is not just a headset.He zoomed in. It was a noise-canceling rig, military-grade, specifically tuned to block out the low-frequency hum that was currently vibrating the very marrow of his bones.Of course, Aris muttered, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. You cannot cont

The numbers on the screen were not just data, they were the steady, agonizing heartbeat of a dying world.Aris stared at the laptop, his eyes bloodshot and burning. He had spent the last three hours in a cramped, stinking motel room on the edge of the city, his fingers hovering over a keyboard that felt like it was made of ice.Talk to me, he whispered to the glowing monitor. You are just code. You are just a sequence of pulses and pauses. Stop screaming and start making sense.He adjusted the filter on the decryption software Kael had left behind. The software responded with a low, dissonant whine that rattled the teeth in his skull.It is too much, Aris said, his voice cracking. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand. It is not just one stream of information. It is a symphony of them. Millions of inputs, all converging on a single frequency.He took a long, jagged breath. He looked at the empty space beside him, half-expecting to see Kael leaning over his shoulder,

They are coming to delete us both, whether you open that door or not.Aris pounded on the thick, lead-lined steel of the heavy industrial door. His knuckles were raw, split, and bleeding. He had spent the last hour navigating the labyrinthine basement levels of the old transit tunnels, guided only by the cryptic digital map Elias had left on the drive. Every shadow in the tunnel felt like a predator. Every echo felt like a trap.Open the door! Aris screamed into the heavy metal. I know you are in there, Kael. I know about the cage. I know you are the only one left who still remembers how to code without the Hum.Silence. Not even the sound of movement. Aris pressed his forehead against the cold steel, his breath hitching. He was shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He felt the weight of the city above him, the millions of people who were slowly being turned into mindless puppets, and he knew if he didn't get inside, he was as good as dead.A harsh, mechanical click echoed through the ha

My life is being deleted in real time, and I am the one holding the eraser.Aris stood over the man who had tried to kill him. The intruder was stirring, groaning as he pushed himself up against the kitchen cabinets. Aris felt his pulse drumming in his throat, a frantic, uneven beat.Stay down, Aris warned, his voice shaking. If you move, I will not be responsible for what I do.The man blinked, his eyes unfocused. His head lolled to the side. Why? he rasped. Why did you say the code?Aris gripped his own phone, the screen already flashing with a red alert. My account is locked. My bank access is gone. Look at this, he said, shoving the device toward the man. Every trace of my existence is vanishing. My social media. My digital ID. Even my cloud backups are being wiped. Do you see what they are doing?The man coughed, a wet, rattling sound. They are sanitizing the site, he whispered. You are a variable that needs to be removed.Aris felt a cold shiver run down his spine. I am not a va