2025-10-14 08:18:18The night hadn’t ended for Frank Williams. He lay on the cold floor, breathing fast, watching the last pulses of blue light fade beneath his skin. The whisper in his head was gone, but the silence felt heavier.
He sat up slowly. “Luna?”, No response. “Luna, where are you?” Still nothing.
His chest glowed faintly right where the creature had entered him. He pressed his hand there and felt warmth, almost like a heartbeat. “Don’t tell me… you’re inside me now.”
A cold digital hum filled the air. System Online. User identity confirmed: Frank Williams. Status: Weak but functional. Frank jumped. “Okay, that’s new. Who said that?”
System response: Celestial Echo Interface. Your guardian, guide, and evaluator. He blinked. “Evaluator? Of what?” Your potential.
Frank rubbed his temples. “This can’t be real. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe that hit on the head finally did it.” Doubt detected. Emotion intensity: 72%. Initiating calibration task.
“What task?” Mission 001: Prove Your Worth.
Objective: Retrieve your stolen notebook from Roderick. Time limit: 12 hours. Reward: Enhanced perception + 10 Echo Points. Failure: Cognitive deterioration 5%.
Frank froze. “Wait, you mean my notes? The ones those idiots took last week?” Affirmative.
He exhaled, pacing the room. “So, you’re some kind of… game in my head?” Not a game. A system of evolution. “And if I fail?” Then you’ll begin to forget yourself, piece by piece.
The whisper was calm, clinical , which somehow made it worse. Frank looked at his reflection again. His pupils flickered faintly blue. “Fine,” he said quietly. “Let’s play your game.”
Morning came gray and cold. The city stirred with its usual chaos, vendors shouting, guards marching, and the distant hum of the factories. Frank pulled his hood low and walked toward the academy district.
He spotted Roderick leaning by the gates with his gang, laughing about something that probably involved him.
Frank muttered, “There you are.” Mission active. Scanning target: Roderick Veins, Physical Level: 6. Threat: Moderate., “Moderate? He’s twice my size,” Frank whispered.
Recommend strategy: Psychological warfare. He smirked faintly. “Psychological? That, I can do.” He approached quietly, feigning a limp.
Roderick noticed first. “Look who crawled out of his hole. What do you want, freak?” Frank smiled faintly. “My notebook.” Roderick laughed. “The one with all your crazy symbols? I used it to light a fire.”
Frank tilted his head. “No, you didn’t.”, “What? I said… you didn’t burn it.” Roderick frowned, then forced a grin. “Oh? How would you know?”
Frank’s voice lowered, calm and strange. “Because it’s still in your bag. Page twenty-two… has your name written in red ink. You did that when you were bored during Mr. Clyde’s lecture last week.”
Roderick blinked. “How the hell do you know that?” Frank stepped closer, eyes glowing faintly. “Because I can hear your thoughts, Roderick. Every. Single. One.” The bully froze. His friends exchanged glances.
Frank continued softly, “You’re thinking right now that maybe I’ve lost it. But the truth is… I’ve finally found something.” Roderick backed away slightly. “Stay away from me.”
“Give me the notebook, and I’ll forget you exist.” Roderick swallowed. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” Frank said, his tone icy calm. “Your mother doesn’t know about the broken vase last week, does she?” Roderick’s face drained of color. “How”, Frank “Your notebook. Now.”
Shaking, Roderick fumbled in his bag and threw it at him. “Take it! Just leave me alone, freak!” Frank caught it effortlessly. The second it touched his hand, the voice returned.
Mission complete. Reward granted: Perception +1, Echo Points +10.
A wave of clarity rushed through him. The world seemed sharper, every whisper, every heartbeat, every shift in the wind. Roderick and his gang fled without another word.
Frank stood there, breath heavy but victorious. “So it’s real,” he whispered. “It’s all real.”
He spent the afternoon testing the limits. He could hear faint thoughts — not full words, but impressions. Fear. Curiosity. Hunger. He could read the tone of a man’s soul like a faint vibration in the air.
Cognitive upgrade in progress…
“Hey, System,” he said after a while, sitting under the bridge near the river. “Why me? Why give all this to someone like me?” Selection process unknown. You were compatible., “Compatible with what?” With power.
He chuckled softly. “Guess I’ve always been the lucky one.” Correction: Luck not detected. Probability of survival before activation: 4%. Frank froze. “So I was supposed to die?” Affirmative.
A chill went through him. “Then Luna saved me… didn’t she?” That entity’s data is incomplete. However, residual consciousness detected within you.
He glanced at his reflection in the river. The faint shimmer of blue in his eyes was stronger now. “Residual consciousness,” he repeated. “You mean Luna’s still here.” Possibly dormant.
He stared into the water, whispering, “Luna… if you can hear me… thank you.” The water rippled, just slightly. Frank blinked. “Did you ”
The whisper in his head changed. For the first time, it wasn’t cold or mechanical. Frank…
He froze. “Luna?” They’re coming. “Who?” The ones who sealed me. The ground trembled faintly, but enough to scatter the birds overhead. In the distance, the city bells began to ring.
Alert: System interference detected.
Warning: External force attempting to override host access.
Frank backed away from the water, heart racing. “Override? What does that mean?” Host integrity compromised. Threat approaching.
The river shimmered with light not blue this time, but gold. Figures emerged from the mist cloaked, faceless, walking on the surface of the water like it was stone.
Objective detected: Terminate System Host. Frank stumbled back, eyes wide. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The voice in his head sharpened, almost excited.
Mission 002: Survive.
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CHAPTER 97: THE CRACK IN THE PERFECT
The Reviser does not retreat. It simply recalibrates. Its body,if it can even be called that, shimmers, fractures for a fraction of a second, then re-stabilizes into that calm, impossible geometry of light and intention. A flawless thing trying to remember what a flaw is. Frank stands in front of it, chest heaving, hands shaking violently. His legs threaten to buckle every other heartbeat. The ember inside him that detonated moments ago is still burning, but in a wild, uneven rhythm, power he shouldn’t be able to hold, surging and spiking like it’s trying to test him from the inside. He forces his posture straight anyway. If the Reviser is going to kill him, it won’t be while he’s on his knees. The being that was Elara,still stunned from the last shockwave, is crawling upright, pushing off the fractured stone with unsteady arms. Her voice is hoarse, threaded with panic: “You can’t fight it. Not like this.It will rewrite you again.”Frank doesn’t look back. He keeps his eyes lock
CHAPTER 96: THE ONES WHO WERE WAITING
The sky tears wider, not like fabric, but like something alive being forced open from the other side. Frank feels it before he sees it: a cold pressure, deliberate and ancient, pushing down on his flame like a giant palm pressing against his spine. The being flinches. “Frank… this isn’t another fragment. This is,”“I know.”He doesn’t blink.and doesn't step back. His fire coils tighter inside him, winding like a blade preparing to strike. A voice seeps through the widening rift: “You destroyed the candidate.”Frank exhales slowly. “Yeah. I did.”“You rejected a replacement.”“I prefer being myself.”A low vibration ripples across the ground. “Unacceptable.”The being’s voice trembles,an extremely rare fear. “Frank,we need to move. We can’t fight whatever’s stepping through that. That’s not a parasite. That’s not a mirror. That’s,”Frank cuts her off: “Something that wants me gone.”“No,something that wants you corrected.”The tear in the sky splits fully, a vertical wound bleeding
CHAPTER 95: THE THING INSIDE THE FLAME
The molten creature pushes deeper into Frank’s chest, not physically, but through the fire itself,sliding between layers of heat and memory like a parasite worming into a living star.Frank staggers backward, teeth clenched hard enough to crack. His vision flickers,gold, black, gold again, his fire spasming under a pressure that isn’t its own.The being rushes toward him, voice sharp: “DON’T LET IT INSIDE,DON’T LET IT NAME YOU!”Frank growls through clenched teeth, “It’s,trying,too damn,hard.”The molten creature’s arm is elbow-deep in his sternum now, its molten shape dissolving, melting into pure gold liquid that crawls under Frank’s skin like burning vines.It doesn’t feel like he’s being possessed. It feels like he’s being eaten.Piece by piece. It hisses, half a voice and half a scream: “I want your place, your shape, your world, your fire, your name.”Frank snarls: “You can have my pain instead.”He slams his flaming fist into the creature’s remaining torso, but there is no
CHAPTER 94: The Thing That Wears His Future
The molten sphere at the center of the ruined street pulses like a wounded star. Each beat sends ripples through the air,heat shimmering, gravity bending, light warping around it as though refusing to touch. Frank stands still. Not frozen. Not afraid. Just calculating. The being watches him with a tension that borders on terror. “Frank,don’t get closer.”“It’s reacting to me,” he murmurs. “It’s been reacting to me since it appeared.”“That’s what terrifies me.”A long crack splits down the sphere’s surface, spilling molten gold across the stone like blood from a future that shouldn’t exist. The pulse sharpens, faster, louder, synchronized with Frank’s heartbeat. The being lifts her hand. “Frank, listen carefully. That thing is not just your future,it’s the compression of every possible version of what the Root wants you to be. The part of the timeline you refused.”Frank’s jaw tightens. “I didn’t refuse anything. It just isn’t me.”Another crack. A hiss,like steam escaping from a
CHAPTER 93: THE SHADOW THAT FALLS WRONG
The dust settles in a choking wave. Frank squints through the haze, fire swirling instinctively around his hands as he tries to focus on the silhouette standing over the crumpled Arbiter. The being beside him stiffens.“ That shape, ”Frank whispers, voice cracking: “No. No. That’s not possible.”The figure steps forward. Slow. Heavy. Purposeful. And horribly, unmistakably familiar. Frank’s lungs seize. Because the thing that crushed the Arbiter is him. Or rather, a version of him. A warped reflection. A shadow given mass. A body built from fire and soot and fractured rage. A giant, charred, half-armored silhouette of Frank Williams emerges from the dust like an executioner walking out of the smoke of his own crimes.It stops ten feet away, head tilting once, studying him with hollow, ember-filled sockets. The being whispers: “This isn’t like the last one.”Frank swallows hard. “No kidding ”“This one isn’t a duplicate. It’s not your reflection. It’s,”“Something I haven’t done yet,
CHAPTER 92: The Break Between Heartbeats
The world holds its breath. Not metaphorically,literally. Every gust of wind halts mid-whirl. Every shout thins into silence. Every trembling stone freezes in the instant before it falls. And at the center of that suspended, perfect stillness: Frank and the Not-Elara hang locked together, inches apart, both caught in a moment that refuses to move forward. Not a pause. Not mercy. A command. Something greater than either of them has seized the timeline and pulled its spine straight. Frank sucks in air but it doesn’t leave his lungs. It just sits there, burning. His muscles are steel bands refusing to slacken. Fire coils around his fists like living serpents, trapped mid-lunge. The being is motionless too,yet somehow aware, eyes following him even though the rest of its body obeys the frozen second. Its gaze hums with recognition. “You feel it too,” it murmurs,its voice vibrating inside his skull, bypassing time entirely. “The world isn’t stopping us. Something else is.”Frank trie
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