2025-03-06 23:44:59
Previous Chapter
Related Chapters
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 41
Infiltration BeginsThe facility loomed ahead, swallowed by nature’s slow reclamation. Vines strangled the rusting structure, their roots digging deep into the cracks of its concrete shell. From the outside, it looked abandoned—forgotten. But I knew better. Nothing the Overseers built was ever truly abandoned.I adjusted the earpiece. “Kane, I’ve got eyes on the target.”Her voice crackled through the comm. “Are you sure this is the place?”“Only one way to find out.”I crept toward the entrance, my boots crunching softly against the damp ground. The door was rusted, its edges corroded with time. I pulled out the stolen access card, swiped it through the scanner, and waited.A single beep. A mechanical whir. The door groaned open.Cold, stale air hit me like a wall. The scent of rust, decay, and something metallic—blood, maybe—curled in my nostrils.I exhaled slowly. “I’m going in.”The moment I stepped inside, the door slammed shut behind me.I froze. The dim lights flickered erratic
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 42
Echo’s WarningThe tunnels beneath the facility stretched on endlessly, a labyrinth of forgotten steel and decay. My boots echoed against the damp floor, each step swallowed by the oppressive silence. I adjusted the grip on my weapon, fingers tense. The air was thick, heavy, and charged with something unnatural.“Kane,” I murmured, pressing two fingers to my earpiece. “I’m deeper in. No sign of patrols.”Static crackled. Then her voice clipped and sharp. “That’s not a good thing, Tony. Stay alert.”I didn’t need the warning. Every inch of this place screamed danger. It felt… wrong, like stepping into a place that had been abandoned by time itself. The walls seemed to ripple when I wasn’t looking directly at them, shifting subtly, as if something beneath the surface was trying to push through.Then I heard it.A low, wet whisper.At first, I thought it was another hallucination, another trick of the facility. But then the whisper turned into a garbled sob.I tightened my grip on my gun
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 43
The Overseers' True WorkThe corridor was silent except for the hum of electricity running through unseen circuits. My pulse was still uneven from my encounter with Echo, but there was no time to dwell on it. I had to keep moving. I had to know the truth.At the end of the hallway, a reinforced door stood waiting, its metal surface reflecting the dim emergency lights overhead. This was it—the data vault. Whatever the Overseers were hiding, it was behind this door.I reached into my pack, pulling out a drive loaded with a decryption program Kane had built."Kane, I’m at the vault," I whispered, inserting the drive into the access panel. "Talk to me."Her voice came through, steady but tense. "I’m patching in now. Hold tight."Seconds ticked by. My skin prickled with anticipation.Then—click.The door hissed open.I stepped inside.The vault was smaller than I expected. A single console stood in the center, cables running from its base into the walls like veins feeding a living organism
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 220
Old Meets NewA cold feeling went down my back. It wasn't just cold; it was because everything around us felt wrong. Outside Kane's strong room, the city looked twisted, like a snake moving in a weird way. Buildings leaned at crazy angles, the sky was a purple bruise, and the air buzzed with a power that felt old and very wrong. My head hurt, a slow beat against the loud strangeness of this new world.The world went crazy, and we had to try and fix it.Kane looked hard at the glowing pictures above the table. Lines of code, a language I used to know well but now felt like a lost one, moved on the clear screen. She bit her lip, something she did when thinking hard. Her usual strong energy was still there, like a small fire that wouldn't go out in the dark. But I could see worry lines around her eyes.“Anything, Darren?” Her voice was rough and tired.I ran my hand over my thin hair. I could almost feel the old wires that used to connect to my brain. “Bits and pieces, Kane. L
CHAPTER 219
Seeing Things DifferentlyShaky light on worried faces around the bright map. Red lights flashed, showing trouble spreading. Kane looked hard, telling people what to do, a bit worried.My clear memories showed a scary pattern Kane didn't get. She saw now; I remembered long ago.Kane stopped talking. "Another dark spot, Tony. No why, no answer... gone." Her upset voice made me feel bad. I knew that lost feeling."Kane," I said, my quiet voice was clear. Everyone looked. I usually just helped, but the memories needed saying.She turned, tired but a bit sharp. "What, Tony? No time.""Not just happening, Kane," I said carefully. "It's happened before."People didn't believe me. Petrov laughed. "Before? Nothing like this in the books.""Books not complete," I said back, looking at Kane. She looked unsure. "Some truths hidden. Some things are forgotten.""Forgotten things?" Sarah looked surprised. "What are you talking about?"I went to the map, pointing at a dark spot. "Look ho
CHAPTER 218
Echoes in the GlitchThe cold voice in the small well-house felt like icy fingers touching my skin. Next to me, Kane held my arm so tight her knuckles were white. The strange key in her other hand glowed, making her scared face look even more so."Elias... Darren... they need to see this," she whispered, her voice shaky.My mind was racing. Elias, so quiet but always noticing things, and Darren, who first saw that things weren't right – they had to know about this. We weren't the only ones in this messed-up world, even if it felt like it."We go together," I said, trying to sound brave even though my heart was pounding. Whatever was behind that disappearing wall, we'd face it together.Kane nodded, her eyes looking strong. She was still scared, but she was also determined. We walked towards the shimmering opening. The buzzing sound got louder, and the air felt strange, making the hairs on my arms stand up.When we stepped through the wall, it was like being swallowed by darkne
CHAPTER 217
Pieces of a Lost WorldThe blue mark on Gareth’s arm disappeared, but we were all still scared, Kane. It felt like a cold weight in our stomachs. The strange things happening weren't just whispers anymore; they were shouting at us.I watched Darren. He’d been quiet since the motel, always looking worried, like he was fighting something inside his head. His broken memories seemed to bother him a lot. Now, when Gareth told us what happened, Darren looked far away, like he could see something we couldn’t.“Did it… feel like anything you’ve felt before, Darren?” I asked. Maybe his weird remembering could help us understand this.He blinked and looked back at us slowly. He shook his head, looking confused. “No… not really. But… there’s something… a feeling…” He stopped, rubbing his head.“Like what?” you asked softly, but your eyes were looking right at him.Darren waited, looking around. “Like… a lost rule. Something… broken.”A lost rule? Something broken? That sounded strange an
CHAPTER 216
Echoes of the Past, Seeds of OblivionMy head hurt bad, like something was trying to get inside. Pictures flashed in my mind – faces I didn't know well, cold white rooms, and a scary feeling of losing something important. This remembering… it felt wrong, like they were forcing it. I sat on the bed, my hands shaking. Each memory that came back was like a punch, not a friendly hello. A cold voice giving orders… a big empty feeling inside… the taste of fear. Who was I supposed to be? The me that wanted to keep you safe, Kane, felt weak, like a dream that could disappear.My stomach turned as a strong memory hit me: a bright room, straps holding me down, and a light shining in my eyes. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out in the memory. Had they done this to me before? I felt sure – this wasn't helping me remember; it was taking me back."Darren," Sarah said, her voice not kind like before. She looked worried. "This is hard. Try to stay calm."Calm? How could I be calm when
CHAPTER 215
Putting the Pieces TogetherSeeing Ben’s empty, blue eyes were stuck in my head. Martha, Elias’s kind Martha, moved like a puppet with those strange figures… it was a real nightmare. The ground still shook, and the twisted trees looked like monster hands reaching for the sky. We had to get away, but seeing our lost friends made us freeze, a scary warning of what could happen to us.“We can’t fight them here!” I shouted over the weird noises of the changing world. “We need to go back, get ourselves together!”Tony, looking pale but determined, nodded. “He’s right. They’re too strong for us here.” He pulled Elias, who was just standing there, looking at Martha. “Elias, come on!”We ran back to the part of the woods that still looked normal. The blue light went away behind us, like a bad eye closing. The air here was still, the trees looked like they always did, but we all felt really scared.Back in the mess hall, it was very quiet and sad. Elias sat with his head down, crying.
CHAPTER 214
Seeing What's Not RealThe memory of the starry ceiling stayed with me, making me feel cold and scared. Our world, the ground, the sky – was it all a lie? It made my head spin.Elias looked at me looking at the metal thing. “You didn’t sleep, Kane.” He knew.I shook my head. How could I explain seeing something that wasn’t possible?Darren looked serious. “Did anything… happen with that thing last night?” He looked at the metal thing carefully.I waited a moment, then nodded slowly. “The ceiling… it changed. For a second. I saw… stars. Not our stars.”The room got quiet. Everyone looked worried. The strange things before were bad, but this was unbelievable.Tony looked confused. “Stars? Kane, are you sure you’re okay? Maybe it was a dream.”“It felt real, Tony,” I said, my voice shaking a little. “Too real. The metal thing… it did something when I was near it.”It was scary to think about. If what we thought was real could change so easily, what else wasn’t true? Our memories
CHAPTER 213
The Enemy's MarkSleep was just seeing glowing eyes and hearing a voice in my head: You are the key. Morning showed tired faces.I walked around, giving tea and saying quiet things. My mind was trying to put the strange things together. The doll, tools, tree… there was a line connecting them. The Old Man looked at the cold fireplace. “The birds, girl,” he said quietly. “They don’t sing right. Like the song is wrong. And some songs… I never heard them before.”It was a small thing, but Hemlock knew the woods well, so it felt important. Another piece.The woman was giving out food and told me something else. “The water, Kane. When I went to get water, it looked shiny. Like oil, but with rainbow colors. Then it was gone.”Rainbow shine. Glowing tree. Light from the ground. Colors that weren’t normal.A pattern was starting: small changes to what was real, weird things mixed in with what we knew. Not just things disappearing; things were changing.Michael, still quiet, pointed at
CHAPTER 212
Strange WhispersThe old woman's face was wet with tears in the flickering light. Her hands shook as she held a mug. "The doll, Kane," she whispered, her voice weak. "Porcelain eyes... they looked right at you. Then... gone. Michael said it blinked."I leaned closer, the table hard under my arms. Outside, the wind howled. The woman, usually strong, was scared. Her fear made me feel cold."And then?" I asked.She swallowed hard. "It just disappeared. Like it was never there. Michael..." I looked at the big mechanic, his eyes empty. He saw a tree with blue leaves that turned to dust fast."Anyone else?" The Old Man nodded slowly, his face full of lines. "My wrench. Right here. I looked away to fix the fire... poof. Gone. Found it in the waters later, dry."A shiver went down my back. Quick pictures, seeing things together, stuff vanishing... it felt like what was real was breaking. We thought it was just stress, but it happened too much, and it was too weird.Yesterday, I saw
