[UPLOADING… 21%]
[System alert: Neural resistance decreasing. Emotional residues detected.]
The air around him thickened. Not real air—just pressure, simulated by the system to stabilize thought.
It didn't help.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Not from fear. Not even from guilt. But from displacement—the sense that the body he stood in wasn't his. Not anymore.
"Breathe," the voice reminded him.
He did. He hated it.
He could hear the blood dripping now. Not in the simulation. In real space. Somewhere in the distance, through a layer of glass or code or memory—he wasn't sure which anymore.
That's when the screen cracked.
Not the pod's. Not a literal screen. His perception—like a thin wall between who he was and who he was becoming, and it just split down the middle.
And through it?
Laughter.
Low. Childlike. Familiar.
Then a flicker—her silhouette. Bent over a broken machine, trying to fix it. Laughing to herself. Smudged with ash.
"You said you'd protect me."
He stumbled backward.
[Cognitive desync detected. Memory bleed in progress.]
The world around him spiraled, collapsing into itself—memories folding like dying stars. He was walking. No—running. Through alleys that no longer existed. Toward something burning. Toward her?
He didn't know if it was past or future. Real or constructed.
He only knew one thing:
He had failed her.
Then the static flared white.
And someone screamed.
He didn't know if it was her. Or himself.
Then everything cut to black.
[UPLOADING… 26%]
[ERROR: Host consciousness thread unstable.]
[Reinforcing emotional suppression. Initiating next sequence…]