My finger trembled over the glowing green button. [TRANSFER BOUNTY TO: ANYA].
The light from the console painted my face in a sickly, ethereal glow, reflecting in my wide eyes. It was so simple. So clean. One touch. One press of a holographic icon, and the crushing weight of my existence would be lifted. The system-wide bounty that had turned every player into a potential assassin would vanish from my name. The [SYSTEM ANATHEMA] status, the digital curse that marked me as an enemy of this world's god, would become hers.
And the Ghost Enforcer, whose furious pounding on the door was a frantic drumbeat counting down our final seconds, would instantly acquire a new target. Its programming, its very reason for being, would shift in a nanosecond. It would walk right past me, its mission no longer my death, but hers. I would be free. I would be safe. I would survive.
It was the logical choice. The strategic choice. The one a cold, calculating leader would make without hesitation. In this brutal world, you do what you must to live another day. Survival was the only morality that mattered. It was the choice Viper would have made without a second thought, laughing as he did it. It was the choice Seraph had designed this whole sadistic trap to force upon me. She didn't want to save me; she wanted to know if I was the kind of monster she could use.
BANG! A massive, spiderwebbing crack spread across the center of the door. The thick steel groaned and tore like paper. The lights in the control room flickered violently, casting strobing, frantic shadows. We had seconds left. Maybe less.
"Leo, what is it?" Anya asked from the floor, her voice sharp with concern. She had managed to prop herself up against the wall, her face a mask of pain. But her focus was on me, on the terminal. "What's the terminal saying? Can you get rid of the bounty? Is it working?"
She still trusted me. Even now. She had no idea that I held the power of her life and death in my hand. She had no idea that the sanctuary she had fought and bled to reach was a loaded gun, and my finger was on the trigger.
I looked at her, really looked at her. She was covered in grime, her face pale with pain and exhaustion, but her eyes were still fierce. Her jaw was set, a stubborn line of defiance. She was a fighter. She was the veteran who had taken a terrified Level 1 player under her wing on the rooftops of District 7, teaching me how to breathe, how to aim, how to live. She had fought beside me against Ouroboros. She had jumped off a thirty-meter gantry with me into nothingness based on a single, screamed word. She had been my partner, my mentor, my anchor in this digital hell.
To press that button would be to kill her as surely as if I put a gun to her head myself. It would be the ultimate betrayal. I would have to watch as the Enforcer's red eye turned its attention to her, as her fierce defiance was extinguished by a monster I had unleashed.
And for what? To live one more day in this nightmare world, knowing that I had become a monster to do it? Knowing that I had sacrificed the only person who still saw me as Leo, and not just a bounty, a System Anathema, or a tactical asset?
The Ghost's voice echoed in my memory. "You're nothing without my killer instinct!" This was his choice. The killer's choice. The selfish choice. The choice to sacrifice anyone and anything for your own gain. For a brief, terrible moment, I felt the phantom pull of that logic. The part of me The Archivist had cut out, the pride and ambition, whispered that survival was all that mattered.
No. I had paid a piece of my soul to get rid of that voice. I would not become it now.
The pounding on the door was deafening now, a frantic, furious rhythm of destruction. The metal was screaming. Any second now, it would burst inwards. The choice was now. My life, or our souls.
With a cry of furious defiance, a sound that was half-scream, half-sob torn from the very depths of my being, I didn't just press the cancel button. I slammed my fist onto the console, aiming for the glowing red icon. [CANCEL TRANSFER].
My fist went through the hologram, but the system registered the command. The screen flashed red for a moment, an angry [ABORTED] message pulsing once before the prompt vanished. The choice was gone. I had made my decision. I had chosen my path.
"It was a trap," I said, my voice shaking, turning to face Anya, to meet her gaze and tell her the truth. "Seraph's 'sanctuary'... it wasn't a way to erase the bounty. It was a way to transfer it. From me... to you. She wanted one of us to carry the curse so she could control it."
Anya's eyes widened. Her lips parted slightly. The realization of what I had just been offered—and what I had just refused—dawned on her face. The pain and the fear in her eyes were replaced by something else. Something I couldn't quite name. It was deeper than gratitude. It was a look of profound, absolute solidarity. In that moment, we were more than partners. We were the last two real people in a world of monsters. She knew I had chosen to die with her rather than live without her.
Then, with a final, cataclysmic roar of tearing metal, the door burst inwards.
It didn't just open. It was ripped from its hinges and thrown across the small control room as if it were a piece of cardboard. It smashed into the far wall with a deafening crash, showering the room with a rain of sparks and shattered components.
Standing in the ruined doorway, silhouetted by the dim, chaotic light of the plaza behind it, was the Ghost Enforcer. Its red eye glowed with an intensity that seemed to suck the very light out of the room. It took a slow, deliberate step inside, its heavy metal foot crunching on the debris.
The hunt was over. It had cornered its prey.
We had chosen to die together. And death was here.