Chapter 3 — The First Scenario
The world loaded around him like a corrupted video file — frames stuttering, sound half a second late.
Concrete. Neon. The stink of rain-soaked metal.
[TIME REMAINING: 23 MIN 58 SEC]
Ethan flexed his fingers; the air itself pushed back, heavy with static. The beacon in his palm pulsed once, projecting a faint blue compass arrow that spun until it locked onto the east.
[OBJECTIVE UPDATE: LOCATE THE CRUCIBLE]
He moved. The streets were empty, but wrong — buildings melted into one another when he looked too long, like unfinished code. Far off, something dragged metal across pavement.
He crouched behind an overturned kiosk, watching a figure scuttle across the intersection. It was human in shape, until it wasn't — bones and rebar woven together, eyes flickering white noise.
[ENTITY CLASS: FAULT CONSTRUCT]
[HOSTILITY: CONFIRMED]
The thing turned its head, static whining like a broken modem.
Ethan's pulse slammed in his ears. Run? Hide?
Predictable. Alyssa's voice echoed in his head: The system punishes predictability.
He spotted the kiosk's cracked screen humming with leftover current. Electricity.
He yanked two exposed wires free, crossed them, felt the shock nip his fingers.
[ANALYSIS MODE AVAILABLE]
[RISK: HIGH] [PROCEED? Y/N]
"Yes."
The overlay blurred into scrolling code. Circuits, heat maps, failure points — data poured into him faster than instinct could parse. His muscles moved before thought did. He jammed the wire into a vent beside the kiosk, rerouting power.
The construct lunged. He waited until it was close enough to taste ozone, then slammed his palm down.
[DISCHARGE: ACTIVE]
A blinding arc carved the air. The creature convulsed, shrieking in dial-up tones, then exploded into dust and pixels that drifted like ash.
[FAULT CONSTRUCT TERMINATED]
[REALITY POINTS +15]
[NEURAL ADAPTATION +2%]
Pain hit a heartbeat later — lightning inside his skull. Ethan dropped to one knee, gasping, laughing through the ache.
"That counts as unpredictable," he muttered.
The city rippled. Walls shifted; streetlights elongated into spires. His beacon flickered and pointed north now.
[SCENARIO EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS]
[DIFFICULTY SCALED UP — PLAYER PERFORMANCE ABOVE AVERAGE]
"Of course," he said, dragging himself up. "Praise the overachiever."
Then—
A crackle inside his head. Faint, fragmented.
"Ethan… can you hear me?"
Alyssa. Her voice broke through static like a ghost transmission.
"I'm here," he said aloud. "Where are you?"
"Not… inside. Monitoring. The system's rewriting your neural pattern; I can only reach you through reflection nodes." Her tone wavered. "Remember: it tests how you think, not how you fight. Learn the lesson fast or it makes a harsher one."
The signal cut.
Ethan exhaled slowly. "Great. A homicidal tutor."
He pocketed the beacon and moved again, weaving through flickering holographic ads that whispered in languages he'd never heard. A shadow darted on a rooftop — human this time. Voices echoed down an alley.
[MULTI-USER INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
[CAUTION: OTHER PARTICIPANTS APPROACHING]
So he wasn't alone. Others were uploaded too — same experiment, same cage. The idea should have comforted him; it didn't. Shared hell was still hell.
He ducked behind a broken vending machine. Three figures crossed the intersection ahead — two men, one woman. Their overlays glowed faint red. Aggression protocols active. One carried a crowbar, another a jagged length of pipe.
Ethan clenched his jaw. He had no weapon, no backup, and twenty-one minutes left.
But he had data.
He scanned the street: shattered neon sign overhead, power still flickering through half-melted cables. If he could pull another surge…
He grinned despite himself. Maybe the first lesson wasn't just survival. Maybe it was improvisation.
He moved toward the base of the sign, fingers flying across the beacon's interface, redirecting current through exposed wiring. The hum built, high and sharp.
The others noticed too late.
[TRAP INITIATED]
Blue light flared. The street detonated with sparks. The closest participant screamed as the charge hit, throwing the group backward. Ethan shielded his eyes, feeling the system's feedback burn across his nerves.
[REALITY POINTS +25]
[SKILL NODE UNLOCKED — ADAPTIVE LOGIC (LEVEL 1)]
A new window unfolded in his vision:
[ADAPTIVE LOGIC — Grants real-time pattern analysis and strategic prediction against active entities.]
"Now that's an upgrade," he said, half-laughing, half-shaking.
The timer in his overlay dropped another second. Twenty minutes left.
Somewhere behind the shifting skyline, something enormous roared — metal and thunder fused into one.
He tightened his grip on the beacon, eyes scanning the distorted horizon.
Lesson learned: survive smart, not strong.
He stepped forward into the next street as the world rearranged itself again.
[SCENARIO PROGRESSION: PHASE TWO INITIATED]
The air itself trembled.
And Ethan Cross walked straight toward it.