Darkness woke me.
Not silence—my breath was too ragged for that—but the faint blue glow bleeding through the blinds. City neon. Streetlamps. Artificial twilight that made time impossible to guess without checking a clock.
For a few seconds, I had no idea where I was.
Cold tile under my cheek.
Ribs pulsing in dull, nauseating waves.
Throat scraped raw.
The world dim and slightly warped at the edges.
Then memory hit.
The messages.
Viktor's words.
The panic.
The shattering.
The way my body had simply… shut down.
I flinched, reflexive and sharp, and pain knifed through my ribs—bright and merciless. The room swayed in a sick tilt.
I braced a palm against the floor and pushed myself upright. Inch by inch. Every muscle trembled from exertion and the leftover crash of adrenaline.
The apartment around me looked like a crime scene.
Ceramic shards glittered under the counter.
Glass splintered near the stove.
A plate broken in two jagged pieces.
My phone on the floor, screen spiderwebbed with cracks, still glowing faintly as if it had stayed awake while I didn't.
Something shifted in my chest.
Not panic anymore.
Something quieter. Shame, maybe. Or recognition of how easily I'd come apart.
I reached for the phone, hand shaking.
8 missed calls — Elara
5 new messages — Elara
1 missed call — Zayne
Zayne: Checking on your symptoms. Please respond when able.
1 message — Captain Jenna
Reminder: Submit medical leave documentation by tonight.
1 message — Xavier
Elara said you weren't answering. U need anything?
My breath caught.
It didn't erase the fear.
It didn't undo Viktor's words.
But the loneliness—the soul-crushing isolation that had swallowed me whole—it cracked.
Even Xavier noticed.
Zayne checked in.
Jenna was waiting.
And Elara—persistent, anxious, loyal—had practically blown up my phone.
I wasn't erased.
I wasn't forgotten.
I hadn't vanished from anyone's world but my own.
I wiped a tear off my cheek with the back of my hand.
Muscle memory kicked in. My fingers shook, but I answered messages anyway:
To Elara: sorry. painkillers wiped me out. just woke up.
While her typing dots pulsed like a frantic heartbeat, I forced myself through the others:
To Zayne: i'm okay. meds knocked me out harder than expected. thanks for checking.
To Captain Jenna: i'll submit the leave forms tonight. sorry for delay.
To Xavier: just overslept. all good. thanks for checking.
It steadied me. Barely. But enough.
Elara's replies detonated in rapid succession:
OH THANK GOD
I was about to break into your apartment
ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE OKAY??
I'm coming over. don't argue.
A breath escaped me—half laugh, half pained hiss.
I pushed to my feet slowly. Very slowly. The earlier painkillers were wearing off; the deep internal throb sharpened with every movement. Fine. I'd take a second dose in a moment.
I turned toward the living room—planning to clean the chaos before Elara arrived—when something shifted at the window.
A silhouette.
Still. Sharp. Watching.
Panic jolted through me until—
Ruby eyes glowed in the dark.
A sleek obsidian body.
Metal feathers catching the faint neon light.
Mephisto.
Sylus's mechanical crow.
My breath stuttered—caught in my ribs—then eased.
Something softened inside me without permission. A small, unguarded flicker.
I always liked him.
Brilliant, eerie, unsettling in the game—loyal only to Sylus but mesmerizing on his own.
I'd always wanted more Mephisto content.
I moved toward the window, careful and slow, and unlatched it.
The glass slid open.
Mephisto hopped inside immediately, metal talons clicking precisely along the back of the couch. His ruby eyes pulsed once as he scanned the wreckage—then me. His head tilted in that uncanny, overly calculated way his game model used to.
"I know," I murmured. "It's a mess."
He tracked each broken object, then looked back at me.
Judgmental.
Concerned.
Both? Hard to tell with an AI bird built by a borderline sociopath.
The urge to give him something—anything—rose abruptly. His presence felt like a small anchor dropped into the chaos.
I used my Evol to look for something that suited a mechanical crown.
A faint tug.
Subtle.
Directional.
My Evol reached out, nudging me toward something in the room.
I followed the pull to a drawer near the desk and slid it open.
Inside: spare keycards, a metal bolt, a half-charged power cell—
And a small, sleek data chip.
Black. Mirrored. Heavy for its size.
The tug sharpened.
This one.
I picked it up.
Mephisto's ruby eyes brightened instantly—scanning the object in a quick pulse of red.
"You want it?" I whispered.
He hopped onto the coffee table, talons tapping softly.
I crouched—slow, careful—and held the chip in my open palm.
Mephisto leaned forward with mechanical precision, took the chip delicately, scanned it again, then emitted a soft, melodic trill.
Approval.
Satisfaction.
Recognition.
The smallest, strangest relief warmed my chest.
"I'm glad you like it," I whispered, gently brushing my fingertip along the smooth metal above his beak. A head-pat. The fact that he let me do it gave me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction.
"Don't tell you-know-who," I murmured, "but you're fascinating."
Another quiet trill.
I smiled. A real one. Thin, fragile—but real.
Then I looked at the room.
At the shards.
The stains.
The fractured phone.
Elara was coming.
I could not let her see this.
"Okay," I murmured. "Let's fix what we can."
Mephisto perched like a supervisor.
"No judgment," I warned him.
One ruby eye brightened.
Definitely judgment.
Still, I downed another dose of painkillers, waited for the edge to dull, and began cleaning—slow, stiff, careful.
Shards collected.
Fragments swept.
Order restored piece by piece.
By the time I finished, the apartment looked normal again.
Inside, I… didn't.
A soft scrape of metal sounded behind me—Mephisto adjusting his talons on the couch arm, posture alert.
A knock at the door.
Elara.
For the first time since everything fell apart—
I was grateful.
I inhaled slowly, bracing my ribs, and opened the door.
Elara practically fell inside.
Her hair was wind-tangled, her jacket half buttoned, and she clutched a small woven basket like she'd run the entire way here. Her eyes swept over me in a single panicked scan—checking for blood, bruising, structural integrity.
Then she exhaled, long and shaky.
"Oh thank God," she muttered, pulling me into a careful, one-armed hug that avoided my ribs with surgical precision. "Do you know how close I was to kicking this door down?"
"Close enough that I heard the battle cry through the floor?" I asked faintly.
She pulled back and gave me a flat, unimpressed stare.
"I was worried."
Something in my chest tightened—but in a different way this time.
She held up the basket. "Uh—this is from the team. Once they heard about your medical leave they, uh…" She glanced down. "Bought… everything?"
I peeked inside.
Small snacks. A heat pack. A cheap novelty mug that said Try not to die. A soft blanket rolled tight. A little card signed by the squad.
Warmth hit me harder than the painkillers ever could.
"You didn't have to bring this over," I murmured.
"Yes I did," she said, marching past me toward the kitchen. "And you need to fill out your leave form before Captain Jenna decides you're handling paperwork like a feral raccoon."
"Right—right. That."
I grabbed my cracked phone off the table and opened the portal to the Association server. "Give me a sec."
Elara was already scrolling through food options on her phone. "Do you want soup? Something soft? Something that won't make your ribs implode?"
"Soup's fine."
"Chicken or mushroom?"
"Dealer's choice."
She hummed, choosing something, tapping the order through. She did this thing where she worried in hyper-functional silence—the calmest panic I'd ever seen.
While she selected add-ons with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb, I fired off the medical leave form to Captain Jenna. It took thirty seconds. It still felt like a chore.
When I finished, I set the phone down with a relieved sigh.
Elara glanced up, then jerked her chin toward the couch.
"I see you've got company."
I followed her gaze.
Mephisto was perched neatly on the armrest, ruby eyes glowing dimly, data chip held triumphantly in his beak like a stolen crown jewel.
His head tilted at Elara.
Then at me.
Judging us both on some internal scale.
"He's alright," I said, rubbing my thumb along my forefinger where I'd touched him earlier. "I actually… like the little guy."
Elara raised her brows. "You do remember who built him, right?"
"Of course."
I looked at the crow again. "Doesn't change anything."
A small mechanical trill buzzed out of him, smug.
Elara continued staring at him as though expecting him to burst into flames or recite a murder manifesto.
Then she spoke softly. "Diana… are you really going to leave the Association? And work for Sylus?"
The question was gentle.
The answer wasn't.
"I thought about alternatives," I admitted. "A lot of them."
"And?" she pressed.
"And after what happened today…"
My fingers curled involuntarily on the table's edge.
"…I think I have no other choice."
Elara's frown deepened. "What happened?"
I didn't tell her about the breakdown.
Or the floor.
Or how my own mind had turned on me.
But I did tell her the truth that mattered.
"Viktor messaged me."
Elara froze.
"What did he say?" she whispered.
I swallowed. "Nothing good. Nothing comforting. I'm only telling you so you know exactly how dangerous the N109 Zone is. How dangerous he is."
Elara shifted slowly—her gaze drifting to Mephisto.
"Yeah," she murmured. "Especially you-know-who."
I followed her look.
She meant Sylus.
Not Viktor.
Mephisto clicked his beak around the data chip, ruby eyes narrowing as if offended by the association.
I huffed a small, quiet breath. "Well… that one might actually be harmless to you."
Elara blinked, startled. "What? Why would you think that?"
"Just a feeling," I said carefully. "Something about the way he reacts to you. He's cautious with everyone else… but not with you. It reads as… interest."
Elara stared at me like I'd grown another head.
"Interest? Sylus? In me?"
"I'm not saying he likes you," I said quickly. "Just that he has… a specific focus. On you. And he strikes me as the kind of person that doesn't focus on things he plans to destroy."
Her brow furrowed deeper. "That's not comforting."
"It should be," I said softly. "If anything, it means you're… safe from him. Safer than most people."
Elara opened her mouth—probably to protest, to deny, to argue—but no sound came out. She just looked at Mephisto again, suddenly thoughtful, suddenly uncertain.
I didn't elaborate.
I didn't mention soul bonds or game lore or the way Sylus would tear the world apart before letting harm touch his counterpart.
She sighed softly, leaned back into the couch, and eyed Mephisto again.
He—being a glorified surveillance drone—didn't react. He simply sat, talons hooked neatly over the fabric, ruby eyes watching everything.
"You know," Elara murmured, "I never thought I'd see the day where I'd walk into your apartment and find him hanging out like a house pet."
"He's not a pet," I said automatically.
She raised a brow. "You fed him something, didn't you?"
I froze.
Mephisto didn't.
He tilted his head, ruby gaze glinting, as if pleased with himself.
"Just… something small," I muttered.
Elara smiled, amused in that tired, affectionate way she got when she didn't understand something but decided to accept it anyway. "I swear, Diana, sometimes you're impossible to predict."
You have no idea, I thought.
Before either of us could say more, my doorbell ringed.
"I'll grab it," I said, pushing myself carefully to my feet. My ribs ached—sharp, deep—but manageable. Barely.
The hallway outside was colder than I expected, the temperature shift hitting my skin like a thin blade.
The delivery guy lifted the bag with a polite smile. "Order for Diana Vale?"
"That's me," I said, taking the bag.
Our fingers brushed.
Just a split-second.
A faint chill slid up my wrist—not icy, not supernatural, just wrong enough to make my breath hitch.
A prickle ran across my skin, like static caught under it.
I swallowed hard.
It's nothing.
It's the cold air from the corridor.
It's exhaustion.
It's painkillers.
"Have a good night," the delivery guy said, oblivious.
"You too," I managed.
I shut the door, leaned against it for half a beat until my lungs caught up, then carried the food into the living room.
Elara perked up immediately. "Finally! I'm starving."
Mephisto chirped—an electronic trill—almost like he agreed.
For the first time since morning, the apartment didn't feel hostile.
Didn't feel like a cage.
Didn't feel like the place I had broken down in.
With them there—the warmth, the light, the quiet conversation—it felt…
Bearable.
Fragile, yes.
Temporary, definitely.
But bearable.
I set the food down on the table and forced a smile.
"Dinner's here."
And somewhere outside, in the city that never really slept—
danger waited.
But for tonight?
I wasn't alone.