Kai released the belt, his arms trembling with the aftermath of strain. Muscle fatigue: 34%. Recovery time: approximately 7 minutes with current metabolism.
Lena lay on her back, breathing in ragged gasps. After a moment, she began to laugh—a wild, slightly unhinged sound.
"We made it," she said between laughs. "You crazy, calculating bastard, we made it."
"Correction," Kai said, untying the belt and rethreading it through his pants loops. "We survived the jump. We haven't reached the Heart Tree."
Her laughter died. She sat up, looking at him with an expression he couldn't fully parse—something between gratitude and horror. "Do you ever stop? Ever just... feel relieved?"
He consulted his internal state. "Relief is an emotional response to danger passed. It serves no survival purpose once the danger is gone. It would be inefficient."
She stared at him. "What's happening to you?"
"The same thing that's happening to everyone," he said. "Correction. Just a different flavor."
He offered her a hand up. She took it, and as their hands connected, he felt it—a faint but distinct bio-electric discomfort, like touching a low-voltage wire. His skin seemed to protest the contact.
Empathic Dampening: 41%
Note: Physical contact with non-threat humans now triggers mild aversion response. This will intensify.
He withdrew his hand as soon as she was upright.
They continued along the path, which now widened into a more manageable trail. The ridge offered a panoramic view of the grove below. From this height, they could see the patterns—how the grove was laid out in concentric rings of increasing danger, with the Heart Tree at the center. They could see other survivors moving through the rings, little dots of struggle and death.
They also saw the corrections in progress.
In one clearing, a man was surrounded by a shimmering golden light. His body was elongating, becoming more slender, his movements becoming fluid and dance-like. Grace adaptation, Kai's ability supplied. Correction for clumsiness or physical insecurity.
In another, a woman was screaming as stone-like plates grew over her skin. Defensive adaptation. Correction for perceived vulnerability.
Not all corrections were violent. Some seemed almost gentle. Almost chosen.
"Why are they different?" Lena whispered, watching. "The changes?"
"The system is fixing what it perceives as broken," Kai said. "If you're afraid of being hurt, it makes you harder to hurt. If you're socially awkward, it might make you more charismatic or remove your need for social connection entirely." He glanced at her. "Like me."
"You think you're broken?"
"Don't you?" The question was genuine, not defensive. "I chose solitude in a world-ending scenario. That's not a healthy psychological profile."
"Maybe it's the smartest profile," she said. "Look at them." She pointed to a group below that was being torn apart by sentinels. They had clustered together for safety, but their fear had made them slow, uncoordinated. "Together isn't always better."
"Statistically, it is," Kai said. "The system said alliances increase initial survival probability by 45%."
"Initial," Lena emphasized. "What about after? When resources get scarce? When someone has to be left behind?"
She had a point. Kai's threat simulation could have shown him those outcomes if he'd focused on group dynamics. He made a mental note to run those simulations when he had downtime.
They walked in silence for a time. The sky continued its artificial dimming, shifting from gray to deep purple. A first "star" appeared—a single point of bright white light that didn't twinkle.
Then, a sound reached them. Not a scream, but music.
Faint, eerie, played on something like a flute but with a resonance that felt wrong in their bones.
Analysis: Acoustic lure. Predator classification likely.
Kai held up a hand, stopping Lena. "Don't move. Don't speak."
The music came from ahead, around a bend in the ridge. It was beautiful in a way that hurt to listen to—too perfect, too pure, with notes that felt like they were reaching into his chest and plucking at something primal.
Warning: Sonic pattern triggers mammalian nurturing response. Physiological resistance recommended.
Kai felt it—a sudden, irrational longing. A memory of his mother singing when he was very young, a memory he hadn't accessed in years. The music was tapping into that, softening him.
Beside him, Lena's expression had gone slack, dreamy. She took a step forward.
"Lena, stop."
She didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the bend in the path, drawn by the music.
Kai grabbed her arm. The aversion response flared—his skin crawled at the contact—but he held on. "It's a lure. Fight it."
"It's so beautiful," she whispered. "It's calling me home."
Simulation request: If companion follows music, what outcome?
The simulation ran instantly. Lena rounds the bend. Encounters a creature made of crystallized sound. It embraces her. Her body resonates at the same frequency. She shatters into harmonic dust. Survival probability: 0%.
"Lena, listen to me." Kai's voice was sharp, cutting through the musical haze. "Your husband. What was his name?"
The question was a calculated intervention. It forced her to access a different memory, a different emotional pathway.
She blinked. "M-Mark."
"Tell me about Mark. Tell me something real."
"He... he hated cilantro. Said it tasted like soap." Her focus was returning, the dreaminess receding. "He always burned the toast. Every time."
The music intensified, becoming almost desperate in its beauty. It promised peace, an end to struggle, a return to something lost.
"Keep talking," Kai said.
"We were going to have children. We were trying." Tears welled in her eyes, but they were clear tears, not the glassy emptiness of before. "I was supposed to take a test next week. To see if..."
The music shifted, trying to co-opt this new emotional thread, to turn her maternal longing toward itself.
Kai did something then he didn't fully understand. He began to hum. Not a tune, just a single, steady, low note. It was toneless, crude, the opposite of the flute's perfection. But it was real. Human. Imperfect.
The dissonance seemed to disrupt the lure's effect. Lena shook her head as if clearing water from her ears.
"What is that thing?" she whispered.
"I don't know. But we can't go toward it."
"The path goes that way."
"Then we find another way."
He led her off the main ridge path, down a steep, treacherous slope into the upper canopy of the grove. The music followed them for a time, growing fainter, finally fading away.
They emerged onto a thick branch high above the forest floor. The grove was different up here—the black leaves were larger, and they emitted a faint, ambient glow. Bioluminescent moss carpeted the branches.
Analysis: Canopy ecosystem. Lower immediate threat density but increased navigational complexity.
They found a relatively wide fork in the branches where they could rest. The timer showed 12:18:44 remaining. They were making progress, but not fast enough.
As they shared a protein bar from Lena's pack (the last of her supplies), she asked, "How did you know? About the music? How to break its hold?"
"My ability analyzed it. Called it an 'acoustic lure.'"
"You saw that? In your... vision?"
"I see many things." He didn't elaborate.
"Can you see what's broken in me? What the system wants to fix?"
Kai looked at her with his enhanced sight. Her outline glowed with soft blues and greens—resilience, adaptability, lingering trauma from the parasite and the fall. But there were deeper patterns, things his ability was only beginning to decipher.
"You're a protector," he said slowly, the words coming not from analysis but from a deeper intuition. "You want to save people. Even at cost to yourself. That's your core programming."
She looked down at her hands. "Is that broken?"
"In a survival game?" Kai said. "Yes. It's one of the most broken things you can be."
"Then why hasn't it been corrected out of me?"
"Maybe it's in process." He nodded toward her arm, where the regeneration was visibly knitting flesh. "Healing others is just a step from healing yourself. Maybe the system is making you more efficient at it. Turning your compassion into a tool."
"Or removing it," she said quietly. "Like it's removing your... whatever it's removing."
"Empathy. Connection. The inefficient parts of being human."
She met his eyes. "Do you miss it?"
Kai considered. The question required accessing emotional memory, which felt distant, like reading about someone else's life.
"I miss the simplicity," he said finally. "When I felt things, I didn't have to analyze why. I just felt them. Now everything is data. Even this conversation."
"Is that better or worse?"
"It's more efficient. Efficiency is survival."
"Survival for what?" she asked, her voice barely audible. "If we survive this, become these... corrected versions of ourselves... what are we surviving for? To play the next round? To become even more efficient?"
Kai had no answer. Or rather, he had too many answers, all statistical, none satisfying.
A system message interrupted them, but this one was broadcast, echoing in their minds simultaneously:
Tutorial Update: First Convergence.
All survivors are hereby notified: The Heart Tree will accept only the first 200 to reach its roots.
Current eligible arrivals: 12/200.
Note: This is not a test of speed, but of worth. The worthy will find their path.
Population: 901/1,003
A hundred more dead. And now a limit. Only two hundred would even get the chance at the "sanctuary."
Lena's face paled. "Two hundred. Out of a thousand."
"Out of nine hundred now," Kai corrected. "A 22.2% chance, statistically. Better than some lotteries."
"This isn't a joke!"
"I'm not joking." He stood, his body already calculating their optimal route through the canopy. "The parameters have changed. We need to move faster."
"But my leg—"
"Will have to manage. Or you won't be among the two hundred."
He offered his hand again, bracing for the aversion. This time it was stronger—a distinct, biological revulsion, as if his immune system recognized her touch as contamination.
She took it anyway, and he pulled her up.
As they began navigating the glowing branches, Kai's mind ran new simulations. With the 200-person limit, cooperation became even more complex. Every person helped was potentially a competitor for a slot. Every person hindered increased his own chances.
But Lena had knowledge. She had resilience. She was, as he kept reminding himself, an asset.
Yet a new calculation emerged, cold and clear:
If reaching the Heart Tree requires leaving her behind, what is the threshold of her usefulness? At what point does her value as an asset fall below her cost as a competitor?
He didn't share this thought. He simply stored it, another variable in the ever-growing equation of survival.
The canopy stretched before them, a labyrinth of light and shadow. Somewhere ahead, the music creature still played its lonely, lethal song. Somewhere below, others fought and died and changed.
And Kai Mori moved forward, becoming less human with every step, wondering if the thing he was becoming would even want whatever sanctuary the Heart Tree promised.
Or if it would simply find new things to break.