I stared at the live feed until it blinked out. My apartment chair empty. Smoke curling from the implant port. The black proxy gone, but the timer still burned in my mind. Twenty-four real hours. Then permanent sync failure. No more logging out. No more real world at all.
Lyra broke the quiet first. "That wasn't bluffing. The System's done playing gentle. It wants you trapped here. All of us."
Kira gripped her staff tighter. "Your body's failing. We saw the sparks. If the implant crashes while you're in… you're gone. For good."
Elara's voice came soft. Almost a whisper. "Then we don't let it crash. We find the core. The evolution engine. Break it before the timer hits zero."
I looked at each of them. Kira worried. Lyra calculating. Elara steady despite everything she'd lost already.
Stability four.
One more bad hit and I'd zero. Lose something I couldn't name yet.
But standing still meant dying slow.
I pushed off the wall. "We move. Deeper. The waypoint's calling. Chorus Phase Two. We end this or it ends us."
Lyra nodded once. "Then we run the path Elara knows. No detours. No fights we can avoid."
We left the ravine behind. The ruins opened into a vast vertical shaft. Broken elevators. Hanging cables. Platforms floating on old anti-grav code. We jumped from one to the next. Wind howled up from below.
Elara led. She pointed to a rusted maintenance hatch halfway down the shaft. "Through there. Old beta access. Skips the main stair. Drops us straight to the chorus gate."
We pried it open. Dark tunnel. Dripping water. Faint blue glow ahead.
We crawled single file. Stone scraped knees. Shoulders. The air grew colder. Thicker.
Halfway through, the tunnel shook.
System voice again. Not loud this time. Close. Inside the walls.
"Anomaly detected. Stability critical. Chorus Phase Two commencing. Personal cost applied."
The floor dropped.
We fell.
Short drop. Landed hard on a metal grate. Chamber below. Circular. High ceiling. Walls lined with mirrors. Thousands of them. Each showing a different version of us.
Me at different ages. Different pains. Different deaths.
Lyra's copies all looked tired. Eyes hollow.
Kira's copies held broken staffs.
Elara's copies looped through death animations. Over and over.
The mirrors cracked at once.
Shards flew inward.
We dodged. Rolled. Barriers flared.
The shards reformed. Became figures. Not enforcers. Not copies. Memories made solid.
My mother stepped out first. Smiling. Then screaming. Face melting into static.
She reached for me. "Aren… why did you leave me?"
I froze.
Lyra slashed through her. Blue light cut clean. The figure dissolved.
More came.
Debt collectors. Laughing. Hands out for credits.
Clinic doctors. Shaking heads. "Implant too far gone."
Old classmates. Pointing. "Dropout. Failure."
I swung. Sword passed through air. They kept coming.
Kira yelled. "They're illusions! Don't let them in!"
But they felt real.
One grabbed my wrist. Cold. Burning.
Pain shot up my arm. Real pain.
Stability dropped. Three.
Hallucinations layered on top.
I saw Lyra dying. Real body failing. Eyes open. Empty.
I saw Elara reset. Loop forever.
I saw myself. Stability zero. Hollow shell. Wandering EIDOLON alone.
I screamed.
Lyra tackled me. Pinned me down. "Look at me! Not them! Me!"
Her visor up. Eyes fierce. Real.
I blinked. Focused.
The figures flickered. Weakened.
Elara stepped forward. Dagger raised. "They're echoes. From the System's data. From what it stole."
She stabbed her own copy. It shattered.
Kira channeled. Green light flooded the chamber. Cleansing.
The figures screamed. Dissolved.
Silence.
The mirrors cleared.
Center pedestal rose. Glowing orb. Chorus Core.
Reward? Trap? Both.
I walked toward it.
Lyra grabbed my arm. "Careful. Last time we touched a core it backfired."
I nodded. "I know."
I reached out.
Touched.
Light exploded.
System voice. Calm. Almost gentle.
"Chorus Phase Two complete. Anomaly survival confirmed. Phase Three preparation initiated. Logging restrictions escalating. Twenty-three hours remaining."
New notification.
Team-wide debuff applied: Reality Bleed – In-game injuries now transfer at 50% intensity to real bodies.
New skill unlocked: Echo Theft – Steal one emotion or memory from target. Once per day. Extreme Stability cost.
And the private message.
"Tick tock, Aren Vale. The chorus has sung. Now the silence begins."
Attached: live feed.
My apartment.
Implant port smoking heavier.
Heartbeat monitor flatlining for three seconds. Then spiking. Erratic.
My body twitched once.
Then still.
Timer: 23:47:12.
Lyra's voice low beside me.
"That's your heart, isn't it?"
I stared at the feed.
At my own body.
Failing.
Because of me.
Because I wouldn't log out.
I closed the overlay.
Looked at the team.
Kira pale.
Elara quiet.
Lyra waiting.
I took a breath.
"Twenty-three hours. We find the engine. We break it. Or I don't come back."
No one argued.
We turned toward the next gate.
It opened.
Darkness beyond.
Deeper.
Always deeper.