Chapter 97 The Last Patch

Chapter 97 The Last Patch
The grass beneath my fingers felt real. It was wet with morning dew and smelled of earth. But the sky above wasn't right. It was tearing open like a sheet of old, thin fabric, revealing the cold, dark machinery of the world behind it.

Kael was gone. My hand was empty, still clutching the air where he had been just a second ago.

"Kael!" I screamed. My voice sounded thin in the silence.

The speakers in the city blared again, a sound so loud it made my teeth ache. "Update 100 complete. Commencing world wipe."

I stood up, my legs shaking. I looked at the city in the distance. The tall towers were already starting to dissolve. They melted like ice cream on a hot day, turning into gray sludge that pooled in the streets. People were walking in the parks, but they weren't running. They didn't know they were being deleted. They just stood there, their bodies turning into glowing dust, drifting up toward the sky.

"No," I whispered. "I won't let you do this."

I didn't have Kael. I didn't have the virus in my blood. I felt completely hollow, like a book with all its pages ripped out. But I still had the key. The rusted, fake key that Kael had given me in the garden.

I pulled it from my pocket. It didn't look like much. But when the light from the sky hit it, the rust vanished. It was made of pure, white light.

"Eara," a voice said.

I spun around. It wasn't the CEO. It wasn't Kael.

It was me.

Another version of Eara stood on the path. She looked older, her face scarred, her eyes tired. She wore the same clothes I had been wearing in the lab.

"Who are you?" I asked, raising my fists.

"I’m the one who didn't get out," she said. She didn't look like she wanted to fight. She looked like she wanted to sleep for a thousand years. "I’m the one who stayed in the loop when you broke free. I’ve seen every end. I’ve lived every version of this day."

"Help me stop them," I said, my voice desperate. "They’re wiping the whole world!"

"There is no world to save, Eara," she said, walking closer. "This is just the final save file. When they wipe this, they wipe the memory of us ever existing. We’ll be gone. Not dead. Just never born."

I felt a surge of cold dread. "There has to be a way to keep us alive. Kael"

"Kael was a program," she said firmly. "He was the best part of the system, but he was never real. He was built to make sure you reached this moment. He did his job. Now we have to do ours."

She held out her hand. "The key doesn't destroy the system. It locks it. If you use it, we will be frozen here forever. The wipe won't reach us. But we will never see the real world again. We will be stuck in this one moment, over and over, until the power runs out."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we become nothing," she said.

The city was almost gone now. The ground beneath our feet started to crack, lines of white code showing through the dirt. A shadow fell over us, a giant, dark blade hanging from the sky, ready to cut the world in two.

I looked at the key. I thought about the hospital. I thought about the real world, the one with dirt, and pain, and death. If I stayed here, I’d be safe. I’d be with a version of myself. I wouldn't have to fight anymore.

But I would be a ghost.

"I don't want to be a ghost," I said, my voice steady.

I turned away from her and looked at the city. I saw the people drifting into the sky. I saw the destruction. I didn't want to lock us in a cage. I wanted to break the cage.

"If I destroy the key," I said, "what happens?"

"The wipe happens faster," she said, her voice full of pity. "And it’s going to hurt."

"Good."

I took the key and slammed it against a rock. It didn't break. It screamed. A sound so high-pitched it shattered the nearby trees. The white light from the key flooded the area, blinding me.

"You're a fool," the other Eara said, but she didn't look angry. She looked proud.

She walked into the light and vanished.

I was alone in the glow. The pain started then, a tearing, pulling feeling, as if my very soul was being unstitched from the fabric of the universe. I fell to my knees, gasping. The world around me wasn't dissolving; it was exploding.

The sky tore wide open.

I saw it.

I saw the real world.

It wasn't a screen. It wasn't a room. It was a dark, cramped space filled with thousands of other pods, each one holding a person with a tube in their throat. They were all glowing. They were all connected.

The wipe was coming for them, too.

I reached out, grabbing a wire from the ground, and pulled it into my own chest. The pain was unbearable, but I pushed through it. I channeled every bit of my will into the network. I didn't try to stop the wipe. I tried to redirect it.

I sent the virus into every single pod in the room.

"Wake up!" I screamed, the sound tearing through the speakers of a thousand pods.

The pods started to pop open. People began to spill out, gasping for air, their eyes wide with fear and confusion.

I had done it. I had saved them.

But as my own pod opened, I looked up at the guard standing over me. He wasn't wearing a uniform. He was wearing a mask, and he held a syringe that was leaking green, glowing liquid.

"Subject 702," he said, his voice cold. "You really shouldn't have done that."

He stepped forward, and I realized with a shock that he wasn't here to kill me. He was here to reset me. And behind him, I saw a familiar face, Kael, but he was wearing the uniform of a soldier, and he wasn't looking at me with love. He was looking at me like I was his greatest enemy.

"Catch," Kael said, and he threw a bomb that started to tick.