Chapter 35 The Hospital of Lies
The nurse’s skin didn't tear like paper; it peeled back like wet plastic. Underneath, there was no blood or bone. Only silver wires and red lights that blinked in a steady rhythm. The woman who had just told me my life was a dream was nothing but a hollow machine.
"The story isn't over yet," the machine repeated. Its voice was flat, echoing off the white hospital walls.
Xavier didn't wait. He was a blur of golden fur and muscle. He slammed into the nurse's machine, pinning it against the wall. The metal screamed as his claws ripped through the fake uniform and the wiring beneath.
"Elara, get up!" Xavier roared. Blue sparks flew from the machine’s neck, singeing his fur. "This isn't a hospital! It’s another cage!"
I rolled off the metal table. My legs felt weak, and my head was spinning. I looked down at the book in my hand, the one that claimed all my pain was just a story I wrote. I wanted to throw it away, but the silver words on the last page were still glowing.
Stay in the dream, Mommy. We are coming for you.
"Leo? Elias?" I whispered. The pain in my heart was sharper than any knife. If this were a fake world, where were my boys? Were they still trapped in that black pit?
"They are in the basement!" the nurse machine shrieked. Its jaw was hanging by a single wire. "The readers want to see if you will choose the truth or the comfort! If you leave this room, the book burns! If the book burns, your sons vanish!"
I froze. I looked at the book. It felt heavy, like it held the weight of my entire soul.
"Don't listen to it!" Xavier yelled. He ripped the machine's head off and threw it across the room. The red lights finally went dark. He shifted back into his human form, gasping for air. He was covered in scratches, and his eyes were full of a desperate hunger. "Elara, we have to move. The 'Readers' are closing the file. I can feel the walls getting thinner."
"She said the boys would vanish if I left," I said, my voice shaking. "Xavier, what if she’s right? What if our whole life is just ink on these pages?"
Xavier grabbed my shoulders. His hands were warm and real. "Does this feel like ink? Does my heart feel like a story? We are real because we choose to be. Now, give me the book."
I handed it to him. Xavier didn't look at the cover. He ripped the book in half with his bare hands.
The room screamed.
The white walls began to bleed black ink. The floor turned into a puddle of dark liquid. The hospital bed melted away. We weren't in a city. We were back in the heart of the Hive, but the machines were broken.
Suddenly, the ceiling opened up. A giant, silver eye looked down at us from the sky. It wasn't an eye made of flesh. It was a lens, a camera.
"The season is over," a voice boomed from the sky. It was the same voice I had heard in the pit. "The characters have become aware. Delete the Silver Line."
A beam of white light shot down from the lens. It hit the floor inches from my feet, erasing the ground.
"Run!" I grabbed Xavier’s hand.
We ran through the crumbling Hive. Everywhere I looked, I saw the "Readers." They weren't gods. They were people sitting in dark rooms, watching us on screens, eating and laughing while we bled for their entertainment.
"There!" Xavier pointed to a heavy iron door at the end of the hall. It had the symbol of a wolf and a dragon intertwined. "That’s the way out. The real out."
We reached the door, but it didn't have a handle. It had a slot for a heart.
"It needs a sacrifice," a voice said behind us.
I turned around. It was Julian. He was leaning against a pillar, his arm missing, his face half-burnt. He was holding Leo and Elias by their collars. The boys were crying, their silver light dimming.
"The door only opens if a king or a queen stays behind," Julian said. He looked tired. "The readers want a big ending, Elara. They want the ultimate revenge. They want you to watch your husband die so you can go free with the kids."
"No," Xavier stepped forward. "I'll stay. Let them go."
"Xavier, no!" I pulled him back. "I’m the virus. I’m the one who can break the system from the inside. You have to take the boys and rebuild the pack."
"Nobody is staying," Leo whispered.
The boy stepped forward, pulling away from Julian’s grip. His silver eyes were now burning with a cold, golden fire. He looked at the iron door, then at the giant eye in the sky.
"The story doesn't end the way they want," Leo said.
He reached into his own chest. He didn't pull out a heart. He pulled out a handful of silver light and threw it at the door.
The iron melted. But it didn't open a path to a forest.
It opened a path to a bedroom. A modern, messy bedroom with a computer on the desk.
I saw a young man sitting in a chair, his back to us. He was typing fast. On his screen was a picture of me, standing in the Hive.
"That's him," Elias whispered. "That's the Author."
The young man stopped typing. He sensed something. He slowly began to turn the chair around.
"If we kill him," I hissed, my claws growing long and black, "does the world end, or do we finally become the masters?"
The man turned around. He didn't have a face. Where his face should have been, there was only a mirror.
I looked into the mirror, and I didn't see myself.
I saw my father, holding a gun to his own head.
"The last chapter is yours, Elara," my father's reflection said. "Pull the trigger, or let the story repeat forever."