Chapter 97 The Girl with the Blade

Chapter 97 The Girl with the Blade
The girl’s hand was cold, but her grip was like a steel trap. She pulled me up, and for a second, my father just stood there. He looked at us, at me, the failing page, and her, the shadow with the knife, and he laughed. It wasn't the laugh of a man who was afraid. It was the laugh of a man who had finally seen the punchline.

"You think you’re changing the script?" he asked, his eyes darting between us. "You’re just adding a new sub-plot. The machine loves a good betrayal. It loves the drama of a sister turning against a father."

"Shut up," the girl hissed. She didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on me, her dark gaze searching my face like she was trying to read a map. "He’s been playing us both, Elara. He didn't want a new story. He wanted a sacrifice."

Sacrifice. The word hit me like a slap. I looked at my chest, where the burning words he had carved into me were still glowing. They were fading now, turning into thin, black lines that felt like stitches.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice thin.

She turned and pointed the knife at the furnace. "Look."

I looked. The furnace wasn't a heating unit at all. It was a mirror. But instead of showing the room, it showed a live feed. Thousands of them. I saw a version of me in a high school cafeteria. I saw a version of me in a hospital bed. I saw a version of me holding a gun, and a version of me hugging a man who wasn't Xavier, but someone I had never met.

"We aren't the only ones," she said. "The company is running every version of our lives at the same time. Millions of us. Every time one of us reaches the end, they use our death to fuel the next version. They don't just want a story. They want a factory of pain."

My father started to walk toward us, his hands open. "It’s a necessary system, my dears. The world outside is dark. It’s empty. People have forgotten how to feel. If we don't give them this, if we don't give them your struggle, they’ll turn on each other. We are the only thing keeping the peace."

"You’re keeping them addicted," I said, my anger finally burning through the confusion. I stood up, the floorboards groaning under my feet. "You’re making them watch us break so they don't have to fix their own lives."

The girl nodded. "And it ends tonight."

She didn't wait. She swung the knife at the furnace.

CLANG.

The blade didn't break. It sank into the glass like it was water. The mirror rippled, and suddenly, the feed changed. The people watching, the readers, the fans, the executives, were no longer behind the glass. The glass turned transparent. We were looking into a real room. A massive, high-tech control room filled with screens.

I saw them. People sitting in chairs, tapping on tablets, drinking coffee. They looked so boring. So normal.

They weren't monsters. They were just people.

"There they are," the girl said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The ones who pay for the ink."

She pressed the blade into the glass, and a spiderweb of cracks began to spread across the entire wall. The people on the other side stopped. They looked up. Their faces turned from boredom to panic as the glass began to shatter outward.

"What are you doing?" my father screamed, his composure finally breaking. "You’ll kill them all! You’ll destroy the entire platform!"

"That’s the point!" the girl yelled back.

The glass didn't just break; it exploded. The air from their side rushed in, cold and sterile, smelling of ozone and metal. I saw a man in a white lab coat stand up and run. I saw a woman drop her coffee.

I didn't think about the story. I didn't think about the revenge. I grabbed the girl’s hand and ran toward the hole.

"Wait!" my father shouted behind us.

I didn't turn back. I jumped.

We landed on the hard, linoleum floor of the control room. We were real. I felt the floor under my knees. I felt the air. It was real.

But as I stood up, I saw the truth.

The control room wasn't on Earth. It was inside a giant ship. And through the massive windows, I didn't see a planet.

I saw a black, endless void.

I looked at the girl. She looked back at me, and for the first time, she looked scared.

"We’re not on a server," she whispered. "We’re on a lifeboat."

A man in a uniform walked out of the shadows. He looked like every version of Xavier I had ever known. He was holding a remote, not the fake kind, but a real, heavy, black remote with a single red button.

"You were never the assets," he said, his voice cold. "You were the fuel. And we’re about to run out of power."

He clicked the button.

The floor beneath us began to turn red. The lights went out. The ship shook, the walls groaning as if they were being crushed by an invisible hand.

"The ship is sinking," he said, looking at us with pity. "And you two just opened the door to let the ocean in."

The wall of the control room began to bend inward. The void outside pressed against the glass, and I saw a giant, black hand, not of paper, not of ink, but of solid, cold metal, reaching for the ship.

"It’s not an editor," the girl whispered, backing away. "It’s a harvest."

The ceiling ripped open, and the cold of deep space flooded the room, freezing everything in its path. I grabbed the knife, ready to fight, but the air turned to ice. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

I watched as the giant hand moved to crush the ship, and I realized the story wasn't being told.

It was being eaten.

And the last thing I saw before the glass broke was the man in the uniform looking at his watch.

"Three seconds," he said. "Do you have any final words before we hit the bottom?"