Chapter 109 THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SCREEN

Chapter 109 THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SCREEN

The hand that grabbed my leg was cold and hard, like plastic. I kicked out, my boot connecting with something that sounded hollow. I scrambled backward, pulling Sarah with me.

We weren't in the light anymore. The light had collapsed into a tiny, glowing dot on the floor. Standing in front of us wasn't the boy. It wasn't the Author. It was a man. He looked just like a normal person you would see at the grocery store, wearing a boring tan jacket and holding a laptop.

"Who are you?" I yelled.

He didn't answer. He just tapped a few keys on his laptop. The air around us began to shift. The ground turned into gray squares. We were standing on a giant grid.

"I'm the guy who paid for this," he said. His voice was flat and bored. "I’ve been watching you for months. You were supposed to be a simple story. A quick revenge plot. But you just wouldn't stay in your lane."

"We aren't a story," I said, stepping in front of Sarah. "We’re real."

He laughed. It was a short, sharp sound. He tapped his screen. "Real? You’re code, Logan. You’re just a bunch of lines I bought from a creative studio. And you’re costing me way too much money to keep running."

He pointed his laptop at us. "The fans are bored. They want an ending. They want to see you fail. So, I’m going to give them exactly what they want."

He pressed a button.

The grid beneath us started to tilt. Walls shot up from the floor, trapping us in a small, tight box. It was a maze, and it was shrinking. The walls were made of glass, and through the glass, I could see people. Hundreds of them. They were all sitting in dark rooms, staring at their own screens, watching us.

"They’re watching," Sarah whispered. She looked up at the glass, her face pale. "They’re watching us like we’re a movie."

"Then let’s give them a show," I said.

I looked at the walls. If this was a program, there had to be a way to crash it. I remembered the boy. I remembered how he had used the notebook to change things. But I didn't have the notebook.

I looked at my hand. My own skin was flickering. I was starting to look like the static on a broken television.

"Sarah," I said, grabbing her shoulders. "You have to trust me. The wall is just a projection. It’s not solid."

"How do you know?"

"Because I can see the code," I said.

I could see it. Tiny, glowing letters were hidden in the glass. They were moving, spelling out words like Wall_Solid_01 and Block_Path_True.

I walked up to the glass. I didn't try to punch it. I focused on the words. I imagined myself grabbing them, just like I grabbed the pen.

I reached out. My fingers passed through the glass like it was water. I grabbed the word 'True' and pulled it out. It felt like pulling a thread from a sweater.

The glass shattered.

The man in the tan jacket dropped his laptop. "What are you doing? Stop that!"

"You want an ending?" I shouted. I pulled another thread. Block_Path_False. The wall crumbled into a pile of glowing dust. I grabbed Sarah’s hand, and we started running. We weren't running through a maze anymore. We were running through the middle of the man’s computer system.

Everywhere we stepped, the floor turned into code. I could see everything. I saw the files for the arena, the files for the school, and the files for every person I had ever met.

"Logan, look!" Sarah pointed to a file named Original_Logan_Backup.

I stopped. I opened the file.

Inside wasn't a hero. It wasn't a villain. It was me, the very first version of me. He was sitting in a dark room, hooked up to a machine that was draining his memories.

"That’s why I have all those memories," I whispered. "That’s why I felt like I lived a thousand lives. He’s the battery."

"If we free him," Sarah said, "the whole system crashes."

"Then let's do it."

We reached the centre of the grid. There it was. The machine. It was humongous, filled with wires that looked like veins. The original Logan was slumped over, his head down.

The man in the tan jacket appeared in front of us, blocking the way. He didn't look bored anymore. He looked terrified.

"You can't touch that," he said. "If that machine stops, I lose everything. My money, my time, my life."

"You already lost it," I said.

I didn't argue. I didn't talk. I turned to Sarah. "Grab the cables."

We both grabbed the thick wires connected to the machine. They were freezing cold. We pulled with everything we had.

The machine let out a high-pitched whine. The man in the jacket started to scream, his body flickering in and out of existence. He was part of the system too. If we destroyed the system, he went down with it.

"No! Please!" he begged.

I looked at him. I remembered everything he had done to us. I remembered the arena, the monsters, and the fear.

I gave one final, giant pull.

The wires snapped.

Everything went white. I felt myself being ripped apart. I saw the original Logan wake up. I saw Sarah reach for me. I saw the man in the tan jacket disappear into nothing.

And then, I felt something I had never felt before.

Silence.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the grass in a park. The sun was shining. Birds were singing. It was quiet, peaceful, and real.

I sat up. My hands were solid. I was human.

I looked over. Sarah was sitting next to me, blinking at the sky.

"Did we make it?" she asked.

I took a deep breath. The air smelled like flowers and dirt. It was the best smell in the world.

"I think so," I said.

I stood up and helped her to her feet. We walked out of the park and onto a street.

People were walking by, busy with their own lives. No one looked at us like we were characters. No one held a pen.

I felt happy. I felt free.

I stopped at a store window to check my reflection.

But I didn't see myself.

The glass showed the hallway of the school again. And standing in the hallway, looking directly at me through the glass, was a person I never wanted to see again.

It was the boy with the crown.

He held up a sign to the glass. It said, 'Chapter 110: You never left.'

The glass began to crack from the inside out.