Kei's breathing was ragged as he stood in the middle of a ruined corridor, flickering lights casting erratic shadows around him. He had barely escaped the last ambush, and his mind raced with questions. Why did the prison's defense systems seem almost... hesitant? They attacked him, yet some doors unlocked on their own, and certain drones glitched mid-assault. Was it just an anomaly, or was something else at play?
He pressed forward, his boots crunching against shattered glass. The deeper he ventured into the prison, the more unnatural things became. The once-familiar screeching alarms were muted, distorted, as if being rewritten in real-time. Kei's instincts screamed at him to stay alert.
Ahead, an enormous metal door blocked his path. Unlike the others, this one had no visible keypads or access panels. Just as he began searching for another route, a soft, synthetic voice echoed in his ears.
"Kei... proceed."
His blood ran cold. He hadn't heard that voice before. It was neither the system's mechanical tone nor theFacelessMan's cryptic taunts. It sounded... fragmented, as if broken apart and reassembled. Before he could react, the massive door clicked open on its own, revealing a dark passageway.
Kei hesitated. He was no fool. A trap? A malfunction? Or something else? He clenched his fists, steeling himself before stepping inside.
The corridor was eerily quiet. No cameras, no turrets, no guards. Just an empty pathway leading to a dimly lit chamber. The moment he stepped in, the lights flickered to life, illuminating what lay before him—a suspended holographic archive.
Countless datafragments floated in midair, shifting and reshaping in complex patterns. Symbols and codes flashed before his eyes, some recognizable, others foreign. Then, at the center of the room, a lone, flickering data sphere pulsed, as if alive.
"You are not supposed to be here." The synthetic voice returned, this time with an edge of distortion.
Kei narrowed his eyes. "Then why open the door for me?"
Silence. Then, a sharp burst of static.
"Survival... Evolution... Your path diverges."
Kei stepped forward, feeling an odd pull toward the data sphere. The moment his fingers brushed against its surface, a shockwave of energy surged through him, his vision distorting into a chaotic swirl of past battles and unknown futures. His mind burned with fragmented images—of theFacelessMan, of time fracturing, of himself standing amidst a storm of collapsing reality.
Then, darkness.
Kei collapsed to his knees, gasping. The room was the same, but something within him felt different. His fingertips tingle with an unfamiliar sensation—like static dancing along his skin.
He didn't know it yet, but something inside him had just changed.