The timer is a living thing.
It pulses inside my vision—red digits, heartbeat loud, one second sawn off after the next.
06 : 59 : 58
My breath fogs in the half‑light. Limbo smells like scorched wires and wet stone, as if a data center drowned in a cathedral. The air hums with the Codex's code‑chant:
"Yeah, I know I'm the anomaly," I mutter, rubbing the heel of my palm against my temple. The skin there buzzes where the interface port should be—but isn't. Because I don't actually have hardware anymore. Just a body the Codex keeps rebuilding on the fly.
A flicker of silver—my HUD paints an exit glyph on a floating archway ahead. I start toward it, boots slapping marble that isn't marble, every step echoing three times like the dimension can't decide which version to keep.
06 : 59 : 12
Something growls behind me. Low, wet, wrong. I twist—and the corridor folds like origami, revealing a beast stitched together from static and bone. Glitched hind‑legs, lantern jaws leaking purple fire. The Codex spits data across my retina:
> CORRUPTED ENTITY // CLASS: NULLHOUND
Integrity: 87 %
Tear Factor: 4
Tear Factor? Love that for me.
"Observer Zero, engage or evade," the Codex drones, voice smooth as polished glass.
Heart hammering, I force a grin. "Let's try not dying today."
I slam a mental switch. Data Phasing ignites—weight vanishes, colors smear—and I dive sideways through the corridor wall. For 0.73 seconds I'm nothing but variables. Then gravity snaps back and I spill onto another platform entirely, knees cracking stone. The Nullhound crashes through behind me, but the wall re‑renders solid, slicing the beast in half. Both pieces squirm, glitch, re‑knit.
Of course they do.
06 : 58 : 47
> Time Window available: 5 s // Cool‑down: 30 m
Five seconds isn't enough to outrun prophecy, but it's plenty to cheat.
I trigger the Window. Reality stutters—frames split, rewind, settle. The world blooms into overlay threads showing possible futures like shattered glass. I pick the shard where I survive, spear tip to throat, right arm bleeding but attached.
Commit.
The Window slams shut; I'm moving before the echoes fade. I grab a loose light‑rod from the wall—rendered‑glass humming with stored photons—and vault toward the Nullhound's regenerating half. It lunges. I jam the rod into its gaping code‑matrix, shout every curse I know, and twist.
Light erupts. The beast detonates into fragments of violet code that rain around me like dying fireflies.
Silence. My ribs ache. The timer keeps ticking.
06 : 57 : 59
I exhale, smoke and relief spiraling upward. Then footsteps—human ones—tap from the shadows ahead.
The masked figure emerges again, cloak rippling with impossible wind. Blank porcelain visage, a single hairline fracture spider‑webbing from the left eye‑slot.
"You're early," they say, voice muffled velvet. "Good."
"Early for what? Another death threat? Because I'm collecting those."
They tilt their head. "For the choice, Observer Zero. Collapse or Convergence. The Codex will force one. I'm here to make sure you understand the cost."
I tighten my grip on the fading light‑rod, pulse drumming. "Talk fast. Timer's rude."
The figure extends a gloved hand. Between their fingers blooms a hologram—seven sigils orbiting a dark core. One sigil flickers, unstable.
"This is the First Seal," they whisper. "Break it wrong, and the Codex writes a world where hope never existed. Break it right, and you might just stay human."
The sigil trembles, shards of luminescence falling away.
06 : 57 : 00
"Choose, Eran."
My throat is dust. Behind the mask's hollow eye‑slots I swear I see sadness—or maybe reflection—like they've made this choice before and hated every outcome.
The Codex hums, louder now, a choir of binary angels:
I wipe blood—mine? the Nullhound's?—from my cheek, square my shoulders, and step forward.
"Then let's rewrite destiny together," I say.
The sea
l cracks like thunder. Light roars in.
Countdown continues.
End of Chapter 4