The corridor stretched long and empty, lined with pale-blue lighting that pulsed gently like a heartbeat. Kael's footsteps were the only sound, echoing against smooth steel. The roar of the arena was gone now—only silence remained.
He didn't look back.
The fight was over. But his mind wasn't.
Zappy buzzed faintly in his earpiece. For once, she wasn't chirping commentary or cracking dry jokes. She seemed to understand that something had shifted—both in the fight and in Kael.
They walked together in silence. One man. One voice in the void.
Kael paused at the observation deck, a narrow platform enclosed by transparent alloy. Beyond it, simulated stars shimmered in a vast artificial sky. They weren't real—just projections on the outer dome of the facility—but they gave the illusion of infinity. A trick of light. A trick of meaning.
Kael stared into it.
> "You ever feel like we're just… code running in a loop?" he said aloud.
Zappy answered after a second. "You mean existentially, or technically?"
Kael didn't smile. "Both."
Another beat of silence.
> "You're not the first human to ask me that," Zappy said, softer than usual. "But most of them don't wait for the answer."
Kael leaned his forearms against the railing, eyes still locked on the stars.
> "That kid back there," he muttered. "He wasn't strong. He wasn't honest. But he had a point."
> "Life as an accident?" Zappy asked. "Born from a random moment. No consent. No purpose. Just… pain?"
> "Yeah," Kael said. "And we're all just pretending that's not true. Fighting for something. Building philosophies to make the chaos feel ordered."
Zappy was quiet for a moment, then replied—not with her usual detached observation, but something more reflective.
> "Maybe the point isn't that it starts meaningless," she said. "Maybe it's that you get to choose whether you keep it that way."
Kael frowned. "Sounds like something a motivational AI would say."
Zappy's tone flickered. "Sounds like something a tired soldier needs to hear."
Kael closed his eyes for a moment. The boy's voice echoed again in his mind.
"You didn't ask to be born, man. You just landed here. What's the point in pretending it means anything?"
And yet… he had stood his ground. Fought hard. Stayed composed. Why?
Not because he knew what he was fighting for. But because he refused to let cynicism be the answer.
> "He wanted me to believe the world's a joke," Kael said, opening his eyes again. "But that kind of thinking… it spreads. You give it an inch, and it takes your soul."
> "So what now?" Zappy asked. "You walk away a little more jaded? Or a little more resolved?"
Kael pushed off the railing. His reflection shimmered faintly on the glass before him—tired eyes, clenched jaw, bruised but standing.
> "Neither," he said.
> "I walk away with a reminder."
Zappy paused. "…Of what?"
Kael turned toward the corridor again, his voice low.
> "That even ghosts bleed."
And then he walked on, the hum of the dome fading behind him.